Pesticides (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for introducing the regulations and welcome the Government’s commitment to protecting the environment. I hope that my noble friend and the Government will be mindful of the impact that these regulations will have on industry. I want to bring to his attention two specific ways in which that might happen.

I want to make a general point at the outset. My noble friend considers that nature lovers are something of a new craze. I remind him of the contribution of perhaps one of the first eco-warriors. When I was a little girl, Professor David Bellamy, who I think was at Durham University at the time, tried to protect the blue gentians that grew in the northern Pennines— particularly in Teesdale, where I grew up—from flooding by a reservoir that was being built to take water to Middlesbrough. In the event, the reservoir was built and the blue gentians were flooded; they were one of the few alpine plants to grow in Teesdale, outside an alpine region. I regret that, at the time, David Bellamy’s campaign was unsuccessful, but I recognise the contribution that he made.

The two specific issues that I want to raise come from work that we have been doing on the EU Environment Sub-Committee. First, on persistent organic pollutants —or POPs, as my noble friend calls them—paragraph 2.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum for the relevant regulations refers to the fact that the repatriation of powers, in particular the work currently undertaken by the European Chemicals Agency, will now be “exercised at national level”. Is my noble friend aware of what will happen because of that? My noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge referred to the contribution that the chemicals industry makes to this country; after the food sector, it is one of the largest manufacturing sectors here.

To all intents and purposes, if chemicals manufacturers want to continue to export and import, they will now have to register twice. They will have to register on the United Kingdom register, which is currently being set up at some expense, and they will have to continue to re-register with the European Chemicals Agency. Has my noble friend considered what the cost will be? Have the Government done an impact assessment in this regard? It would be helpful to know that. There is one little reference to this issue, but it will have a huge impact and obviously will cause significant costs—as we learned in the evidence given to the sub-committee, which is on our website. I would welcome my noble friend’s acknowledgement of the fact that there will a double registration requirement.

My second concern is identified in the paragraph of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report on where Defra responded to its queries, published at length on page 18 of that report and relating to the draft pesticides amendment regulation before us. I quote:

“HSE will continue to undertake regulatory functions on behalf of all administrations and to operate on a four countries basis, assessing product applications through a single process, wherever possible.”


The EU Environment Sub-Committee took evidence in this regard from the chemicals industry, HSE and Defra. Our concern was that the staff are not yet in place in HSE and do not have the requisite training to do the work that we expect them to do. Will my noble friend take this issue back to Defra and follow it up with the Secretary of State? Time is short and it is extremely important that we give HSE the tools, in terms of staff and training, to do the work that we require it to do.

With those two concerns, I welcome the opportunity to consider the draft regulations, but I hope that my noble friend will address the very real issues that I have brought to his attention.