Rivers and Coastal Waters: Sewage

Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Monday 29th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a really important point, and that is why we, and many campaigners, talk not about eliminating overflows but about eliminating the harm from overflows. That would then allow us to make more use of the kinds of natural systems that he mentioned—reed-bed systems, for example, which purify the water as it re-enters circulation. That would not be possible were we to eliminate overflows—but the key is eliminating harm and that is what we are focusing on.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that unauthorised discharges of untreated sewage will continue unless the regulators of this industry significantly up their game? I declare a past interest as a board member of both agencies in the past, when I think we did it rather better. Ofwat needs to assign part of the capital allowance to sewage treatment and the Environment Agency, in particular, needs to monitor and enforce the rules that, as the Minister says, are now there—but it needs staff to enforce them. When will the decline in the number of field staff at the Environment Agency be reversed?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, like all public bodies, the Environment Agency had to make difficult spending decisions in 2015. However, since 2015 the agency has brought nearly 50 prosecutions against water companies and secured fines of over £136 million, including a £90 million fine for Southern Water. Defra and its agencies also received a £1 billion increase in overall funding at the spending review and, given that this is a government priority, much of that resource will be spent tackling this issue.

Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Report stage
Monday 13th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I start by assuring your Lordships’ House that, in line with this amendment, the Government’s objective is to reduce the use of and risks and impacts associated with pesticides. Logically, that has to be the objective, given everything we know about the effects of pouring so many chemicals into our natural environment over so many decades.

The national action plan on the sustainable use of pesticides sets out the ambition to improve indicators of pesticide usage, risk and impacts. This was the subject of a recent public consultation. The summary of responses will be published shortly and a final revised national action plan will be published later this year. As we set out in the draft plan, the Government are committed to producing targets for the reduction of the risks associated with pesticide use. We are developing new metrics to better understand the pressures that pesticides put on the environment and will use these tools to target the most toxic pesticides.

Central to the strategy is integrated pest management. Through future schemes, we will support farmers, land managers and so on to maximise nature-based solutions and switch to lower-toxicity, higher-precision methods of pest control. The aim is to drive down dependency on pesticides and to allow our farmers to produce high-quality food with less risk to people and the environment.

On Amendment 53, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, the Government agree that pesticides should not be used where they may harm human health. Pesticides should be authorised only where a scientific assessment shows that they are not supposed to have any harmful effects on human health. In addition, pesticide users are supposed to take all reasonable precautions to protect human health and the environment, and must ensure that the pesticide is confined to the area intended to be treated. They must minimise their use around public buildings and vulnerable groups. That includes the situations noted in the noble Lord’s amendment, such as around schools, hospitals, children, and rural residents, who could be exposed more regularly. It is an offence to use pesticides in contravention of these requirements, and one that comes with an unlimited fine.

I share concerns raised by a number of noble Lord, including in particular my noble friend Lord Randall, about the potential impact of mixtures of pesticides. Clearly it is not possible to assess directly the human health and environmental impacts of the millions of potential combinations of chemicals in the natural environment. According to the toxicologist Professor Vyvyan Howard, if you were to test just the 1,000 commonest toxic chemicals in unique combinations of three, that would require at least 166 million different experiments. That would not even take into account the need to study varying doses. So we have over the years created an enormous problem for ourselves.

However, the risks from products are increasingly tested, as well as individual active substances. This means that mixtures of active substances are assessed where they are included in the same product and where they therefore will interact with other chemicals. There are regulatory controls, and associated conditions of authorisation, which could include no-spray zones, buffer zones and so on. That should ensure that people are protected. Applied properly, these controls should permit pesticide use only where they are safe, but where the application of these existing controls has not been sufficiently robust in the past—a point again made by my noble friend Lord Randall—that will be identified in the revised national action plan.

On Amendment 53, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, protecting pollinators is a priority for all the reasons we discussed in Committee, which I will not repeat. We are restoring and creating habitats for pollinators to thrive and redressing pressures by supporting a shift towards greater use of integrated pest management techniques. That includes increasing the use of nature-based, low-toxicity solutions and precision technologies to manage pests, all of which will benefit pollinators. Current legislation requires that pesticide products and their active substances have

“no unacceptable effects on the environment, having particular regard to … its impact on non-target species”,

which includes impacts on bees and other important pollinators.

Risk assessments made for active substances are subject to public consultation. These assessments establish the key risks posed by pesticide substances in representative conditions of use.

