Bee-killing Pesticides

Debate between Luke Pollard and Caroline Lucas

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard]

It is a great loss to Government that the hon. Gentleman is no longer a Minister, but a great benefit to these debates that we have double the west country Members from Devon speaking on such matters. Wild flower meadows, however we brand them, are a really important part of restoring ecosystems. They demonstrate that the interventions needed to support biodiversity recovery are not always large or expensive. They can be in every single community where there is a patch of ground that can be planted with wild flowers, and are a good way of signalling intent, especially as regards the recovery of pollinators.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate. Brighton also has lots of lovely bee-friendly verges and so forth. Are we not just asking the Government to implement their own approach? Yesterday in their environmental improvement plan, they said that they wanted to put nature friendliness at the heart of all their policies. How is that coherent with the decision taken a few days ago? If the Government want to be consistent, they need to look again at the decision on bee-killing pesticides.

[Luke Pollard]

That is exactly right. If we are to have a proper nature-based recovery, and if the Government are to achieve their ambitions as set out in not only the Environment Act 2021 but the associated piece of legislation that this House has passed, we need them to follow their own procedures, and I do not think that they have in relation to the authorisation. I will explain why.

When we left the European Union, the Government promised to follow the science on bee-killing pesticides. How is that going? On 6 September 2021, the right hon. and learned Member for Banbury, then a DEFRA Minister, told the Commons:

“Decisions on pesticide authorisation are based on expert assessment by the Health and Safety Executive.”

Another DEFRA Minister, Lord Goldsmith, gave the same commitment, word for word, in the Lords that month. That surely means that bee-killing pesticides will be used only when the science shows that it is safe to do so. Right? Wrong.

The Government’s own expert committee on pesticides concluded on 30 January this year, in a report that can be found on the Government’s website, that the requirements for an emergency authorisation of bee-killing pesticides had not been met. It stated:

“On the basis of the evidence presented, the Committee agreed it supports the Health and Safety Executive’s Chemical Regulation Division’s assessment that it is unable to support an emergency authorisation, as potential adverse effects to honeybees and other pollinators outweigh the likely benefits.”

How can the decision have been made through expert assessment—on the science—as Ministers claim, if those very same experts say no to bee-killing pesticides? The decision to authorise bee-killing pesticide use is not supported by the science, the politics or the public, so why are Ministers allowing bee-killing pesticides to be used again this year?

If Ministers are serious about neonic use being temporary and exceptional, I want the Government to provide more support for sugar beet farmers, so that they can invest in other reasonable control measures, such as the greater use of integrated pest management. I back our British farmers, and I know my colleague on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), will say something similar. They have had enormous upheaval over the past few years. The withdrawal from the European Union, the change in subsidy regimes, and the fact that it is now harder to export have hit our farmers hard, so we need to find support for them. While critiquing the Government’s authorisation of bee-killing pesticides, I want to lend my support to those beet farmers, who, I recognise, face financial hardship if there is an aphid-spread infection in their crops.

How is best practice on crop hygiene, establishment and monitoring being shared with beet farmers? What investment are the Government making in the development of pest-resistant varieties of sugar beet and other crops? Why did Ministers previously say that the use of bee-killing pesticides would be temporary as new crop varieties would be coming up? What steps is the Minister taking to encourage industry to pay its fair share of the cost of transitioning away from neonic use? Sugar is big business and it is a high-value crop. We have heard before of funds designed to help farmers affected by aphid crop loss, so why grant authorisation again now if there are resources available for the farmers who are suffering from it?

The public will find it hard to believe that this granulated money-making machine is unable to give the sugar beet farmers that it relies on a fairer deal, so as to help them with crop failures, and so that they can develop a robust system of integrated pest management. It is welcome, and perhaps slightly curious, that although DEFRA last week gave a green light to the use of bee-killing pesticides, it simultaneously announced a new subsidy for farmers—the sustainable farming incentive—to encourage them not to use bee-killing pesticides. There is an easier way of preventing the use of bee-killing pesticides: instead of paying farmers not to use them, we could ban them, as Ministers promised to do, as we should be doing, and as other nations are doing.

I think we have stumbled on a new political truth: as long as the Conservatives are in power, whatever the science and their approval process says, they will approve the use of bee-killing pesticides. I challenge the Minister to prove me wrong on that. I did so last year in this very Chamber, and here we are again; bee-killing pesticides have again been authorised for use. More bees will die, and I predict we will be here again in 2024 unless Ministers have a change of heart. Each and every year until we get rid of that political truth, more bees will die. This is not temporary or exceptional; it is now a firmly established annual authorisation of bee-killing pesticides. This is my challenge to Ministers: prove me wrong by not authorising them next year.

