Plant Protection Products (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-12
Topic: Environment
John Eric Gardiner (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. I do not think that I will be in a position to satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in that, in the whole process of bringing these matters back, the HSE is deemed to be the relevant body in this country. However, I obviously note his observations about the UK and the EU, and the concern that he raised about both EU and UK regulation. As far as this SI is concerned, I take his general point, but I am dealing with the fact that the HSE is our regulator I want to open with the precautionary principle—a matter raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Jones of Whitchurch. I suspect that, as with a lot of the issues relating to these statutory instruments, one needs a dossier to understand how everything is pitched. However, I reassure noble Lords that the precautionary principle is expressly a part of the plant protection product regime. It is specifically referred to in Article 1 of EU Regulation 1107/2009 as the underpinning basis of the provisions of the regime in protecting health and the environment. This statutory reference will be retained in UK law after leaving the EU. The precautionary principle is not mentioned in this particular instrument simply because it is not being amended, so nothing in our instrument affects it. I am most grateful for the opportunity to give that reassurance A number of points were made on the issue of decision-making, which the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, raised. We will be taking our own independent decisions under the UK-wide regime but the instruments carry across all the statutory requirements on standards of protection unchanged. All the considerable body of EU technical guidance which has been officially noted under the EU regulations, and which sets the standards to be met in informing decisions, is carried across by these instruments and will remain the basis for the national regime I am parking the point that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, made. On the capacity of the regulator, it is important that I should emphasise that the national regulator, the HSE, is recognised across the world as having considerable expertise, and it has a very strong scientific standing. It currently covers a substantial share of the workload under the EU regime and is by some way the best-performing national EU regulator in terms of meeting timescales. For that reason, many international companies have chosen to make their applications under the EU regime via the HSE, due to its excellent record. The HSE’s considerable capacity will be redeployed to deliver the national regime. Much of the scientific work under the current regime already takes place at national level, so there will be a good degree of continuity I can confirm to the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Jones of Whitchurch, that extra public funding will be required from government for the national legislative framework for pesticides, plus the related policy and regulatory capability to operate a UK-wide regime. While budgets for future years have not yet been finalised, this will vary depending on the exit scenario. However, additional costs will be broadly in the order of £5 million per year, with slightly more in the set-up phase over the first couple of years. The costs relate primarily to additional staff in Defra and the HSE to manage the additional responsibilities that will fall at national level but also—I hope this will please the noble Lord, Lord Whitty—to a lesser extent the Environment Agency In developing our national renewals programme, we will need to look at issues such as how best to collaborate internationally. Again, I emphasise that obviously so much of these matters may be—we hope it will be—the subject of negotiations and the deal that is achieved, which we also fervently want. But on all these matters, both in the European and UK prisms, collaboration is always best The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, raised a point about independent scientific expertise. Independent advice and assurance are invaluable; in my experience of dealing with these matters, and certainly when we came to the neonicotinoids issue, we relied on the best scientific assessment available. While I have been at Defra, that has been the mantra for all these matters. Perhaps one of the current Ministers is a scientist by background but certainly I am not, so scientific evidence and independent scientific experience is vital I emphasise that our existing independent advice arrangements primarily draw on the expertise of the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides. The ECP is chaired by Professor William Cushley of the University of Glasgow and has a broad range of important expertise. Its membership includes academics with expertise in ecotoxicology, toxicology, the fate of pesticides in the environment, and pesticide residues in food. In other words, these are experts who are most vital to providing us with the right advice.