However, returning to Jackson Carlaw’s comments about the disease affecting the Scots pine, I recall that the United Kingdom Conservative Party took the oak tree as its symbol; perhaps it should have taken the ash instead, given what is happening with ash dieback.The question is whether it is useful for Parliament to consider such issues. Over the recess, I visited the Fortingall yew, which is reputed to be 5,000 years old and stands as a symbol of tree longevity; Mr Featherstone mentioned a 540-year-old Scots pine, so there is a clearly an issue in that respect.However, defining a national symbol on the basis of its commercial viability, as Jackson Carlaw suggested, is worrying to me.