Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will list the chemicals that have been banned from use in the UK as a result of EU legislation over the last five years.

EU legislation requires that pesticides can only be sold or used if the active substance has been approved by the EU and the product containing it has been authorised nationally. Approval and authorisation depend on scientific assessment of risks to health and the environment. The assessment is based on the information available at the time and, if approval or authorisation is refused, it remains open for a fresh application to be made if new data addresses the safety concerns.

Information on approvals and on active substances that are no longer approved, can be found on the European Commission’s database at https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/eu-pesticides-database/public/?event=homepage&language=EN. Information on UK authorisations can be found on the Health and Safety Executive website at https://www.hse.gov.uk/pesticides/databases/index.htm. This does not include information about authorisations that have been withdrawn.

Companies that see limited sales from a pesticide can of course withdraw an active substance or product at any point. These cases cannot readily be identified from the databases.