Aims and scope of the inquiry
1. In 2001, the Government decided to pursue its
policy objective of minimising the adverse environmental impacts
of pesticide use through a partnership approach—the Voluntary
Initiative (VI)—rather than a tax on pesticides. The VI
is a package of measures, developed by the agricultural and agrochemical
industries, focussing on training, research and the communication
of best practice in the use of pesticides. Since the VI began,
its progress has been monitored closely. In July 2004, with the
VI over three years into its five-year programme, we decided to
examine the impact of the initiative to date, as well as other
possible approaches to achieving the same ends. We appointed a
Sub-Committee to undertake this inquiry, chaired by Joan Ruddock.
The Sub-Committee's other members were Mr David Drew, Mr Alan
Simpson, Paddy Tipping and Mr Bill Wiggin.
2. In the course of our inquiry, we received written
memoranda from 41 organisations and individuals. The Sub-Committee
took oral evidence on four occasions in January and February 2005,
hearing from: the Crop Protection Association; the Agricultural
Industries Confederation; the National Farmers' Union; Friends
of the Earth; Pesticide Action Network-UK; the Royal Society for
the Protection of Birds; the Soil Association; the Environment
Agency; the Advisory Committee on Pesticides; the Committee on
Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the
Environment; Professor Barry Dent, independent Chairman of the
VI Steering Group; and Rt Hon Alun Michael, Minister of State
for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality, accompanied
by senior officials from the Pesticides Safety Directorate and
HM Treasury. We are most grateful to all those who gave us written
and oral evidence or otherwise assisted us during the course of
our inquiry.
3. As responsibility for pesticides is a devolved
matter, references to Government policy in this report should
be read as referring to England. The VI on pesticides operates
on a UK-wide basis. If a pesticides tax were to be introduced,
it would probably be introduced across the whole of the UK.[1]
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