Pollinators and Pesticides

Joan Walley Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of pollinators and pesticides.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate. Despite the fact that there are so many conflicting events going on outside the House, we have a healthy number of MPs here who wish to participate. I am grateful to everybody for attending.

The debate today is especially appropriate given that this year is the 50th anniversary of the publication of “Silent Spring”, Rachel Carson’s seminal work on the environmental cost of pesticides such as DDT. It is right that we should revisit the important issue of ecology and the relationship of plants and animals to their environment and to one another.

The Environmental Audit Committee, which I chair, conducted an inquiry on pollinators and pesticides from November 2012 to March 2013. We extended it because there were so many new developments as we carried on with our inquiry. We received 40 written submissions and we held seven oral evidence sessions. I thank all the witnesses to the inquiry. It was a unanimous report and I thank members of the Committee, some of whom are able to be present today and some of whom have sent their apologies. I also thank the Committee staff, who did a phenomenal amount of work helping us to compile our report, and put on record my thanks to Chris Miles of cdimagesanddesigns for his generosity in allowing us to use his photograph, “Pit stop” to grace the cover of the report. We are often told how accessible or otherwise House of Commons reports are, and we feel that thanks to him, the cover on our report is fitting. Bees like to go to bright, colourful flowers and we thought we would have the same for our report.

The EAC report was published on 5 April. In normal circumstances we would have been content to wait for the Government response to our report, but given that the European Commission took significant regulatory action in this area on 29 April, shortly after its publication, we felt that a debate was urgent and timely, and on behalf of the Committee I sought the opportunity to hold the debate today.

Let me put on record the favourable response that we have had from many who care about nature and wildlife. I thank Buglife, which affirmed that our report provides robust recommendations for the future of pollinators and the agricultural industry, and Friends of the Earth, whose recent reception in the House was attended by well over 100 MPs, although I was not able to be there myself. That testified how much support there is in our constituencies all around the UK for its bee action plan. The all-party group on agro-ecology welcomed our support. It, too, welcomes the recent decision by the EU to ban three types of neonicotinoid pesticides. The all-party group believes that to be the right decision, and calls for decisions on our food supply and environment to be based on science and not on extreme lobbying and scare-mongering by those who have an immense vested interest.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I compliment my hon. Friend for the report and her work on this issue. While I welcome the decision on particular pesticides, does she recognise that there is a wider question of eco-diversity that we have to address? If we do not, that will be something else that kills off the bee population in future. We must have a different approach to our natural environment in relation to agriculture.

[Joan Walley]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. Our report clearly states that there is no one solution and that we need, as he rightly says, a whole new systemic approach. The core of our report is that we need to get the balance right between scientific evidence and the precautionary principle, but there are very many issues that relate to all this.

We have had further support from many members of the general public and concerned interest groups, not least Bedfordshire Beekeepers Association, which said:

“Your work has been an inspirational example of democratic scrutiny in action…we hope that you will be able to hold government to account and influence policy making both at national and EU level.”

This is exactly what we are doing today and intend to continue doing. This debate is by no means our only follow-up to the report. We are raising the issue today to see how the many things that need to be done can get done, with the direction of the Government.

The Committee decided to conduct our inquiry because the available evidence indicated that insect pollinators have experienced serious population declines in the UK in recent years. For example, we heard—this is quite shocking—that two thirds to three quarters of insect pollinator species are declining in the UK. Indeed, the 2013 report “State of Nature” assessed 178 bee species in the UK and found that half were in decline. For the benefit of the House, I should explain that insect pollinators include not only honey bees and wild bees but other insects such as hoverflies, moths and butterflies. At the moment, the honey bee is the sentinel species for all insect pollinators, which means that most scientific studies involve bees, but given the biological differences between the various insect pollinators, it is vital that the Government monitor a wider range of species. I hope that this is an uncontroversial point on which the Government will agree with my Committee.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

indicated assent.

[Joan Walley]

I am very pleased to see the Minister nodding. I refer him to our recommendation 13: “Defra must”—I stress “must”—

“introduce a national monitoring programme to generate and monitor population data on a broad range of wild insect pollinator species to inform policy making.”

