Peatlands

Lord Patel Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

I am entirely aware of the amount of time it takes to create peat. I spent a great deal of time doing peatland restoration work.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, the Science and Technology Committee, which I chaired at the time, produced a report on nature-based solutions to climate change. One of the things it recommended, because of confusion related to both woodland and peatland codes, was that the Government should have a strategy for land use. Subsequently, an ad hoc committee of the House of Lords recommended that a land use commission should be set up. The Government were resistant to both these recommendations of two independent House of Lords committees. Can the Minister suggest what the Government intend to do about a land use strategy?

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. The Government have every intention of publishing their land use strategy shortly.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Patel Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, today’s important debates have been greatly enhanced by the pleasure of hearing the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.

My Amendment 259 is in this important group. I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Patel and Lord Wigley for their support. Chemical weapons were developed in the Second World War and then remanufactured as pesticides, now used in agriculture for around 75 years. In 2013 the Government accepted all recommendations from two important reports. The first was the Bystanders Risk Assessment Working Group of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides. The second report was from the sub-group of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides: the Pesticides Adverse Health Effects Surveillance working group. Both were scathing about the use of pesticides and laid out the dangers. Yet, although accepted, their recommendations remain largely unimplemented.

It is a worrying indictment that 70% of our land is used for farming and almost all of it, except for the 3% for organic farming, is subjected to spraying that is not dose-controlled in any way. In 2014, 17.75 million kilograms of pesticide were sprayed on the land. Carried in the wind, harmful residues have been found several miles downwind. The dangers to health are now recognised. A 2017 report by the UN special rapporteur on the right to food found that chronic exposure to agricultural pesticides was associated with several diseases and conditions, including cancers, and that those living near crop fields were particularly vulnerable to exposure.

The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems report describes the unacceptable harm caused by the current chemical farming systems and the energy consumption in the manufacture of these chemicals. It exposes just some of the astronomical health costs externalised by the current system, and states an urgent and overwhelming case for action.

The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health report on global deaths and chronic diseases from outdoor air pollution, including from the use of pesticides, has the lead author saying that his biggest concern is the impact of the hundreds of industrial chemicals and pesticides already widely dispersed around the world.

I remind all involved in this Bill that the effects are cumulative, because these chemicals often sit in fat stores and are not cleared. The chemicals disrupt the internal hormonal environment; they are endocrine disruptors and make cells more susceptible to mutations, abnormalities and malignancy.

I turn briefly to one of these, glyphosate, used in the weed killer Roundup, which has a large number of tumour-promoting effects on biological systems, including direct damage to DNA in sensitive cells, disruption of metabolic processes and modification to more toxic molecules. Epidemiological evidence suggests correlations between glyphosate usage on crops and a multitude of cancers that are reaching epidemic proportions, including common cancers and lymphoma. In the US, many lawsuits have been brought against the producer Monsanto, which is now part of Bayer.

The effect on the developing nervous system and on the adult neurones is not clearly known, but we must take the precautionary principle. Rats exposed to high levels of glyphosate, their offspring and the offspring’s offspring—two generations on—developed malignancy, obesity and birth abnormalities. Neurotransmitter changes occur in rats and mice exposed to glyphosate, and mice display mood and movement changes. Increased understanding of epigenetics suggests that harm experienced by the adult may be handed on by epigenetic factors to offspring not even yet conceived.

I spoke in the previous debate on the theme of future generations and I return to that now. We cannot ignore the cumulative evidence. In my amendment, I suggest an annual report to Parliament on the safety of herbicides and pesticides, taking into account evidence from the analysis of foods that should be glyphosate-free but appear to be contaminated by windborne spray. Neurotoxic effects on pollinators and the damaging effects on human health of these chemicals cannot be ignored.

As we leave Europe, we are free to produce more of our own food for our own market and ensure that our food is safe and of high nutritional quality. We must make also sure that imported food meets our new high standards. Going forward, pesticides need to be designed out of farming systems, for the environment, for health and for the market-ready production of excellent food; hence my amendment.

