Sugar Beet: Neonicotinoids

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Legislation will come forward—next year, I hope—on gene editing, which is a key measure in finding alternatives to this sort of problem. We are talking about a very small percentage of the area where neonicotinoids were used prior to the 2018 ban, to which the Government are absolutely committed. We are applying very strict conditions—if we go ahead with this; we have not yet made a decision. The last time this derogation was made, those conditions were not met and this spray was not applied. We are a long way from allowing this to go ahead. If it does, it will be under very controlled circumstances.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, the forecast of virus yellows levels in the 2021 sugar beet crop, produced on 1 March, predicted that 8.37% of the national sugar beet area would be affected by the end of August 2021. As the threshold for the use of neonicotinoids is 9%, can the Minister say whether this threshold has actually been breached and, if not, why are the Government considering emergency neonicotinoid use?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

If we did consider giving this permission, we would then have to apply thresholds. They may be different from the thresholds we applied last year. The noble Baroness is absolutely right: that threshold was not reached and so no seed dressings were applied. I hope very much that that will be the case this year.