Pollinators and Pesticides

Martin Caton Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Martin Caton (Gower) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), who is a fellow member of the Environmental Audit Committee, and I join him in paying tribute to the leadership of our Committee Chair, not only on this vital inquiry, but on all our inquiries.

I strongly support all the conclusions and recommendations in our report, but my interest in what is happening to our pollinating insects goes back quite a bit further than last November, when we started taking evidence. In fact, it probably dates back more than 40 years to when I was at agricultural school and undertook a course in apiculture. The certificate I secured at the end remains a treasured possession. More recently, about three years ago, that interest was further spurred by a 2009 report produced by the organisation Buglife, which our Chair has already mentioned, and the Soil Association. It was a review of the scientific literature on a group of systemic pesticides called neonicotinoids on non-target insect species.

Although the combined evidence in the report was not conclusive, even at that time it rang serious alarm bells that should have received an urgent response from the Government. I secured a Westminster Hall debate on the subject, which a surprising number of Members from across the House attended to express their shared concern about the potential threat posed by these pesticides to a vital group of invertebrates—pollinating insects. Since that debate, thanks to intelligence supplied by Buglife and other environmental organisations, I have tried to keep track of further research and, when significant, have drawn it to the House’s attention through early-day motions and other parliamentary means.

As our Chair said, last autumn, the Committee decided to conduct what has turned out to be a major inquiry taking evidence from the organisations she mentioned. The first thing the Committee had to recognise was that many of our pollinating species appeared to have been in decline for some time. Of course, when we look at pollinators—especially any threats to them—the first focus is usually honey bees. That has been particularly the case in Europe and the USA in recent years, with alarming reports of what is sometimes called colony collapse on an international basis.

As a result of their economic significance, honey bees attract far more scientific attention than any other pollinator. Their decline has been ascribed to a range of causes—pests and diseases, such as the varroa mite, which has been mentioned, along with weather conditions, poor nutrition, poor husbandry, urbanisation, agricultural intensification, habitat degradation and the use and misuse of pesticides. However, honey bees are not the main pollinators in the UK—far from it. Ninety per cent of insect pollination is done by the thousands of other, wild pollinators—other bees, hoverflies, butterflies, carrion flies, beetles, midges, moths, and so on. These other pollinators are not monitored or studied like honey bees, so we do not know exactly what is happening to them. However, we received disquieting evidence from some witnesses of how, as the Chair has said, two thirds of wild pollinator species are declining, including moths, butterflies, hoverflies and bumble bees. We were told that of the 25 UK bumble bee species, two or three—no one is sure because the research has not been done—have already become extinct, while probably 10 others have suffered large range decline.

We were advised that DEFRA has a bee unit that does a good job of monitoring honey bees. There are 70 Government scientists dedicated to researching honey bees, but just part of one scientist looking at the health of wild bees. That has to change. We cannot afford to remain ignorant about our wild pollinators. That is why we call in the report for DEFRA to introduce a national monitoring programme to generate and monitor population data on a broad range of wild insect pollinator species. If we do not really know what is going on, we cannot make the right policy decisions to halt decline.

Most people looking at pollinator decline would come to the conclusion that, at least in most cases, multiple factors are at play—those that I have listed for honey bees and perhaps others. Most of our witnesses who addressed the wider picture accepted that there were probably a range of causes. However, the representatives of mainstream farming and especially the agrichemical industry were absolutely adamant that the decline had nothing to do with pesticide use and especially not the use of neonics. Our Chair has described how neonicotinoids work, which I will not repeat, but I will add that they are systemic, which means that they get into every part of the plants that are treated with them. Pollinating insects absorb them and carry them back to their nests or hives, even though they are not the target species.

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

My hon. Friend is making some interesting points. Does he think, as I do, that the Government perhaps need to rewrite their national pesticides action plan? There are methods other than the use of chemicals. They ought to be encouraged so that farmers and horticulturalists do whatever they can to reduce the chemical pressure on the environment and the pollinators.

--- 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.