[Lord Patel (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I want to support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. Much of what I was going to cover she has covered in great detail, so I will try not to repeat too much.

Pesticides may be metabolised, excreted, stored or bioaccumulated in body fat. The numerous negative health effects that have been associated with chemical pesticides have been mentioned in great detail by the noble Baroness. In the majority of cases, the concentrations do not exceed legislatively determined safe levels. However, these safe limits may underestimate the real health risks, as in the case of simultaneous exposure with two or more chemical substances, which occurs in real-life conditions and may have synergistic effects. Pesticide residues have also been detected in human breast milk samples, and there are concerns about prenatal exposure and health effects in children.

The noble Baroness mentioned glyphosate-based herbicides and the DNA damage that it is known to cause, which may lead to cell deaths and other conditions in cellular metabolism causing disease. Furthermore, the real-life chronic exposure in mixtures of pesticides with possible additive or synergistic effects requires in-depth research. The underlying scientific uncertainty, exposure of vulnerable groups and the fact that there are numerous possible mixtures reveal the real, complex character of the problem. The combination of substances with probably carcinogenic or endocrine-disrupting effects may produce unknown adverse health effects. Therefore, the determination of safe levels of exposure to single pesticides may underestimate the real health effects, ignoring also the chronic exposure to multiple chemical substances.

Food Supply and Security

Lord Patel Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I will concentrate my brief comments on the long-term impacts of the pandemic on UK food security. Harper Adams University and POST, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, of which I am a member, have produced well-researched papers on the subject.

If the UK food system is to be resilient and sustainable, it needs that planning now. In times of uncertainty, data, analysis and expertise become important in decision-making. Now is the time to start collecting data related to factors affecting food supply disruption, costs and changing consumer choices, et cetera. Who in the Government is doing this now? It is also time for researchers, agribusiness and farmers to work together to understand better how food supply chains can be made shorter, more resilient and sustainable. How are the Government helping to do this?

There are many other areas where attention is needed, such as the technologies needed to produce food; identifying foods that could be produced closer to home, and products where holding big inventories makes sense; and areas where the diversification of the supply chain is beneficial. The pandemic has disrupted the UK food supply system. It has also created an opportunity to build a more resilient and sustainable system, through better policymaking and regulations which promote co-ordinated action. In this context, does the Minister think that an independent body for food, rather like the Committee on Climate Change, to help drive the Government’s policy on sustainable food could be a way forward? If he does not, can he tell the House how else the Government intend to do this?

Agriculture: Genome-edited Crops

Lord Patel Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, we have somehow got to help feed the world, and that is why I think research work into disease resistance in wheat, rice and cucumber, improving the starch content and quality of potatoes, increasing grain weight and improving protein content in wheat are areas in which a contribution can be made by responsible scientific endeavour.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, a recent report by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics said,

“Genome editing to improve farmed animal welfare. What’s not to like?”


Does the Minister have a comment on that?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, scientists have produced, for instance, pigs that can resist one of the world’s most costly animal diseases—porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus—by changing their genetic code by genome editing. This disease clearly affects animal welfare and costs the pig industry £1.75 billion a year in Europe and the United States.

Bovine Tuberculosis

Lord Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

I can only say to my noble friend that we are pursuing vaccine options as hard as we can and as a high priority. We have been investing significantly in developing TB vaccines for both badgers and cattle for a long time. I have mentioned a licensed injectable vaccine that can be and is being used on badgers but, as I have explained, it is extremely expensive and needs to be repeated annually. As my noble friend says, we need an oral vaccine, which we are still searching for. We will continue that search and expect to spend another £15.5 million over four years.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, the Minister referred to other species that are affected with a similar strain of tuberculosis and specifically mentioned wild deer. Are not mice, particularly field mice, and rats also affected by the same strain and do they not come into closer contact with cattle?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, the point about mice, rats and indeed deer is that there is no restriction on culling them.