Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Ragwort Control Act 2003 in limiting the spread of ragwort; how many successful prosecutions have been brought under that act; and if he will make a statement.

The effectiveness of the Act is assessed annually by recording details of complaints and enforcement cases. Research undertaken for Defra in 2014 concluded that ragwort is not becoming more widespread.

The Weeds Act 1959 gives us the power to arrange for the clearance of the plant and to recover the cost from the land occupier. Natural England (the delegated authority for investigating complaints about injurious weeds) engages with inspectors from the Rural Payments Agency to investigate formal complaints raised to them, and enforce weed clearance where the landowner has not taken adequate action to control ragwort.

Enforcement is a last resort and where possible we encourage communications between landowners and complainants to try and resolve the issue. In the vast majority of cases, this approach is successful. All complaints so far have been resolved without requiring prosecution, either voluntarily by the landowner or after an enforcement order has been made.