Sugar Beet: Neonicotinoids

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

If we did consider giving this permission, we would then have to apply thresholds. They may be different from the thresholds we applied last year. The noble Baroness is absolutely right: that threshold was not reached and so no seed dressings were applied. I hope very much that that will be the case this year.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister said that the Government have not yet made their decision, and referred to the advice from the Health and Safety Executive and the Expert Committee on Pesticides. I invite, encourage and ask the Minister to consult, as part of his decision-making, a body such as the Royal Society of Biology, the expert professional body in this field, which is full of an enormous amount of expertise—and, moreover, like other scientific bodies of this kind, has a duty under its charter to serve the public interest. Will he consider approaching it for advice?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are open to any advice. There are people from the Royal Society, Rothamsted and many other organisations that provide information, much of which was based on the ban that we introduced in 2018 and any of the conditions that we might make for exemptions this time. The noble Viscount is therefore absolutely right to raise the widest possible type of evidence to be sought.