Exiting the European Union (Pesticides)

George Eustice Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I beg to move,

That the draft Pesticides (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 17 July, be approved.

Plant protection products, or “pesticides” as they are commonly called, are currently regulated by means of two European Union regulations: Regulation (EC) 1107/2009, which concerns the placing of plant protection products on the market, including the approval of active substances, authorisation of pesticide products and management of associated risks; and Regulation (EC) 396/2005, which sets maximum residue levels of pesticides in or on food and feed of plant and animal origin, and measures to ensure compliance with those limits.

Earlier this year, two EU exit statutory instruments were laid before this House to convert those EU regulations into operable national law: the Plant Protection Products (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019; and the Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. Those two EU exit statutory instruments, in common with many others, made the EU regulations operable in a national context by, for example, transferring functions from EU institutions to national authorities.

This further instrument, which we are considering today, is comparatively minor and simply takes forward some additional amendments that are required to ensure that the regime can continue to operate effectively. First, in common with two of the other SIs that we have considered today, the change in exit day from 29 March to 31 October necessitates that we amend certain dates in the retained law that were based on the original date for EU exit. Secondly, further new EU legislation has come into force during the extension period, after the plant protection products and the maximum residue levels EU exit SIs were finalised. The new EU legislation needs to be corrected following the same approach as in the other SIs. Finally, this instrument fixes some errors within those earlier EU exit instruments, which I will cover later.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

For the avoidance of any doubt, will the Minister confirm that there is no measurable impact on business as a result of the regulations?

[George Eustice]

Yes, I can confirm that, in the sense that all the draft regulations are about continuity—an approach to ensure simply that where authorisations are carried out and decisions made by the European Commission, they will in future be made by the Secretary of State or the relevant authority.

Some amendments are required as a consequence of the change in our departure date. The plant protection products EU exit SI in particular contains a number of transitional measures that apply until specified dates. Those dates have been updated in common with the approach in other SIs. Given that exit day is now 31 October, those transitional provisions would allow much less time to adjust than was originally intended. This instrument therefore replaces dates that were calculated from the original exit date with a specified period of time after exit.

The draft regulations also deal with new EU legislation that has come into force since the original EU exit SIs were produced. The plant protection products and the maximum residue levels EU exit SIs converted active substance and MRL regulations into a new national register to give effect to the provisions in a national context. The EU regulations themselves were no longer required and therefore revoked. This instrument deals with new EU regulations that have come into force since then, and we have taken the same approach. Some outdated EU regulations have also been superseded or replaced, and those have now been identified as redundant, so they can be revoked.

This instrument also contains transitional provisions relating to grace periods for the withdrawal of active substances under EU regulations, so that they are carried across unchanged into our national law. Finally, this instrument also fixes a number of technical errors that were made in the earlier EU exit instruments. The vast majority of those were very minor in nature. However, I should draw attention to the fact that it came to light that the earlier plant protection products EU exit SI erroneously removed some provisions on endocrine disrupting chemicals. That omission was purely unintentional and this instrument therefore corrects that error.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am glad that the Minister has admitted that this error took place, but the Department has had to bring forward about 80 or so SIs over the summer. Has it conducted a review to ensure that similar errors have not been made in other legislation or are we are going to see a repeat of this situation, with other last-minute amendments?

[George Eustice]

Well, a point was made earlier that this has been an extraordinarily huge task of converting a highly complex body of EU law across into national law. When the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 was passed, it was even envisaged that there may be circumstances where there were errors, omissions or oversights. The hon. Lady will be aware that that Act makes provision for SIs to continue to be made in the event of errors occurring. I deal closely with the team of civil servants who have been working on this legislation, so I know that they have a huge amount of technical knowledge and have drafted the instruments we have been discussing today to the best of their ability to ensure that they have covered everything. But there can be difficulties if a last-minute update contained in particular EU document that is needed to make a particular element of EU law operable is not noticed; sometimes these things will come to light. The important thing is that we are clear about what we are trying to achieve, which is continuity, and that we put things right when they arise.

This instrument was originally submitted under the negative resolution procedure. We subsequently accepted a recommendation from the House of Commons sifting Committee that it be upgraded to the affirmative procedure and debated in the Chamber today on the basis that it includes a provision that relates to the charging of fees. In practice, this measure simply removes a redundant EU provision that clarified that member states could charge. The instrument does not change the existing fees and charges relating to the pesticides regulatory regime, nor does it have any effect whatever on the UK’s future ability to charge fees or make changes to the current fees. That relates to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), who I know is very concerned about these issues, but I hope that I have assured him that this changes nothing about the existing charging regime.

We have worked closely with the devolved Administrations —as we have on all the other measures we have discussed today—to develop this instrument, and they have consented to it being made on a UK-wide basis. I therefore commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Eustice]

On the final point raised by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin), I addressed the issue of errors previously. Bringing across these statutory instruments is a vast undertaking; it is inevitable that there will be a few errors, and the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 made provision to deal with those even after exit. I explained very clearly that there was a simple oversight in the case of endocrine disruptors in that particular statutory instrument.

I want predominantly to address the issue of oversight, which was the principal concern raised by both the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), and the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock). It is important to recognise that the UK has always been recognised as the leading country in the European Union for chemicals and pesticides expertise. The chemicals regulation division within HSE is the driving force behind most of the EU working groups that consider issues with pesticides. Through those working groups, we provide our technical expertise to the European Union; it benefits from our technical input. Yes, there is a role as well for the European Food Safety Authority and the European Chemicals Agency, but we should not underestimate the incredible technological and technical expertise we have in this field.

In addition to the CRD, which sits within the Health and Safety Executive, we benefit from advice from the expert committee on pesticides, which is a panel of leading academics with knowledge in this area. We also have an expert committee on pesticide residues, which assesses all the evidence on both imported and home-grown foods to look for trends in breaches of maximum residue limits. When we leave the European Union, all the existing methodologies for assessing pesticides at a European level will be brought across, including the so-called end points—that is, the thresholds that are applied—and the precautionary approach. Indeed, the key regulation, 1107/2009, was largely drafted by British officials based in the CRD. So we will be bringing all that across in the first instance.

The idea that there will no longer be technical or scientific assessments is a misunderstanding. I am told that, in the vast majority of cases, where “shall” is specified in the EU regulations in the context of requiring scientific input, it remains as “shall” in the UK ones. I think there are one or two minor areas that do not relate to the requirement for scientific input but relate more, as I understand it, to the methodology and the requirements on particular organisations or bodies. There, it is not appropriate to convert “shall” in the same way, as we do not have to have exactly the same institutions and organisational structure that the European Union has to carry out those effective scientific assessments. However, I reassure hon. Members that we will continue to have scientific assessments, that science will continue to lead all our decisions on pesticides in future and that we have some of the best technical expertise in this field. I hope that I have been able to provide reassurance on that point. Obviously, the main purpose of this particular statutory instrument is to change the dates for the transition.

Question put and agreed to.