Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
8 FEBRUARY 2005
DR MARK
AVERY, JIM
DENSHAM, LORD
PETER MELCHETT
AND MICHAEL
GREEN
Q160 Chairman: We will continue with
evidence from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and
the Soil Association and I would like to welcome Dr Mark Avery,
the Conservation Director from the RSPB, Jim Densham, the Agricultural
Policy Officer, and from the Soil Association Lord Peter Melchett,
the Policy Director, and Michael Green, the Policy Officer. Thank
you all very much for coming and for your written evidence. Unlike
the previous witnesses, I think both of your organisations have
had a lot to say about the positive results of the Voluntary Initiative,
such as being successful in uniting the agrochemical industry
in a common aid and developing a sense of responsibility, which
is what the RSPB said. The Soil Association said that they succeeded
in raising awareness, generating some management plans, getting
the farmers to inspect their sprayers, and so on and so forth.
So you have seen some very positive elements. I want to begin
by asking you just how successful you think that the Voluntary
Initiative has been in achieving the targets that were set for
it?
Dr Avery: If we could kick off?
We would not want to be churlish. We think that the Voluntary
Initiative has achieved some things and, as you say, we think
it has helped to bring the agrochemical and farming industries
together and concentrated their minds. We are disappointed with
progress though, and can I just clear up the 75% figure that has
been mentioned in the last few minutes? 75% of the arable area
in this country is sprayed by operators who are on the National
Register of Sprayer Operators. That does not mean that those operators
have actually gone through the sprayer-testing scheme; it does
not mean that there are Crop Protection Management Plans for all
of that area. If there are Crop Protection Management Plans it
does not mean that they are actually being implemented over the
whole of that area, and even if they were they would not necessarily
be good enough to reduce the pesticide impacts that we are all
worried about. So I would not want the Committee to think that
we are 75% of the way there—wherever there is—because
we are a long way away from that. We think VI has been useful,
but I would say that we are losing patience with it because we
do not think it has been as good as it should have been.
Q161 Chairman: Can you pinpoint the main
successes?
Dr Avery: I think the main successes
are that it has concentrated the mind, that people have worked
together.
Q162 Chairman: Does that matter if they
are not achieving? That is the question, is it not?
Dr Avery: It is a start. As I
said, we would not wish to be churlish; we think it is a start
towards the right direction. But the end point of all of this
policy work, Voluntary Initiatives and everything else, ought
to be a National Pesticide Strategy which has clear end objectives
of where we want to be, which sets objective for pesticide residues
in food, pesticide levels in water courses and the impacts of
pesticides on wildlife. Voluntary Initiative is a useful first
step towards that end point, but it is quite a long journey and
it is only a small step so far, we would say.
Q163 Chairman: As you have the floor,
before I bring in the Soil Association, do you want to say what
the major weaknesses are—you have just referred to some—so
that we have a clear picture of the successes and major weaknesses,
before we look elsewhere?
Mr Densham: I think the major
weakness is that it was put as a VI or a tax and it was not fitting
in to any sort of strategy, any sort of formalised National Pesticide
Strategy, which we have been waiting for for two years, from Defra.
Without those targets and those clearly set out ideals, end results
set out in a strategy, it has been quite hard, I think, for the
VI to know where it is really aiming at and to have a good steer.
That is what we feel has been a problem and a weakness. So there
have been positive points; we really think that it has—as
Dr Avery said—helped awareness raising and that is a positive
point. However, another weakness is that some of the projects
that have been put in place, have been relatively unambitious
in their targets. For example, we have heard about the coverage
of 75% of arable area under the sprayer operators. However, one
of our major criticisms relates to the Crop Protection Management
Plans. Even though they are a positive thing and they potentially
could do really good work and get farmers to really see what they
are doing on their farms—and that is included in the Entry
Level Scheme—the target is only there to cover 30% of arable
land and that is only arable land at this stage. So we
would really like to see that covering a much larger percentage
of arable land as well as non-arable land.
