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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many full-time equivalent staff were assigned to the (a) identification and (b) removal of yellow-legged Asian hornet nests in (i) 2025, (ii) 2023 and (iii) 2022.

There has been 0.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff assigned to nest destruction in 2022, 2023 and 2025. This means they were assigned to that role and available on call when needed.

There has been one FTE Senior Operational Lead dedicated to yellow-legged hornet since 2024 to manage the overall response.

No other staff are employed or allocated on a full-time basis to yellow-legged hornet The response is managed by redeploying staff from other business as usual delivery, based on outbreak demand.