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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what advice he has given to local authorities about the control or removal of giant hogweed on land near to public rights of ways or where its presence is likely to have a detrimental effect on the public's health.

Giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) is an invasive non-native species with established populations in the UK. It is an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to plant or otherwise cause giant hogweed to grow in the wild.

Giant hogweed was added as a species of Union concern under the EU Invasive Alien Species Regulation in August 2017. Species of Union concern cannot be imported, kept, bred, transported, sold, used or exchanged, allowed to reproduce, grown or cultivated, or released into the environment. Under the Regulation, Member States are required to set out measures to manage species of Union concern that are widespread in their territory within 18 months of listing. The government will be consulting on management plans for giant hogweed and other species of Union concern that are widespread in the UK.

Community protection notices made under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 are also being used by local authorities and the Police to tackle the impact to their communities of invasive non-native species including giant hogweed. The Home Office guidance on using community protection notices to tackle invasive non-native plants can be found at:

www.nonnativespecies.org//downloadDocument.cfm?id=1176.

Local Action Groups, with support from Government, are actively involved in reducing and eradicating giant hogweed. A new EU co-funded project, totalling €1.1 million, will develop a regional approach to tackling invasive non-native species, supporting Local Action Groups in a co-ordinated approach.