Q164 Chairman: Do you also have the view
that a farmer could tick all the boxes but actually be performing
very poorly, but would be credited with having the plan and that
is a positive?
Mr Densham: That is true. I myself
sit on the VI Steering Group and we are working in a sub-group
to look at Crop Protection Management Plans, and it is true that
some farmers could say they have done it and they could just keep
it on their shelf and not really refer to it throughout the year.
However, we are trying to create ways that they can have feedback.
So they fill them in, they have them analysed—we analyse
them and send the results out—and they can judge themselves
and they can try to see where they fit into the rest of their
industry and their peers. So those things are positive and, like
I say, there have been positives from the VI and good techniques
and tools come out, but we would like to see the targets to be
more ambitious in the future.
Q165 Chairman: If I turn to the Soil
Association and ask you the same questions really—the successes
and the weaknesses?
Lord Melchett: I agree with what
the RSPB have said about what has been achieved, but I do not
think it has been of great significance. I think the Voluntary
Initiative has some major inherent flaws, inherent in the Initiative,
and that there should be a tax, definitely. So that is our position,
and quite unambiguous. The inherent flaws seem to us to be twofold:
first, that inevitably a voluntary scheme of any sort will attract
those who are most enthusiastic about its objectives and be least
good covering those who are least enthusiastic. In other words,
people who are most irresponsible in their use of sprays are the
people who it is going to be most difficult, if not impossible,
to get into a Voluntary Initiative, and they are effectively free
riders. The irresponsible users of sprays benefit most from the
Voluntary Initiative and that is an inherent flaw in a voluntary
scheme. I do not see any way it can be addressed, and it is one
of the reasons why a tax is required. Secondly, the Voluntary
Initiative does nothing to address the current market distortion
in food, whereby people buying organic food effectively subsidise
the use of pesticides because they pay as taxpayers the costs
which fall on society as a whole from the use of pesticides. Cleaning
up drinking water they pay for through their water bills, but
all the other regulation and so on of pesticides, which taxpayers
pay for, organic consumers are paying, and then they pay slightly
more for food produced without pesticides. That market distortion
is grossly unfair to the organic farmers and could only be addressed
through a tax; it cannot be addressed through a Voluntary Initiative.
So the Voluntary Initiative has had some impact in generating
plans and inspection of sprayers—not something I think is
a matter of public policy but a factor of good practice in any
event—but it has inherent flaws which a tax would address
and only a tax would address.
Q166 Chairman: Can I ask RSPB, do you
think that there are ways in which the Voluntary Initiative can
be improved, or do you think that it is necessary to go to compulsion
in order to raise this from what is a positive but small contribution
to a more comprehensive programme covering everybody who is a
user, et cetera, which could either be done by a tax or by other
fiscal incentives? Where do you stand on compulsion and improving
the Voluntary Initiative as it is?
Dr Avery: We believe in both.
We believe that there is a place for voluntary action and that
that could be done much better, but that ought to be seen as part
of the package for regulation. A pesticide tax would be one option
which we would still support. And it really is putting too much
of a burden on the voluntary approach to think that it can do
everything. It can do some things but it cannot do everything.
So government needs a package of measures which deal across the
board with the types of issues that there are, and it is unfair
to think that the Voluntary Initiative can do all of it.
Q167 Chairman: You probably know that
the Farmers Union and the other witnesses that we saw on our previous
occasion would all consider it entirely unfair to impose a pesticides
tax. How can you justify that compulsion and the cost?
Dr Avery: I think part of the
deal for the Voluntary Initiative is that the industry is going
to show great strides and progress without having a tax imposed
on them, which we do not think they have done, in order to escape
the tax. In fact if you look at the website for the Voluntary
Initiative it says, "Voluntary Initiative helping biodiversity
and making sure we do not get a pesticides tax." So I am
not surprised that the industry is not keen on the tax, and I
think that there are real difficulties about designing a tax which
would work well to reduce the impacts and which would be a fair
tax and not have perverse impacts. But we do think that a tax,
if properly designed and implemented, ought to be part of a whole
package of measures. Or at least it ought to be looked at. We
should not discount it at the moment; it is there as an option
and it is a real option and clearly it is an option that has been
used in other countries in Europe who have already gone that far.
