Pollinators and Pesticides

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), and her team on the very thorough work they have done in this report. I also want to take the opportunity to express my concerns about the Government’s commitment to reversing bee decline, particularly in the light of the decision to vote against an EU-wide ban on neonicotinoid insecticides.

The need for action to reverse bee decline is highly urgent. All species of bee in the UK, including wild bumble and solitary species as well as managed honey bees, are suffering steep decline. In the last century, the UK has lost 20 species of bee and 47 surviving species are considered to be vulnerable or endangered. Such a rapid decline in bee populations, not just in the UK but across the world, poses a serious threat to global food production, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) has just mentioned.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that about a third of all plants or plant products eaten by humans are dependent on bee pollination. The vital importance of bees to our environment and economy has long been known to the experts, but the critical role of our natural pollinators is only beginning to gain a wider appreciation.

Imaginative national campaigns, such as the Friends of the Earth campaign for a bee action plan, have had an impact in informing people about bee decline and gathering momentum for a comprehensive strategy from the Government. It is clear that the importance of the issue has also hit home in countries such as France and Italy. Italy is not always known for its interest in the environment, but it has led the way in banning certain types of pesticide before the moratorium was voted on by the EU.

For those of us who have been waiting for the Government to step up to the mark and action a comprehensive plan to reverse the ruinous decline in the UK’s bee population, the recent decision by Ministers to vote against the EU ban on neonicotinoid insecticides came as a blow. Thankfully for the bee population, the weight of support for the ban among other EU member states enabled the European Commission to proceed with a two-year moratorium on the use of neonicotinoids, but the UK’s action confirmed the Government’s fundamental misunderstanding of their responsibility on the issue and betrayed a worrying lack of insight into where their priorities should lie.

DEFRA Ministers are hiding behind the need for what they call “clearer proof” of harm to bees caused by neonicotinoids. Indeed, they attempted to discredit the findings of the European Food Safety Agency, which concluded that the insecticides represented a “high acute risk” to honey bees and other pollinators, by pointing out that they were based on the results of lab tests rather than “field evidence”. There were those that hoped that by capitalising on the difficulty of obtaining field evidence they could get away with maintaining the status quo.

The UK field study cited by DEFRA Ministers as proof that neonicotinoids did not pose a risk to bees was pronounced hopelessly inadequate by EFSA. The bumblebee hives intended as controls in the experiment had been contaminated by neonicotinoids, and the study was found to be deficient in a large number of other ways. EFSA also expressed pointed concern about the manner in which the authors had

“elaborated and interpreted the study results to reach their conclusions”.

Needless to say, the study was brushed hastily under the carpet and Ministers were forced to stop touting it as sufficient proof that a ban was unnecessary, but the disregard for suggestive evidence that neonicotinoids cause harm and the massaging of scientific evidence to suit current policy causes real concern. Most troubling is that the Government have completely missed the point: in this situation, given the potential truly devastating effects of bee decline, it is the Government’s duty to act with appropriate caution—a duty they have utterly failed to recognise. In other words, DEFRA Ministers must apply the precautionary principle, as set out in the 1992 United Nations Rio declaration and the Lisbon treaty. It is not for the Government to entertain a value-based preference for false negatives—a desperate willingness to conclude that neonicotinoid pesticides are safe when they might not be. As the Environmental Audit Committee report states,

“economic factors should not blur environmental risk assessment and risk management, where the protection of people and the environment must be paramount.”

The sense of disappointment in the Government’s actions on bee-harming neonicotinoids is compounded by the fact that this is exactly the sort of issue—one that has far-reaching and potentially devastating environmental and economic implications—that we expect the UK to champion. We of all countries have always had a reputation for thorough scientific research, real concern for the environment and respect for the precautionary principle, and that the Government did not decide to take a proactive leading role in tackling bee decline related to pesticide use reflects very poorly on our nation’s attitude to environmental issues and severely damages the UK’s reputation for diligence and responsibility regarding the environment. The Government have not lived up to expectations. They should have had the foresight to lead; instead, they have allowed themselves to be beaten around by the big companies—a point my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East made clearly—and left us trailing behind.

Now the Government must seize the chance to make a fresh start. The two-year moratorium on the use of three neonicotinoid pesticides on crops attractive to honey bees will provide an opportunity for DEFRA Ministers to carry out careful and impartial monitoring of the effect on bee populations of the removal of pesticides. That will be a positive action that demonstrates the UK’s appreciation of the seriousness of bee decline and its commitment to working to reverse it. It will also demonstrate the UK’s support for the work of the European Commission, which also plans to use the two-year suspension period to review new scientific evidence on how pollinators are faring more generally.

The Government must also overhaul their national action plan for the sustainable use of pesticides. It was necessary to take legal advice on whether the action plan complied with the minimum standards of the EU directive, which strongly suggests that the Government failed to see the directive as an opportunity to address the wider issue of pesticide use. In fact, UK use of insecticides on crops pollinated by bees remains on a steady upward trend. The Government must abandon their irresponsible, lacklustre approach and rewrite the action plan to incentivise farmers to use non-pesticide-based methods of pest control, making sure to include targets, measures and timetables for the reduction of pesticide use overall.

The Government must also recognise their duty to apply the precautionary principle. Given what is at stake, DEFRA must commit itself to erring on the side of caution in matters relating to bee decline and in future complex matters relating to the protection of people and the environment. The Select Committee observed:

“There is no compelling economic or agricultural case for neonicotinoid use in private gardens and on amenities such as golf courses”

and said that that might provide DEFRA Ministers with an immediate opportunity to prove their commitment to the precautionary principle.

