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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to prevent the extinction of the (a) stictoleptura erythroptera and (b) iphthiminus italicus species of beetles; and if he will make a statement.

While we are concerned by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s recent publication of the European Red List of Saproxylic Beetles showing that 18 percent of these beetle species are at risk of extinction due to ongoing decline in large veteran trees across Europe, as neither of the two species of beetle in the question is native to the UK so we will not be taking species-specific action for them.