Environmental Improvement Plan 2023

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We have certainly not gone back on the commitment to ban neonicotinoids. As has happened in the last two years, we have given an indication that we might be in favour of the application of something called Cruiser SB, a plant protection product containing the active substance thiamethoxam, for the sugar beet industry. It will be allowed to be applied only if winter data shows that there will be a considerable loss of crop. If there is a considerable loss of crop, the sugar that would have been produced would have to come from other parts of the world at a higher carbon cost, and probably grown in circumstances where neonicotinoids are allowed. We will not allow spraying when the plant is in flower, so it will not be as damaging as the seed dressing that caused such a problem. It is a very rare circumstance; in the years in which this derogation has been allowed, on many occasions it has not actually been used because the threshold of potential crop loss was not reached.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

I make my regular plea to the Minister—I think he took this point once before—that the term “storm overflows” of raw sewage should be discouraged. It does not happen in storm conditions or even in heavy rainfall; moderate rainfall causes these overflows, which exist because of a lack of investment in sewage treatment capacity. I learned that from a tip-off from someone in the Environment Agency 18 years ago when I was campaigning for what became the Tideway Tunnel.