Q168 Chairman: Soil Association?
Lord Melchett: I agree with what
Mark has said. You could argue that it is a little unfair for
British farmers to be exempt from the tax when a number of other
European countries, who are competing with our farmers in the
market place, are already subject to a tax and a tax which, at
least in some countries, there is good evidence it is having the
desired effect of impacting on the use of pesticides, which is
not what you were told in evidence in earlier session. But the
report to Defra makes that quite clear.
Q169 Mr Drew: If we can look at the issue
of how you are working with the VI at the moment. Are you both
represented on the Steering Board?
Lord Melchett: The Soil Association
does not have any great expertise in the use of pesticides as
we do not use them! So it maybe for that reason we have not been
invited.
Q170 Mr Drew: There is always opportunity
of education, Peter, on both sides. Obviously RSPB have been,
as you have just mentioned. We heard quite a robust defence of
the VI, both from the industry and farmers' representatives when
we met them in the first session. Are you saying what you are
saying to us to them and they have not quite got the message yet,
or is there a complete and utter divide over this and they have
a mindset now which is, VI good, tax bad?
Mr Densham: I think the industry
is more forward thinking than that, that it is starting to not
really think about it as a pure tax versus the VI—one or
the other. We have been there since the beginning and I hope our
attendance has been helpful. I have not been on it from the beginning,
which is why I say that. So we have been there as advisors. We
are not signatories to the VI, we are there advising those who
are the signatories to give them the best of our advice, with
the Environment Agency on water, with English Nature, with ourselves
on birds and wildlife so that we can help them to steer and try
to achieve their biodiversity targets. So we are very keen to
try to help them because we want to see the best for farmland
and farmland birds.
Q171 Mr Drew: So are you taking part
in some of the evaluations when you are literally going out and
doing some measurement? You may be doing that anyway because you
would be looking at the impact on birds' species. But there is
cooperation, there is engagement there, that you could not criticise
them for trying to shut you out—that is actually going on?
Mr Densham: Absolutely, yes. We
think that our working relationships are quite productive and
we are always open about what we think, and I hope that they understand
what we say. And we do try not to be very critical but try to
work with them.
Lord Melchett: Can I just say
something about the relationship between different sectors of
the farming industry? If you had been reading Farmers' Weekly
the last couple of months I think you would have a pretty clear
indication that there was not much coming together between organic
and non-organic on the question of pesticides—there has
been a vigorous correspondence. And it is not surprising. If you
were a non-organic farmer and the taxpayers were effectively paying
some of the costs associated with your use of pesticides you would
fight very hard to continue to see taxpayers pay those costs because
it gives you a competitive advantage—we think an unfair
one. But you are not going to have them come along—either
them or the industry—and say voluntarily, "No, no,
the taxpayers should not be paying for this, we will cough up.
Please tax us," that would be a pretty unique occurrence.
But, frankly, that surely is the job of the Committee and the
government to decide where these costs should fall? Should the
costs fall on society as a whole or on industry producing the
costs? We would say that they should fall on industry and that
that is fair and normal practice outside agriculture.
Q172 Mr Drew: Let us touch on this idea
which obviously the Soil Association is firmly committed to, which
is that there has to be a pesticides tax and you are equivocal
that you are not happy with progress on the VI. It does seem that
there is some questioning going on about the validity of that
tax, and the whole point about taxation is that it has to be very
clear what it is trying to achieve. In the previous session—and
you all sat in on it—there were some mixed metaphors going
on about is it really there to change attitudes or is it to do
with raising some money which you could then put into ways of
doing things differently, which may include making the Voluntary
Initiative more effective? Can you help me get clear in my mind
where you are at with the advantage of a tax?
