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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of grant allocations to local authorities in England in tackling (a) Japanese knotweed and (b) other invasive non-native species since 2011.

Defra does not provide funding to local authorities specifically to tackle Japanese knotweed or other invasive non-native species.

However, between April 2011 and March 2015, 29 Local Action Groups across England received £1.5 million in grant funding from Defra to tackle invasive non-native species in and around watercourses to reduce impacts on local communities, protect native biodiversity and reduce the cost to our economy. Many of these worked collaboratively with local authorities.

A report published in 2015 summarises the achievements of the funding, highlights successes and blockages to progress and makes recommendations as to what is required to achieve long term sustainability of these groups.

https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/nonnativespecies/downloadDocument.cfm?id=1417%20

The report notes that Local Action Groups have successfully raised the awareness of the threat of invasive non-native species amongst local authorities and other agencies, such that this issue is now seen as a higher priority for these bodies.