Chair: Paul Walton, RSPB
Policy and Campaigns Manager: Zoe Davies, Link
The Link Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS) Working Group continues to advocate for INNS legislation to be properly implemented, resourced and enforced, now and after the UK leaves the EU.
A key focus for the INNS Group has been to brief Parliamentarians on the Statutory Instrument (SI) that will convert the EU Invasive Alien Species Regulation into domestic law. Although the Group appreciates Defra’s efforts to ensure that there are no substantive legal or policy changes in the SI, the way it operates in practice in UK statute remains of significant concern, due largely to lack of comparable infrastructure and access to resources. Our concerns were raised by MPs and Peers during Delegated Legislation Committees in both Houses.
These concerns were also shared by the House of Lords EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee in the final report of its Brexit: Biosecurity inquiry. The Committee’s conclusions were very much aligned with those in Link’s evidence, namely that Brexit is likely to lead to serious shortfalls in the UK’s biosecurity in areas such as access to funding, enforcement of legislation, information sharing, and capacity within Government departments and agencies. The Group’s Chair, Paul Walton (RSPB), was quoted in the Independent following publication of the report.
The Government’s response to the Sub-Committee’s report is unsatisfactory. It is very light on detail and reiterates time and again commitments such as ‘maintaining the highest biosecurity standards whilst enabling frictionless trade’, with no examples of how it actually plans to achieve this. The Group is working with the Committee to ensure its, and our, recommendations are not ignored.
Preparations are afoot for Invasive Species Week 2019, taking place 13-17 May. The Group is holding a Parliamentary panel session ‘Invasive Species and Brexit: Responding to an Intensifying Environmental Threat’, hosted by Lord Teverson, at which Biosecurity Minister Lord Gardiner and leading INNS academic Professor Helen Roy are speaking.
For further information, contact Zoe Davies, Link’s Policy and Campaigns Manager.
Last updated: 30 April 2019
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