We felt that that is the bottom line and the starting point of what now needs to be done. As we went through our deliberations and came to reach our decisions, we endeavoured to find as much common ground among members of the Committee as we could before we turned to the issue of neonicotinoids.

Let me move on to the question of why insect populations might be declining. I want to make it clear at the outset that the health of insect pollinators is defined by a range of factors, including not only pesticides but urbanisation, loss of habitat, agricultural intensification and climate change; obviously, weather patterns affect things as well.

[Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend will know that the Government intend to issue—shortly, I believe—planning guidance on biodiversity. Does she agree that councils need to be encouraged and given the impetus to protect and restore bee-friendly habitats in their own neighbourhoods, which would make a real contribution to addressing the point she is making?

[Joan Walley]

I thank my right hon. Friend; she makes exactly the right point, and I absolutely agree. We need safe havens for wildlife, especially in urban areas, although it is not just about urban areas. The planning system underpins the whole issue of our natural capital and biodiversity. If we do not have guidance on how we protect and enhance our natural environment, the bees do not stand a chance.

Throughout our inquiry, the Environmental Audit Committee acknowledged the importance of sustaining agricultural yields, controlling pests effectively and maintaining food security. Indeed, those concerns were reflected in our final report. Equally, we were mindful of the value of insect pollinators as an ecosystem service to UK agriculture. I think that Members will be aware of the various estimates of the agricultural value of insect pollination, ranging from £500 million to £1.9 billion, depending on whether one takes into account the cost of replacement hand pollination. We felt that those issues ought to be given a value and taken into account.

In case anyone thinks that our report is just about a moratorium on certain neonicotinoids, I hope they will have a chance to read it in full and make themselves aware of the cross-cutting nature of our work and the importance that we give to using the common agricultural policy control to help British farming move as quickly as possible to integrated pest management.

As I have said, the Committee considered a range of factors that affect insect pollinators, but we were driven to scrutinise the effects of one family of insecticides—neonicotinoids—by the weight of peer-reviewed scientific evidence. For Members who are not familiar with neonicotinoids, I should say that they are a class of insecticide derived from nicotine. Following their introduction in the mid-’90s, they have been widely used in the UK on oilseed rape, cereals, maize, sugar beet and crops grown in glass houses. The body of evidence indicating that neonicotinoids cause acute harm to bees grew appreciably in the course of our inquiry, as new studies were published in heavyweight journals such as Science and Nature. In this case, harm to bees includes increased susceptibility to disease and reduced foraging and reproduction. If Members are interested in the particular scientific studies, I refer them to the Henry, Whitehorn and Gill experiments.

We heard that 94% of published peer-reviewed experiments on the effects of neonicotinoids on bees found evidence of acute harm. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the agri-chemical industry argued throughout our inquiry that the dosage used in those laboratory experiments was too high. In response it is worth pointing out that those studies used dosages derived from the best available data on the concentrations of neonicotinoids that bees encounter in the field.

The agri-chemical industry also likes to cite its own tests as proof that neonicotinoids cannot harm bees. However, the industry studies by which neonicotinoids were licensed for use in the European Union were not peer reviewed and are not open to scrutiny due to the supposed commercial sensitivity of the data. Furthermore, we found evidence in relation to the licensing of imidacloprid which calls into question altogether the rigour of the testing regime.

Against that background, we went on to consider the precautionary principle. By definition, insecticides kill insects. The precautionary question is whether neonicotinoid insecticides have an unsustainable impact on insect pollinators. The 1992 United Nations Rio declaration on environment and development states:

“Where there are threats of serious and irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”

That internationally agreed definition of the precautionary principle was later enshrined in the Lisbon treaty and it underpins much of the work that has been done on sustainable development, including when the work of the Rio conference was built on at Rio+20 only last year in Brazil.

Throughout our inquiry, DEFRA used what it identified as a lack of full scientific certainty as an excuse for inaction. For example, at one stage the Department stated that it would require unequivocal evidence of harm before acting on neonicotinoids.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

In medical research, there is a huge issue with drug companies not publishing inconvenient data. Does the hon. Lady feel that that is a serious problem with neonicotinoids?

