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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the environmental risks to allow the use of neonicotinoid thiamethoxam pesticides on sugar beet seed; and what assessment he has made of how that evidence differs from the evidence used in 2018.

The Government considered the potential risks to the environment posed by the use of the product Cruiser SB on the basis of expert scientific assessment, and in accordance with the requirements for the grant of an emergency authorisation set out in Regulation (EC) 1107/2009. The Government concluded that, when mitigated by the strict conditions attached to the emergency authorisation, these risks were acceptably low in the circumstances and outweighed by the benefits of use. The Government remains committed to tight controls on neonicotinoids and has no intention of lifting the restrictions that were put in place in 2018.

Each application for emergency authorisation is considered on its own merits and particular facts. The application made for use this year contained new scientific information relevant to the assessment of environmental risks and made some different proposals for conditions of use, including a reduced application rate and a longer period between sowing the treated sugar beet seed and planting any flowering crop.