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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take in response to the findings of the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017 that new and emerging invasive non-native species are one of six urgent climate change risks for the UK.

The UK has long recognised the threats posed by invasive non-native species. In 2008, we published a comprehensive Great Britain Non-native Species Strategy designed to tackle these threats, the first of its kind in Europe.

As part of our strategy, we carry out horizon-scanning for new invasive non-native species likely to pose a significant risk if they arrive in the UK. These threats are formal assessments using a comprehensive risk framework that takes climate change into account. We will be carrying the next horizon scanning exercise in 2018.

We also carry out risk analysis for individual species which specifically takes the potential impacts from climate change into account.

We have set up a Great Britain working group to consider research needs relating to invasive non-native species, which includes the impacts from climate change.