[Joan Walley]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point about commercial confidentiality and the lack of transparency. We hear a lot at the moment about lobbying and related issues, but if the agri-chemical industry wishes to make claims about the value of its products, it must open up the evidence to full scrutiny. There is no case for hiding behind so-called “commercial confidentiality”. That prevents the open, transparent and informed policy making that is so badly needed. I agree with the hon. Lady and her point relates to one of the recommendations in our report.

When the weight of peer-reviewed evidence rendered untenable DEFRA’s position on the need for unequivocal evidence, it claimed that it would commission the Food and Environment Research Agency to conduct a realistic field study to resolve the matter. That study was not peer reviewed and it was, as one witness to our inquiry presciently pointed out, clearly too small to provide conclusive results. It was undermined by fundamental errors in its execution, such as placing the various hives that were used in the experiments outside on different days of the year.

Our view on the study, which was that we should not accept it, was confirmed by the European Food Safety Authority on Tuesday, when it identified the same weaknesses as we did.

[Mr Heath]

indicated assent.

[Joan Walley]

I am glad to see the Minister nodding his head. The conclusion was that there was no reason for EFSA to change its view.

DEFRA told us that its pesticides policy was underpinned by the precautionary principle. I fear that in this case, that statement of intent has not been matched by DEFRA’s actions. Interestingly, the private sector appears to be more willing than DEFRA to implement precautions. In the course of our inquiry, we heard that major do-it-yourself chains such as B&Q, Wickes and Homebase were withdrawing neonicotinoids from sale for domestic use, and supermarket chains such as the Co-operative have prohibited their suppliers from using neonicotinoids in anything other than exceptional circumstances. I also welcome the press release from Waitrose, which states that it is looking to do the same in respect of flowering crops.

As our report was taking shape and we were having involved discussions among ourselves, we had to extend the length of our inquiry to take account of developments elsewhere, because it was clear that we were being overtaken by events such as the European Commission’s regulatory action. Although the growing weight of published scientific research did not impress DEFRA, it led the EC to take action. The EC is responsible for licensing chemicals for use in European agriculture. It instructed EFSA to draw up new risk assessments for neonicotinoids in relation to bees. The revised risk assessments led the EC to propose measured regulatory action, with a two-year EU-wide moratorium on the use of three of the five neonicotinoids on crops that are attractive to bees.

The EC proposal was put to a qualified majority vote on 15 March. As we all know, the vote was inconclusive and the UK abstained. The hung outcome of the vote allowed the EC to implement the appeal procedure, which led to a second vote on 29 April. I understand that between 15 March and 29 April, there was intensive lobbying and negotiation in Europe. Indeed, I went out personally to present our report to the European Commissioner. Finally, the EC amended its initial proposal. It recognised the need to delay the introduction of a moratorium to allow the seed supply chain time to adjust, which was a recommendation of our report. That is an example of how my Committee focused on the practical outcomes for the agricultural sector. We did not want to make any knee-jerk recommendations and we wanted there to be time for the matter to be properly understood and acted on.

In the second vote, on 29 April, the UK shifted from abstention to active resistance by voting against the proposed moratorium, despite the concessions made by the European Commission. However, countries such as Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands all voted for the moratorium, which will consequently be introduced across the EU on 1 December 2013.

What effects will the two-year moratorium have on UK agriculture? First, I want to highlight that when neonicotinoids were banned for use on maize in Italy, there was no negative effect on yield. Secondly, the moratorium will prevent farmers from using neonicotinoids on

“crops that are attractive to bees”,

which of course excludes sugar beet, crops grown in glass houses and winter wheat; it is quite a proportionate measure. Thirdly, neonicotinoids are a relatively recent innovation. Oilseed rape, for example, was a viable UK crop before the introduction of neonicotinoids in the mid-‘90s.

