Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-10-20
Topic: Agriculture
John Lawrence Whitty (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I oppose the Commons deletion and commend Amendment 11B, which proposes a revised version of what was Clause 38 in the Bill as it left this House. I thank the Minister for his explanation, and for his courtesy, throughout this discussion and when meeting me yesterday, but I am afraid that he has not yet convinced me. I appreciate that many in this House do not regard this issue as important enough to be dealt with at this late stage in the Bill’s passage, but the Bill will define the future practice of agriculture in this country. We are dealing with agriculture’s relationship with nature, the environment, the food trade and so on, but it also must be about its relationship with those human beings who live and work in our countryside alongside that agriculture. Too many of those rural inhabitants have had health effects from exposure to pesticides, which have been and remain a serious threat to their physical quality of life. They deserve at least the limited and straightforward protection which my amendment provides by requiring the Government to regulate the distance between them and pesticide operations There have essentially been only three arguments from the Government against this principle. The first is what the Minister has just said: that the EU authorisation process nowadays ensures that even repeated exposure to the application of legally authorised pesticides cannot lead to serious health effects. I regret to say that medical reports and evidence from rural residents, some of which noble Lords will have seen, suggest substantially otherwise. Noble Lords will also recall the powerful speech on Report by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, on the medical issues that residents and others affected by pesticide poisoning have suffered I accept that there have been significant changes in EU pesticide authorisation, but they are not sufficient. One of the easiest and most obvious ways to prevent such exposure from causing health effects is to ensure that the exposure to crop spraying is at a prescribed minimum distance from where people are most likely to be: in their own homes, their children’s schools, and so on The principle of my original amendment continues to be supported by many in this House, if not all, including my original co-sponsors the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, of the Liberal Democrats, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, of the Conservatives, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb for the Greens, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. However, perhaps it was phrased a little loosely. The main objection in the other place by the Defra Minister, Victoria Prentis—she used slightly overstated terms—was that it would close every field to pesticide application. That was never the intention, so we have deleted the wording which gave rise to that objection and taken out what was originally subsection (1)(b). The only open spaces referred to now are those that are part of education or healthcare facilities. That should deal with the substantive objections that were made from the Government Benches in the Commons The other objection, repeated by the Minister just now and in the wording of the Commons reasons, is that Ministers already have these powers. I have two comments on this. There is a key word in my amendment —"must". If Ministers did have these powers, they have not used them. This amendment would require them to produce draft regulations and to submit them to the usual consultations, and then to both Houses. At the last stage, and in correspondence, Ministers argued that they had possessed these powers since the EU directive in 2009 and the transposition of that in 2012. The Minister has just said that they have actually had these powers since the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985. There is no specific reference there to distance or to residential property—there is a brief reference to healthcare facilities—but even if Ministers are right, and they do in general terms have the right to prescribe distance, why have they not done so in the eight years since the transposition of the EU regulation, and in particular since that 1985 Act? If they are claiming that they already have those powers, they must explain to the House why they have not used them. If we do not pass my amendment indicating that they must introduce such regulations, we may have to wait another 35 years for rural residents to be protected I give notice—I should have done so at the beginning —that, unless I hear something different from the Minister, I intend to press this amendment to a Division at the end of this debate.