National Pollinator Strategy

Debate between Bob Stewart and Roger Williams

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Roger Williams]

I entirely agree. Co-ordination is needed not just within this country, but in other countries, to ensure that the research is productive and can be applied to encourage more pollinators.

Let me say a few words about the systemic neonicotinoids that have been banned in this country and across the EU for two years. I am not sure what figures are most accurate on the reduction in yield, but I do know that the flea beetle is a persistent offender, which can be detrimental to young crops, particularly to oilseed rape and other brassicas. It has been reported that farmers, rather than have just one application of this systemic neonicotinoid, are in fact spraying three or four times in order to safeguard the establishment of their crop. We believe that some of these sprays, such as the synthetic pyrethroids and the organo-phosphates, can be as damaging to pollinators as the neonicotinoids.

These issues are very complicated, so putting into practice any effective pollinator strategy is going to take money—and most of it is going to come out of the common agricultural policy—so that we encourage farmers to do such things as allowing field margins to remain uncultivated. Even more important is active management of those field margins to ensure that flowers and plants can be used by pollinators, but again that is going to cost quite a bit of money.

Let me raise with the Minister an issue I have raised a number of times before—the measly allocation of pillar two money for the United Kingdom. Normally, in most European countries, the ratio of pillar one money, which is the direct payments, to pillar two is 3:1; in Britain, it is 10:1. Our allocation of pillar two money for the next financial horizon is going to be only about £2.2 billion, which has to be spread between conservation and improving competition and marketing in the farming community and rural areas.

[Bob Stewart]

Is that pillar two money decided in Brussels? Do we have any influence on it? Can we do anything about it, or do we just have to sit and wait for a decision from Brussels?

[Roger Williams]

It is decided in Brussels, but the real problem is that it is decided on a historical basis. We have had low allocations of pillar two money for many years. It is believed that if the allocation were made on an objective basis, such as according to the amount of agricultural land, the number of people involved in agriculture or the number of forests, we would have at least 100% more pillar two money. It is tied up with complex issues such as our rebate and the Fontainebleau agreement. When the CAP was renegotiated, I thought that all these figures would be based on objective factors rather than historical factors. However, we have ended up with a £2.2 billion allocation, while France has £8.8 billion and Germany £7.8 billion. It is no wonder that the farming unions are trying to resist modulation and the green non-governmental organisations are going for higher modulation. If the farming unions had co-operated with the green NGOs and gone for a bigger allocation of pillar two money, we should not have had all that argument.

I am not sure whether anything can be done—it seems that the figures have been agreed to—but I think that that was a real disaster, and one of the programmes that could suffer as a result of it is the pollinator strategy, which desperately needs money. I understand that the new environmental land management scheme that DEFRA is introducing can be used for such purposes, and I hope the Minister will ensure that it is.