Some have argued that a moratorium on neonicotinoids will lead farmers to spray greater quantities of other more environmentally harmful pesticides, such as organophosphates and pyrethroids. However, it is open to DEFRA to ensure that that is not the case. It is clearly in the interests of the environment, food security, minimising resistance among pests and maximising agricultural incomes that the least possible amount of pesticides is used in agricultural production. Indeed, in talks I have had with different bodies they have said that such a moratorium will mean that there must be a focus on what to do and what alternative proposals to come up with, so that we incentivise a more healthy approach to crops.

To that end, integrated pest management is a broad approach to plant protection that minimises pesticide use and encourages natural pest control mechanisms. By 1 January 2014, all pesticide users will be required to adopt IPM under the European directive on the sustainable use of pesticides. If UK farmers practise IPM, the argument that a moratorium on neonicotinoids will lead to unfavourable environmental outcomes does not hold. I believe that was very much a deciding factor in the Committee’s reaching its unanimous decision.

DEFRA does not appear to have prioritised compliance with the directive on the sustainable use of pesticides. The directive states:

“Member states should adopt…quantitative objectives, targets, measures and timetables to reduce…the impact of pesticide use on the environment.”

However, a DEFRA official dismissed such targets as “meaningless”, which sits uneasily with the Department’s stated commitments to integrated pest management. Indeed, our report was halted or delayed because the Government were slow to make a full response to that European directive.

Other than the recommendations on the moratorium of certain neonicotinoids, the importance of monitoring the health of pollinators and the introduction of integrated pest management, many other detailed issues arise from the Committee’s report that relate to risk assessment and risk management. Those include reforms involving the European food safety authority, where our Government, should they wish to, could take the lead, CAP reform and recognising the importance of less secrecy and greater transparency in the risk assessment trials undertaken by the agrochemical industry—the point raised by the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). I am disappointed that the Government have chosen to delay their response to our report, which was due this week, but I look forward to their detailed response on the work we have carried out. For now, however, events have moved quickly and DEFRA did not take our advice when the issue was raised by the European Commission.

In conclusion, I have three questions for the Minister. First, I believe DEFRA has said it will commission further field research on neonicotinoids and bees. Will that research be published in a journal and be peer reviewed? Will the Minister consider commissioning the British scientists who participated in the Gill and Whitehorn studies, rather than FERA, whose previous report was discredited? Is it DEFRA policy to reject all laboratory studies—and, by extension, scientific method—as a basis for action? Secondly, how will DEFRA ensure the effective implementation of the sustainable use of pesticide directive? Thirdly, will the Minister explain what changed between the first EU vote on 15 March, when the UK abstained, to the second EU vote, on 29 April, when the UK voted against a moratorium?

The UK public are concerned about bees and pollinators. When I raised this at Prime Minister’s Question Time, he stressed the importance of the precautionary principle. As we look forward to the summer, people’s minds will be on gardening and planting, and farmers’ minds will be on planting and harvesting. It is critical that we hear from the Government on how they will respond to the EU moratorium.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Caton]

I completely agree, and I am coming to the Government’s pesticides action plan, which is actually an “inaction plan”—to be quite honest, it is a disgraceful document.

We looked at the pesticide approvals regime at EU and UK levels, and found a system flawed at both. Put simply, it works like this. The chemical company puts together the scientific data to support its application and submits a dossier to the regulatory authority in any EU member state. That authority’s experts make their own assessment, which is set out in a draft assessment report. That is then reported to the European Food Safety Authority, which conducts a peer review by experts from other EU countries. Its conclusions are sent to the Commission, which makes a proposal—for approval or not—to the Council of Ministers. After approval, companies can apply to the regulatory authority in any member state for permission to market their product. The regulatory authority in the UK is the chemicals regulation directorate of the Health and Safety Executive. The CRD prepares a scientific evaluation, which is considered by the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, which is a statutory, independent body that advises Ministers on whether approval should be given.

