Pesticides (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I take the issue of pesticides and their potential harm to both wildlife and, importantly, human life very seriously. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, mentioned, in the recent Agriculture Bill debates in your Lordships’ House we debated and voted on some important amendments that unfortunately were rejected in the other place. I know the noble Lord meant to say that we may return to those matters in the Environment Bill rather than the Agriculture Bill, and I certainly hope we will.

I will make a few comments about these two instruments. In the Pesticides (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 there are many references to the “competent authority” and/or the “agency”. I think the former is the Secretary of State for Defra—although in reality the Secretary of State will of course base his decision on the advice and recommendations provided by the Government’s regulatory body for pesticides, the Chemicals Regulation Division, which itself is part of the Health and Safety Executive—while the agency will most certainly be the CRD.

I will raise some concerns that I have been made aware of, and I would like some reassurance from my noble friend. Considering that sales of pesticides in the UK alone each year are around £627 million, and that reports have put the value of the world pesticides industry at a staggering $58.46 billion and seemingly increasing by the year, this is obviously a very big business with powerful vested and self-serving interests. Understandably, the primary concern of pesticide manufacturers is obviously to protect the sales of their products and related profits, and to keep such pesticides being used.

As I understand it, the CRD receives approximately 60% of its funding from the agrochemical industry, which is broken down into the fees charged to companies for applications and a charge on the UK turnover of pesticide companies. I have some nagging concerns about this. During the debates on the Agriculture Bill in your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, spoke of his own concerns over UK pesticides policy from his experience when he was a Minister at Defra, including the closeness between the government regulators for pesticides and the pesticide companies that they are supposed to regulate.

Having said that, I will return to one specific question regarding the Pesticides (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020. I am grateful to the Green Alliance for bringing various matters to my attention; anyone who knows me well will recognise that fine legal scrutiny is not my forte. Regulation 2(2) provides that the requirement to submit supplementary dossiers for the renewal procedure of an active substance no later than 30 months before the expiry of the approval applies only to substances approved for use where the approval expires on or after 12 May 2026. It is not clear why that change has been made. Perhaps my noble friend can elucidate on that question.