It is time for the Government to turn themselves around and to move away from their disappointing behaviour on neonicotinoid insecticides by accepting the European moratorium with grace and applying themselves to tackling the harm caused to bees by pesticides. They also need to look more widely at their policy on bees and work to formulate and introduce a comprehensive bee action plan to save threatened habitats, promote bee-friendly farming and construction practices, and guide councils and the public on how they can protect our nation’s vital pollinators.

On pesticides and on all these measures, the UK Government must take the lead. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that a UK-wide moratorium on the three neonicotinoid pesticides is fully in place by the deadline of 1 December? Will the Minister prove his commitment to countering the bee decline by setting quantitative targets for the reduction of all pesticide use and working hard to encourage the use of alternative pest management methods, as the EU directive requires? Will the Minister follow the example of the Labour Welsh Government’s draft action plan for pollinators, which sets out measures to help all bee species across all policy areas, including farming, conservation and planning? If so, when will he implement a UK-wide bee action plan? I very much hope that the Minister will be able to provide some answers this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Nia Griffith]

The European Scrutiny Committee has requested a debate on CAP reform. Will the Minister say when that is likely to be scheduled?

[Mr Heath]

I am responsible for a large number of things in my Department, but the scheduling of House business is not one of them. In my previous post, I might have been able to give the hon. Lady an answer, but in my current post I cannot. To be honest, now would not be the best time to have that debate because we are just reaching what we hope will be a conclusive meeting of the Council of Ministers. After that, we will have a much clearer idea of the outcomes and how they will be effected in the UK.

We recognise that there is still a need for targeted conservation action for our most threatened species. Natural England’s species recovery programme is designed to help with projects to support priority species, such as the short-haired bumblebee. Many Members have made the point that we are talking not just about the honey bee, but about many other native bee species and other non-bee pollinators. My noble Friend Lord de Mauley has announced that he is considering the development of a more holistic health strategy to cover all pollinators. He has been meeting interested parties, such as Friends of the Earth, to explore what added value that approach could bring.

We will continue with our wider work to understand and counter the various factors that harm bees and other pollinators. DEFRA’s chief scientific adviser and Ministers have met a number of interested parties to discuss that work, including non-governmental organisations. We will seek to host discussions with other stakeholders over the summer.

As I have said, there are many things that we do not yet understand about the reductions in pollinator populations. There are many major factors, including the varroa mite, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), foulbrood and the undoubted effects of climate change and environmental and ecological changes in this country. That is why some experts are very unclear as to the quantifiable effect of pesticides. The British Beekeepers Association keeps an open mind on that, as do we. We want to know what the connections are and to see the evidence.

Let us return to the issue of pesticides. As we heard in the debate, the European Commission recently adopted a ban on the use of three neonicotinoids on crops that are “attractive to bees” and on some cereal crops. The ban also covers amateur use, so the Government do not need to bring in an extension.

It is documented that we did not support action, the reason being that we had urged the Commission to complete a full assessment of the available scientific evidence, taking into account new field research that we had carried out. Let us talk about that because it is a serious issue. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North asked whether we reject laboratory evidence, but of course we do not; it is extraordinarily important. However, we would like some coherence between what we see in the laboratory and what we see in field trials. That does not make field trials the only thing that matter, but such a correlation is not presently there.

From laboratory tests we are clear that neonicotinoids have a toxicity for bees. We do not know, however, what the exposure is in a natural environment, and the two things go together. Many things are toxic but do not create a deleterious effect in the field simply because the exposure is too low. That is where we must do a lot more work, and that is exactly where we are commissioning it. We were clear that the work done by FERA was by no means a satisfactory field trial. We never pretended that it was; it had to be done quickly to meet a timetable—set not by us, but by others—to give at least some indication of whether that correlation was there. Incidentally, I will not accept criticism of FERA scientists on that basis. They are extremely good and do their work in a totally dispassionate and independent way on the best scientific principles. They were asked to do a quick piece of work—which they did—and that is why it was not peer reviewed, as would be normal practice. We felt it was important to put the matter in the hands of the Commission, which was about to make a decision on a highly contentious subject.

I make no apologies for recognising that there is, of course, a strong imperative to look at evidence that suggests a toxic consequence and, where possible, to take a precautionary approach to these matters. However, a precautionary approach is not as two-dimensional as sometimes suggested and must take into account the consequences of the action in question. The hon. Member for Glasgow South mentioned the economic consequences, and of course that is a factor, although not an overriding one.

Of far more concern is a point also raised by hon. Members about alternative pesticides that are fully legal under EU law and that it would be perfectly proper for people to use, such as pyrethroids, organophosphates or carbamates, because the potential is that they would be even more damaging to the pollinator population. That concern does not mean that we should not take action against neonicotinoids if the evidence is clear that they are causing problems in field conditions, but it was not unreasonable to say that the paucity of field-trial evidence was astonishing.

I do not have portfolio responsibility for this matter, but when I looked at it with a view sympathetic to what the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North was saying, I was amazed at how little evidence there was in field conditions, which I think exposes a failure of the scientific world to address the problem. I hope that we can play our part in persuading others across the European Union to take a more rational view of where we concentrate our research so that we get the evidence we need, and that is what we are trying to do. Although our assessment is that the risk to the bee population from neonicotinoids, as currently used, is low, we may be wrong and evidence may come forward from trials that shows otherwise. If such evidence is there, we shall, of course, accept it, but we need more complete evidence than we currently have.

The European Commission has committed itself to a review of evidence by 2015, which we want to be founded firmly on a strengthened scientific evidence base. We will play our part in that and are currently talking about the design of field trials that might be in place during the moratorium period, so that we can gather evidence, not just on the honey bee, but on other bee species as well. The FERA research was on the bumblebee rather than the honey bee. It is important that we understand how other species are affected.