On the face of it, the whole thing sounds quite rigorous, but we found significant flaws. First, as our Chair said, the pesticide manufacturers that commission the research to submit to the regulators keep control of that research. In practice, that means that the data on safety under which a chemical is licensed are not put into the public domain, denying effective academic access and, therefore, independent criticism. In contrast, some of the academics who gave evidence to us reported that their research was openly published, which meant that where it showed a link between pesticide use and pollinator decline, defenders of the agrichemical industry would go through their work with a fine-toothed comb looking for a way to rubbish it, sometimes deliberately misinterpreting it to do so. We believe that it should not be beyond the wit of humankind to ensure maximum transparency without threatening genuine commercial sensitivity.

Another problem with the process is that, up to now, the EU approval system has explicitly addressed only the risk to honey bees. That probably would not be too bad if the honey bee were one of the more fragile and sensitive pollinators. If that were the case, and it survived exposure to a product, it would be likely that other, tougher pollinator species would be fine. In fact, we heard evidence that the honey bee is probably the most robust of the pollinators when it comes to pesticide exposure. Bumble bee research, for instance, shows the clear detrimental impact of neonicotinoid use. Some pollinators, such as hoverflies, have very different life cycles from any bees, and therefore have different exposure routes. Such pollinators remain unconsidered at present. We urge DEFRA to introduce a representative range of sentinel pollinator species in UK pesticide risk assessments, and to work for the same arrangements across the EU.

We also came across an example that showed that, however good the approval system might be in theory, it can fall down badly in practice. The neonicotinoid imidacloprid had to be re-evaluated in 2006. Germany’s regulatory authority produced the draft assessment report. One of the properties to be assessed was the propensity of the pesticide to accumulate in soil and water, and the assessments were carried out in two trials here in the UK. The results of the tests were misreported in the draft assessment report, however. It concluded that

“the compound has no potential for accumulation in soil”.

That is exactly the opposite of what the trial evidence showed. When the European Food Safety Authority conducted its peer review of the German assessment, it identified the pesticide’s apparent tendency to accumulate, and concluded:

“The risk assessment to soil dwelling organisms cannot be finalised because the assessment of soil accumulation is not finalised.”

This formed part of the text of the EFSA peer review sent to the Commission, so one might have expected that body to refuse approval until the accumulation question had been answered.

The European Commission Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health considered EFSA’s report and, astonishingly, gave imidacloprid its approval, stating that it presented

“no unacceptable risks to the environment”.

There was no mention of accumulation in soil. That was a clear and dangerous failure of the assessment process. We argued that the process needed to be tightened up by empowering EFSA to include in future peer reviews action points that the Commission must address.

We looked at the growing body of evidence linking neonicotinoid use with pollinator decline. This was taken seriously by a considerable number of academics, but dismissed by the agrichemical companies, mainly for two reasons. First, they claimed that the trial doses were higher than would be used in practice. Secondly, they stated that the experiments had been carried out in the laboratory or only partly in the field, and claimed that they could trust only field trials. That Orwellian mantra, “Field trials good, laboratory trials bad”, was repeated often during our inquiry.

DEFRA’s real underlying attitude to assessing the risks of pesticide use was inadvertently given away in a 2012 document, “Neonicotinoid insecticides and bees: the state of the science and the regulatory response”. As our Committee Chair has said, the Department stated that it needed unequivocal proof in order to support a moratorium.

[Joan Walley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making these points. This sums up the flawed basis on which permissions were being given throughout the whole regulatory procedure. We are now presenting the Government with the opportunity to take a leadership role, and we want them to follow up exactly on the recommendations in our report.

[Martin Caton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will now conclude my speech, as I have gone over the 10 minutes you suggested, Mr Deputy Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

This has been an extremely good debate and I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) and her Committee for their report. She knows that we have had a short delay in responding to her, for the precise reasons that she had a short delay in producing the report. The circumstances have been changing quickly and we want to get it right, so I apologise to her and her Committee for that. My noble friend Lord de Mauley is responsible for this area, but the hon. Lady will appreciate that it falls to me to respond to the debate in this House.

I also thank the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) for his balanced remarks, which showed that this is a complex issue. I am interested in it, not least because as Minister for agriculture I know that bees and pollinators are crucial. I cannot underline sufficiently how important pollinators are to agriculture and horticulture, so of course I have that interest.