On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, let me say briefly that we have not changed our rules on neonicotinoids; the rules now are exactly the same as the ones we inherited when we left the European Union. The Government remain of the view that the scientific advice on neonicotinoids, particularly in relation to their impact on pollinators, is correct. This year, an emergency authorisation was granted for the use of a neonicotinoid seed treatment to address a particular problem in relation to the sugar beet crop. Controls were set but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, pointed out, the conditions of the authorisation were not met and the exemption was therefore not used.

We know that there has been a dramatic decline in pollinators both here and across much of the world. We recognise the need to work harder and faster to identify and reduce the causes. The revised national action plan will address this, alongside our wider action for nature, including through the national pollinator strategy and the powerful package of new policies and tools introduced through this Bill, including our 2030 target that we discussed on Wednesday last week.

Turning to Amendment 123 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, the Government recognise the need to address the issue of lead shot. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Randall, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury. Incidentally, I strongly endorse my noble friend’s views on the different approaches to shooting and enjoyed the vigour with which he delivered them.

As I highlighted in Committee, the Government are committed to addressing the impacts of lead in ammunition. In March, we asked the Health and Safety Executive to produce a UK REACH draft restriction dossier considering the risks posed by lead shot in all civilian ammunition. That process has now started, and the HSE published its call for evidence last month. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Browne, my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, and John Batley for our meeting last month, which was more positive than the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, implied a few moments ago. They will recognise from that meeting—at least I hope they do—that the Government share their ambition, although they highlighted concerns, principally around the timeframes associated with the REACH process. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Browne, that I share that frustration.

However, since then, Defra has engaged at length with the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency, and I am pleased to confirm that the Health and Safety Executive is due to provide its final recommendations by April 2023. The Secretary of State then has until July of that year to decide how to proceed and to propose a draft restriction, if that is what the Secretary of State decides and what the science determines. As I understand it, that timeframe does not compare unfavourably with the proposed amendment, which would take effect from 31 July 2023; it is certainly in the same ballpark.

In addition, the UK REACH process has a far more extensive coverage of lead ammunition, as the restriction dossier will consider all civilian uses of lead ammunition in all environments. The proposed amendment seeks only to limit the use of lead shot in shotguns for the purpose of killing an animal and excludes, for example, the use of lead shot for clay pigeon shooting. Most critically, any restriction would apply across Great Britain, whereas the proposed amendment would apply only to England.

We know that there are difficulties in the detection and enforcement of the existing ban on shooting over wetlands. However, we believe that there is a strong risk that the proposed amendment will also be difficult to enforce. In contrast, we are confident that the robustness of the UK REACH process will ensure that any restriction can be enforced effectively.

For these reasons, we believe that the UK REACH process is a more effective way to address the complexity of the issue. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Browne, not to press his amendment and hope that I have sufficiently assured the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I have to tell the Minister that I am deeply disappointed by that reply. He started out well by indicating that there is an historical problem that we need to tackle, but he then defended the current system as being adequate. He took almost the same line as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. I ask both of them: if the present system is pretty much adequate, how come a number of cases of serious inducement of disease are still turning up in our GPs’ surgeries and our hospitals—and, in relation to pollinators, why are whole populations of bees and other pollinators in serious decline? If the present system worked, at least broadly speaking, we would not see these phenomena.

The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, says that we will wipe out large parts of food production if we do this, but that is not the case. We are saying that we should protect the areas where people live and are vulnerable, and we propose that regulations should be introduced to do that. We were fobbed off during the passage of the then Agriculture Bill in a number of different ways, such as being told to put things in the Environment Bill instead or that it would be in the national action programme. There is hardly a word in that programme, as currently drafted, about the vulnerability of residents and other populations.

I feel sorry for the Minister in many respects, because I happen to know that, in a previous life, he strongly supported strengthening regulations regarding the exposure of rural populations, and indeed the effect on pollinators. I find it odd that, having recognised the problem and doing so again now, he is not prepared to respond to the appeals from the Front Benches of the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party to say something new or give a bigger commitment. At the beginning of his response, I sort of expected that we would at least get something. We got nothing. I regret that.

The Minister is in an impossible position, but he must accept that he needs to do something immediately to consider new regulations in this area, because it is palpably obvious that the present regulations are not working. To go back to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who suggested that the spraying of pesticides does not occur during the day or close to where children are, we recently saw a film about pesticides being produced perhaps 10 yards away from where children were playing. The system is not working; the Minister has to recognise that. He can look at what the precise details of the regulations should be, but he should accept the principle in my amendment now.

With regret, I am going to test the opinion of the House.

Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Committee stage
Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My noble friend raises an incredibly important point and I have to be honest and say that I cannot give him an authoritative answer. He is right that the synergistic effect of mixing chemicals creates entirely new qualities, and two relatively harmless chemicals, or not particularly dangerous chemicals, mixed together can create something that is lethal. A decent, proper and thorough regulatory system absolutely would test new chemicals as they enter the market on the basis of how they are likely to interact with chemicals that they are likely to meet. I am afraid this is not an area I have any expertise in, but I will look into it as a matter of urgency, and I will write to him and place my answer in the Library.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and all noble Lords who supported my amendment. I find the Minister’s reply slightly equivocal. I have been in his shoes, and I know that sometimes you have to read out stuff with which you do not entirely agree. I rather think that, in the light of his final remarks, that is the position the Minister finds himself in today. Nevertheless, there are some points that we on our side have to take into account, but I ask that the Minister takes our position into account.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for welcoming me, but he was wrong to say that there are relatively few cases. There is a significant number of cases, some of which are due to historic exposure but, nevertheless, there is a large number of cases—thousands. Around the world, there are several tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of people who are seriously medically affected, in some cases lethally, by the use of pesticides.

I applaud the Government's long-term aim of reducing pesticides, in one sense. I would prefer the long-term aim to be the elimination of non-organic pesticides, but that is for the long term. The amendment deals with a very specific and, as I said, modest proposition in the more or less immediate term.

To reply to the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Cormack, the present regulations are not effective. They largely depend on codes of practice, which are not directly legally enforceable. The rights of residents are only minimally covered. I agree that we need to put those regulations under the microscope, but my belief—and that behind the amendment and shared by those who support me and the thousands of people who have been affected by pesticide exposure—is that, having put them under the microscope, we must reach the conclusion that those areas where people permanently live, work or attend must be permanently removed from airborne crop-spraying application of pesticides.

It is not a simple question, and there is not a simple scientific argument, about how far that should be, because the wind changes and methods of application change. I was slightly alarmed, although I think it was supposed to be reassuring, that part of the medium-term development of pesticide application could be the use of drones. On one level, they may be more precise, but on another, they are less controllable. Rural residents will certainly be fearful of that.

All those issues must be taken into account. Some of us may want different and more radical long-term objectives, but the amendment relates to the distance between places where people are in our countryside and where toxic material is being put into the air which they can breathe and which touches them and can affect them and their children.

Any putting under the microscope of the present situation would reach the same conclusion: we need a distance. As I said earlier, the exact distance and regulation is a matter for further discussion with the Government, but the principle needs to be in the Bill, and I shall return to this at a later stage. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Air Quality and Emissions

Debate between Lord Whitty and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

It is essential that decisions we make today have at their heart a commitment to long-term sustainability and resilience, both in our domestic actions and in our global outreach—through, for example, the Department for International Development. That thread should run through all government decisions in all departments. That is why we are so pleased to hear the commitments by the Department for Transport, the Secretary of State for BEIS—who is also the president of COP—and other departments of government. There is no doubt in my mind that this Government recognise that out of the ashes of this appalling disaster we have an opportunity to make decisions which will pass the test of the time. The Prime Minister himself—[inaudible.]

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, better air quality is the only benefit of this lockdown. Figures for the spread of the disease and deaths from it here and in other countries indicate that the areas most hit are those which are highly polluted or have heavy congestion. Will the Government consider producing guidance, requests and eventually powers to get local authorities to introduce congestion charging, parking restrictions and pure banning of bad vehicles from such areas in future? Most of the powers for local authorities exist in the 1999 Act, but they require reinforcing. Will such reinforcement be in the forthcoming Environment Bill? I declare an interest as the honorary president of Environmental Protection UK.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

The actions the Government are already taking are entirely consistent with the need to tackle air pollution, which is the most serious environmental health threat to humans. The clean air strategy which we published in January last year was praised by the World Health Organization as an example for the rest of the world to follow. One of its key commitments was that the Government would produce primary legislation on air quality. That request has been answered in the Environment Bill, which includes measures to improve air quality at its heart. It is the first Environment Bill for 20 years. It commits us to setting very ambitious targets for fine particulate matter, which is the pollutant of most concern to human health; it will give local authorities a clear framework and simple-to-use powers to address air quality in their areas; and it provides government with new powers to enforce environmental standards for vehicles. Of course, the Environment Bill goes far beyond issues such as air pollution. At its heart is a commitment that we should leave the environment in a significantly better shape than when we inherited it.