Rachael Maskell

The power of the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) must resonate around Whitehall and warn the City, developers and all who seek to profit from our natural habitats. Today, I want to talk about York. York is described as a humane city and the Strays of York are green fingers that reach into its heart. Walking along the river, we barely see bricks and mortar. We have our own biometric marker, the tansy beetle—an iridescent, beautiful beetle, about a centimetre in length. It is known as the jewel of York, and yet it is the barometer of all that is going wrong. Flooding caused by the grouse shooting up on the moors is destroying its habitat. We are left with so few beetles in the country, because we will not find them anywhere else. Yorkshire Water has failed to manage our water system, and drought is causing the tansy beetle’s habitat to dry and the tansy plant, the only one on which it lives, to wither. The pollution coming down the River Ouse is also causing real strain. The tansy beetle has its own action group to conserve this precious jewel. In 2016, 46,000 of the beetle were found. The group’s work raised that to 91,000 by 2023, and yet today the beetle is at risk. We cannot let those who profit from our system and destroy our natural habitats rob us of these precious parts of our nature. It is so important that the Government take action. We need not a national security assessment, but a nature security assessment.