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1755 Pollinators and Pesticides
6 JUNE 2013 Pollinators and Pesticides 1756
Martin Caton: I completely agree, and I am coming
to the Government’s pesticides action plan, which is
actually an “inaction plan”—to be quite honest, it is a
disgraceful document.
We looked at the pesticide approvals regime at EU
and UK levels, and found a system flawed at both. Put
simply, it works like this. The chemical company puts
together the scientific data to support its application
and submits a dossier to the regulatory authority in any
EU member state. That authority’s experts make their
own assessment, which is set out in a draft assessment
report. That is then reported to the European Food
Safety Authority, which conducts a peer review by
experts from other EU countries. Its conclusions are
sent to the Commission, which makes a proposal—for
approval or not—to the Council of Ministers. After
approval, companies can apply to the regulatory authority
in any member state for permission to market their
product. The regulatory authority in the UK is the
chemicals regulation directorate of the Health and Safety
Executive. The CRD prepares a scientific evaluation,
which is considered by the Advisory Committee on
Pesticides, which is a statutory, independent body that
advises Ministers on whether approval should be given.
On the face of it, the whole thing sounds quite
rigorous, but we found significant flaws. First, as our
Chair said, the pesticide manufacturers that commission
the research to submit to the regulators keep control of
that research. In practice, that means that the data on
safety under which a chemical is licensed are not put
into the public domain, denying effective academic
access and, therefore, independent criticism. In contrast,
some of the academics who gave evidence to us reported
that their research was openly published, which meant
that where it showed a link between pesticide use and
pollinator decline, defenders of the agrichemical industry
would go through their work with a fine-toothed comb
looking for a way to rubbish it, sometimes deliberately
misinterpreting it to do so. We believe that it should not
be beyond the wit of humankind to ensure maximum
transparency without threatening genuine commercial
sensitivity.
Another problem with the process is that, up to now,
the EU approval system has explicitly addressed only
the risk to honey bees. That probably would not be too
bad if the honey bee were one of the more fragile and
sensitive pollinators. If that were the case, and it survived
exposure to a product, it would be likely that other,
tougher pollinator species would be fine. In fact, we
heard evidence that the honey bee is probably the most
robust of the pollinators when it comes to pesticide
exposure. Bumble bee research, for instance, shows the
clear detrimental impact of neonicotinoid use. Some
pollinators, such as hoverflies, have very different life
cycles from any bees, and therefore have different exposure
routes. Such pollinators remain unconsidered at present.
We urge DEFRA to introduce a representative range of
sentinel pollinator species in UK pesticide risk assessments,
and to work for the same arrangements across the EU.
We also came across an example that showed that,
however good the approval system might be in theory, it
can fall down badly in practice. The neonicotinoid
imidacloprid had to be re-evaluated in 2006. Germany’s
regulatory authority produced the draft assessment report.
One of the properties to be assessed was the propensity
of the pesticide to accumulate in soil and water, and the
assessments were carried out in two trials here in the
UK. The results of the tests were misreported in the
draft assessment report, however. It concluded that
“the compound has no potential for accumulation in soil”.
That is exactly the opposite of what the trial evidence
showed. When the European Food Safety Authority
conducted its peer review of the German assessment, it
identified the pesticide’s apparent tendency to accumulate,
and concluded:
“The risk assessment to soil dwelling organisms cannot be
finalised because the assessment of soil accumulation is not
finalised.”
This formed part of the text of the EFSA peer review
sent to the Commission, so one might have expected
that body to refuse approval until the accumulation
question had been answered.
The European Commission Standing Committee on
the Food Chain and Animal Health considered EFSA’s
report and, astonishingly, gave imidacloprid its approval,
stating that it presented
“no unacceptable risks to the environment”.
There was no mention of accumulation in soil. That
was a clear and dangerous failure of the assessment
process. We argued that the process needed to be tightened
up by empowering EFSA to include in future peer
reviews action points that the Commission must address.
We looked at the growing body of evidence linking
neonicotinoid use with pollinator decline. This was
taken seriously by a considerable number of academics,
but dismissed by the agrichemical companies, mainly
for two reasons. First, they claimed that the trial doses
were higher than would be used in practice. Secondly,
they stated that the experiments had been carried out in
the laboratory or only partly in the field, and claimed
that they could trust only field trials. That Orwellian
mantra, “Field trials good, laboratory trials bad”, was
repeated often during our inquiry.
DEFRA’s real underlying attitude to assessing the
risks of pesticide use was inadvertently given away in a
2012 document, “Neonicotinoid insecticides and bees:
the state of the science and the regulatory response”. As
our Committee Chair has said, the Department stated
that it needed unequivocal proof in order to support a
moratorium.
Joan Walley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for
making these points. This sums up the flawed basis on
which permissions were being given throughout the
whole regulatory procedure. We are now presenting the
Government with the opportunity to take a leadership
role, and we want them to follow up exactly on the
recommendations in our report.
Martin Caton: My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
I will now conclude my speech, as I have gone over the
10 minutes you suggested, Mr Deputy Speaker.
3.59 pm
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab): It is
true to say that very little of what is discussed in this
Chamber is beyond dispute. Indeed, only on Tuesday, a
scientific hypothesis that has been shown to be supported
by 97% of scientists writing about it in a review of
12,000 papers—namely, anthropogenic global warming—
was nevertheless merrily being debated by hon. Members
as though that near certainty did not exist. Questions