Pesticides

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will start with that last point and promise to write to the noble Baroness on the uptake of new technologies. I certainly think that the advantage of the new ELM scheme is that it will allow us to embed integrated pest management as part of the three offers we are making. That allows us to finely hone our support for farmers, particularly where they are moving towards systems that are better for the environment and human health. I can assure her that the use of pesticide sprays and herbicides will certainly be part of our ELM schemes going forward.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, the use of DDT was most certainly harmful to wildlife and possibly to humans, but of course, it is now banned. I declare an interest as a farmer. Farmers now only use the targeted minimum of expensive pesticides. Can my noble friend tell me what role the use of pesticides has played in combating the spread of trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness and spread by tsetse fly, and the fight against malaria, which is spread my mosquitos and kills over 400,000 people each year, 2,000 of them children under the age of five and mostly in sub-Saharan Africa?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is right about DDT. I am afraid that tsetse fly is not covered in my brief, but I agree with him that there are occasions where the use of pesticides is vital and has saved millions of lives. I am glad to say that we do not have tsetse fly in this country, and I hope that global warming will not bring it here.