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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the level of risk of an Asian Hornet invasion in autumn 2018.

With increasing population levels of Asian hornet in Europe, the risk of incursions into the UK has increased. The GB Non-Native Species Risk Assessment published in 2011 reviewed the risk posed by this species and identified multiple pathways by which Asian hornet could arrive in the UK.

Since the arrival of Asian hornet in France in 2004, Defra has been aware of the potential impact of this hornet on our bees and beneficial insects. We have plans in place to detect and tackle it, which we have successfully deployed several times since the first UK incursion in autumn 2016.

We encourage members of the public to become familiar with this insect by, for example, visiting the National Bee Unit’s BeeBase website, and to report suspected sightings to the authorities immediately.