I also have an enormous personal interest in the issue. I spoke from the Opposition Benches about bees for a very long time. I spoke on the subject right back in June 1998, when I said:

“We need a step change in investment in the investigation of bee disease if we are to stem a worldwide phenomenon that is lapping at our doorstep and has the potential to become a crisis, both for the insect population and in economic terms”.—[Official Report, 17 June 2008; Vol. 477, c. 204WH.]

That is what I said in 1998, so people are now free to quote that back at me, but I meant it. We were arguing then in the context of very little work at Government level on bees. It took the best part of a decade before we pressed the previous Government to start taking the issue of bees and pollinators seriously, which they did: we now have the national bee unit and I think we now need to go one step further in our approach.

I welcome the opportunity to highlight what the Government have been doing in relation both to pollinators and pesticides and to our future plans. We take this issue extremely seriously. It is crucial. Contrary to what some have said, specifically in relation to neonicotinoid insecticides, we have kept the evidence under close and open-minded scrutiny and we continue to do so. We will restrict the use of insecticides. Obviously, neonicotinoids are now dealt with under the moratorium, but we will deal with others as well, if the evidence shows that there is a need to do so. I will come back to that point later.

The hon. Members for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) and for Glasgow South pointed out that pollinators face many other challenges. It is critical that one issue, such as the use of particular pesticides, does not dominate the debate, because so many other individual factors, when taken together, have a complex effect on our pollinator population.

[Joan Walley]

The Minister has said that the Government will take action if the evidence shows that they need to. Will he explain how that relates to the moratorium delivered by the European Commission?

[Mr Heath]

I will come back to the specific issue of neonicotinoids in a moment. The moratorium is in place, so we will, of course, fully comply with it. We do not not comply with decisions of that kind. I will return to the evidence, because it is a critical issue.

I repeat that bees are essential to the health of our natural environment and the prosperity of our farming industry. The “Biodiversity 2020” document has been mentioned. We have set ourselves the challenge of achieving an overall improvement in the status of our wildlife and preventing further human induced extinctions of known threatened species. We have put a landscape scale approach to biodiversity conservation at the heart of “Biodiversity 2020”. It is vital that that approach is effective in helping to conserve our most threatened species.

Nature improvement areas are beginning to make a difference for species on the ground. The 12 Government-funded NIAs are by no means the sum total of our ambitions. We want to see that approach rolled out more widely by enthusiasts across the country. The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) is seeing exactly that in her city. We want that to be extended and it is clearly already happening.

We want to make environmental stewardship more effective. As the House knows, we are in the process of negotiating CAP reform. It is not clear what the outcomes will be. We do not know the extent to which greening measures will be in pillar 1 or pillar 2, or the exact recipe that will emerge from our decisions on agri-environmental schemes that derive from pillar 2 or voluntary modulation. This matter is a key consideration in that context and I will certainly be pressing for it in the outcome.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joan Walley]

This has been a useful debate. I thank all hon. Members who have spoken, including the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), and my hon. Friends the Members for Gower (Martin Caton), for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). The Environmental Audit Committee will consider what we can do to support my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East in her efforts to make Bristol the capital of green cities. We have had the Friends of the Earth breakfast. In view of our debate, the question is whether, at quarter to 3 or two minutes to 5, there is honey still for tea.

The Committee has sought to produce a timely and considered report. We intend our recommendations to be part of an ongoing process of parliamentary scrutiny. It might be in our interests that the Government response will be delayed, just as the integrated pest management report was delayed—it might be in our interests if the delay means we will get a more informed response, and if the Committee will have greater engagement on how such multifaceted issues can be developed. The breathing space of the moratorium we have as a result of the European Commission might help to take the debate forward, and we would welcome a fully informed response from the Government. However, we do not want the Government simply to dismiss the Committee’s work, and we do not want the lack of targets and everything else in the integrated pest control plan to continue. The Committee is a team and this has been a team effort. We want to engage with the Government on how we can ensure, working with farmers and business, and all those people in the British countryside—