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

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to introduce a scheme to permit or require the surrender of neonicotinoid pesticides for destruction to prevent them from entering waterways.

The Government does not have any such plan. For all pesticides, including neonicotinoids, there are legal requirements to store the product securely, use it according to its authorisation (which will include conditions considered appropriate to protect people and the environment) and dispose safely of any surplus.

Recent emergency authorisations for Cruiser SB as a seed treatment on sugar beet seed have carried very specific conditions. These include a requirement to dispose of unused stock by the end of the emergency authorisation period at the beginning of June. There should not, therefore, be any current stocks of the product.

Furthermore, we would not expect there to have been any significant surplus. Cruiser SB is applied in centralised facilities as a treatment to pre-ordered seed. The quantity required is therefore known in advance and there is no reason for additional stocks to have been acquired.