Ministers need to provide more evidence of the impacts to inform the science. The reports from the Health and Safety Executive and the Government’s own pesticides committee—the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides— highlight a number of science holes in the evidence that they require in order to understand the impact of this authorisation on bees. Will the Minister respond to that?

Will the Minister report how much of the sustainable farming incentive has been used to lower the use of neonicotinoids? Will he ensure that there is not only catchment area science for any use of neonicotinoids, but field-edge studies for every field they are used in? At the moment, the evidence relates to selected fields and catchment areas, which are often too large. Will he ensure that there are catchment and field-edge water studies for every field that neonics are used in? Will he ensure that the cost of science is billed directly to any farmer using Cruiser SB, so that the taxpayer does not lose out?

The UK Expert Committee on Pesticides said that it would be beneficial to have an assessment of the quantity of active substances deployed in the environment as part of the suite of information used to determine whether the benefits of insecticide use outweigh the environmental risks. Will the Minister agree to do that?

Bees: Neonicotinoids

Debate between Luke Pollard and Caroline Lucas

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government approval for the use of neonicotinoids and the impact on bees.

It is good to see you in the Chair, Sir Roger. First, I declare an interest, in that my family keep bees on our farm in north Cornwall. I am also a patron of Pollenize, which is a brilliant beekeeping community interest company in Plymouth, and I can tell Members that all the honey it produces is delicious.

I bloody love bees. Bees might be small creatures, but their contribution to nature and to food production is huge. Up to three quarters of crop species are pollinated by bees and other pollinators. Bees are a symbol of a healthy environment. Bees, whether honeybees or bumblebees, are iconic British species, too. They are a weathervane species, against which we can chart nature’s recovery or decline.

For me, bee health is non-negotiable. We are in the middle of a climate and ecological crisis. That means that we must not only act faster to cut carbon and do so fairly, creating green jobs; we must also protect nature, and that means taking difficult decisions to protect our natural world. We will never be nature positive if we dodge the difficult decisions or turn a blind eye to our role in the erosion of nature.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Does he agree that the legal requirements in the Environment Act 2021 to halt species loss by 2030 will not be worth the paper they are written on if, at the first hurdle, the Government actually fail and give a licence to something that their own scientific advisers are advising against?

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Lady for summing up my entire speech in one pithy intervention. She is absolutely correct, and I will seek to explain why, using more words, over the next 10 minutes or so.

Bees are not only in more danger every year; they are also more important every year. According to the UN, the volume of agricultural production dependent on pollinators has increased globally by 300% in the past 50 years. The UN also found that greater pollinator density results in better crop yields, so it is also good for farmers. That is why this is such an important and urgent debate, because bee health in this country is not getting better; it is getting worse. Banning bee-killing pesticides will not on its own reverse the decline in bee populations, but if we cannot deal with this most apparent of ills, how will we deal with the hundreds of more difficult decisions that must follow in relation to protecting habitats and providing a guide to bee recovery?

Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill

Debate between Luke Pollard and Caroline Lucas

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Wilson. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Westminster North, and I echo what others have said about her hard work, much of it behind the scenes.

I simply want to add how extraordinary it is that landlords have no legal obligations to their tenants to put or keep the property in a condition fit for habitation. Like every member of the Committee, I have, over my eight years as the Member for Brighton, Pavilion, seen literally hundreds, if not thousands, of cases of people living in the most awful conditions. In my experience, it is the most disadvantaged people who live in the worst and most dangerous rented housing. I want to put on record my pleasure at the progress of the Bill. I look forward to seeing it reach the statute book very soon.

Finally, I echo the words of the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne on the next challenge, which I agree is about controls on rent. I hope that one day we will get to that as well.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North for her dogged determination in introducing the Bill.

Some 43% of people in Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, live in the private rented sector. We are one of the areas in the south-west with the highest concentration of people in the private rented sector, and there are still far too many examples of really poor standards. In particular, people have been really scared about complaining. I wonder whether my hon. Friend, or perhaps the Minister, could briefly explain what education and empowerment can accompany the Bill, once it passes into law—assuming, as I hope, that it will—to help people who are living in substandard accommodation but do not complain about it for fear of being evicted.