Afzal Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the (a) prevalence of Japanese knotweed on (i) railway embankments and (ii) other railway land and (b) potential impact of such Japanese knotweed on nearby (A) homes and (B) businesses.
Jim Shannon: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle the spread of Japanese knotweed.
Abena Oppong-Asare: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to inform the public about the spread of (a) Japanese knotweed and (b) other harmful weeds; and if his Department will take steps to provide further support to the public to help tackle these weeds.
Luke Pollard: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much the removal of Japanese knotweed from the Defence estate cost his Department last year.
Lord Kirkham: ...to become involved in overregulating high-performing, low-risk academies and trusts. We all know from bitter experience that bureaucracy has an ability to spread itself perhaps rivalled only by Japanese knotweed, and the greatest care is needed to keep it under firm control. Finally, I want to comment on the proposal to allow good schools, in exceptional circumstances, to request to move...
Pauline Latham: Could we have a debate or a statement about developers that build on greenfield sites and do not tell the people who buy their houses that Japanese knotweed is present when they know it is present? They should do a survey, and they should alert people to it. I have constituents who now cannot sell their houses because developers such as Persimmon are not dealing with the problem seriously and...
Greg Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to help prevent the growth of invasive Japanese knotweed alongside highways.
Emma Harper: .... The Galloway Fisheries Trust has completed various improvement works, including the installation of bankside fencing, the organising of controlled grazing agreements and extensive spraying of Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed and skunk cabbage, as well as the removal of riparian coniferous forestry and the planting of deciduous trees in the riverbank zone. All that work has led to a...
Lord Johnson of Marylebone: ...to creative courses in the student loan book many times over. The Government seem to have a sense that universities have piled in to creative arts provision and that it has grown like some kind of Japanese knotweed, absorbing an ever-greater share of subsidy in the loan book since the removal of student number controls. This is factually wrong, and it is important that the Treasury...
Lord Greaves: To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made on the eradication of Japanese Knotweed; and what programmes of action they are proposing for 2021.
Edwin Poots: ...in a number of areas with invasive species, and we need to meet that challenge head-on. In Northern Ireland, there have been considerable problems over the years with invasive species such as Japanese knotweed. Muntjac deer have also been a problem, although they are becoming less so. Of course, one of the very common invasive species is the grey squirrel, which has led to there being...
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle: To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to advance the use of biological control of Japanese knotweed.
Rachel Woods: The Minister will be aware of the devastation and difficulties that are caused by Japanese knotweed. Will the Minister outline whose responsibility it is to deal with and remove Japanese knotweed at Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) sites, such as Redburn Country Park in my constituency?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble: ...productivity but pose no danger whatsoever to public health, such as products used in a permanent greenhouse. It could also, for example, prevent the use of pesticides for the effective control of Japanese knotweed. I pluck that example because it is a very difficult plant to control close to buildings. Because the amendment extends to “any building or open space used for work”, it...
Lord Blencathra: ...they can be applied in the future in the way described by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. We must not demonise all pesticides and herbicides. If someone invented a herbicide that killed Japanese knotweed or the fungus that destroys ash trees, would we not grab it with open arms, provided it did not harm humans or wildlife? So let us keep an open mind on pesticides and be...
Baroness Wilcox of Newport: ...the introduction of non-native species. Again, in a local government context, I remember trying to deal with the huge problems constituents encountered in planning issues with the scourge of Japanese knotweed. In recent years, Her Majesty’s Government have talked about improving how they use their own land holdings across the country. Can the Minister say what consideration has been...
Lord Greaves: My Lords, this makes a change from Japanese knotweed. Can the Minister tell us how, when plants are imported into this country, they are being checked? How do the Government and the country know whether or not this pathogen is being imported? Is the problem importing plants which are affected by the bacterium, or do the insects have to be accompanying them?
Derek Twigg: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with United Utilities on the control and eradication of Japanese knotweed on land owned by that company.
Japanese Knotweed - Question
Jim Shannon: ...what we already have, rather than changing it in a detrimental way. I am sure that there are few Members who have not been contacted by local landowners—and, increasingly, homeowners—about Japanese knotweed, which has the strength and the ability to shift the very foundations of a home. In the brighter bygone days, local authorities would have taken care of the eradication of this...