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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Health and Safety Executive's emergency authorisation of the use of the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam on sugar beet granted in January 2021, whether the risk assessment undertaken for that application considered the risk to (a) bees and (b) other pollinators of being exposed via pollen and nectar in wildflower margins adjacent to the treated sugar beet crop.

Any consideration of possible authorisation of a pesticide, including emergency authorisation, starts from the information provided by the applicant. Those carrying out the risk assessment will also draw on their wider knowledge. In this case, the assessment carried out by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for Cruiser SB took account of an earlier assessment by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

The EFSA work considered honeybees, bumblebees and solitary bees, although the available data mostly relates to honeybees. HSE’s assessment considered the risks from residues of thiamethoxam in the soil being taken up by flowering plants attractive to bees in future years. The assessment focussed on following crops such as oilseed rape, which have a greater potential to expose bees than wildflowers in field margins.