Dr Avery: We believe that a tax,
if properly designed, could reduce the impacts of pesticides on
the environment, and that is what we are interested in. That is
not quite the same as the amount of pesticides used, as you have
heard already, but we would want to reduce pesticide impacts.
To do that the tax has to be carefully designed, and unfortunately
because life is complicated those pesticides which are most potentially
damaging to human health are not always the same pesticides that
would have the biggest impacts on wildlife, and they are not always
the pesticides that most easily find their way into watercourses.
So you have a complicated system where different pesticides are
good and bad along different axes, so that makes designing a tax
where ideally you would just be able to say, "Here is a good
pesticide, here is a bad pesticide, we will slap a big tax on
the bad pesticide" rather more complicated. I would not say
we are equivocal, we think the pesticides tax has a role to play,
but it would have to be a pesticides tax that took that complexity
into account in the real world because otherwise, as you have
heard before, a pesticides tax could have perverse impacts and
that would not suit us and it would not suit society. The other
thing we would say about the design of the pesticides tax is that
we would wish to see the revenues hypothecated back into the farming
industry, ideally back into paying for other means to deal with
the impacts of pesticides. We would not support a tax that just
took money out and gave it to the Treasury. That would just clobber
the farming industry. If it were badly designed it would not reduce
pesticide impacts and that would be a bad tax, we would say. So
we are not equivocal. I am afraid the RSPB does see the real difficulties
of designing a tax, and we think work should be done on that.
We think the Treasury ought to be doing that work, and if we had
a proposed tax in front of us it would be easy for us to say that,
yes, that is a good tax or no, it is a bad one, and I think just
talking about the pesticides tax in the abstract probably is not
helpful because everybody has a slightly different idea of what
it should do and what it might look like.
Lord Melchett: May I just say
that our position is slightly different? Our priority would be
to see a tax to level the playing field between organic and non-organic
farming. That would be our first priority and that could be a
simple tax. I agree with the position that the RSPB and others
have taken, that you have with this tax the added potential benefit
of banding the tax to achieve environmental objectives as well
as simply raising money. So that would be a second, desirable
objective which we would certainly support. But in the first instance,
you could have a tax which would level the playing field and give
the market a chance to work properly, which we would welcome.
Q173 Mr Wiggin: So can I just clarify
that? You would like to see the tax levied and then given to the
water companies?
Lord Melchett: No, I did not mention
the water companies, I just said levy the tax.
Q174 Mr Wiggin: But earlier you said
that organic customers were penalised because they paid a premium
for their organic products and then they paid their water bills.
So when the money is levied from the pesticide users surely that
means you want to give it back to the water companies?
Lord Melchett: No, because that
was not the only cost I mentioned. There are a number of costs
which fall on taxpayers as a whole and the public purse as a whole,
the cost of enforcement, of running the Environment Agency, and
a number of other costs of that sort, most of the pesticide regulation—although
some is already covered by a very modest pesticide tax, that is
true. So that already exists. We are interested in seeing the
market work properly, and you mentioned that earlier and that
is something that we would support. And we do not think that organic
farming should be disadvantaged by allowing those who use pesticides
to call on the public purse to pay some of the costs, or on people
as a whole through water bills.
Q175 Mr Wiggin: How would you then level
the playing field?
Lord Melchett: By imposing a tax
on the use of pesticides, and ideally then achieve additional
and environmental benefits in the way that the RSPB have outlined.
Q176 Mr Wiggin: That would not necessarily
level the playing field, would it? That would change the pricing
structure but it would not effectively do what you wanted to do.
Lord Melchett: Yes, I think it
would. It would go a long way. None of these economic instruments
are going to be perfect and they are always fairly imprecise in
their impact. That is true of all taxation and this would not
be any different from that, just as it would not be any different
if people were trying to stockpile pesticides as they try and
stockpile cigarettes. I think those are arguments either against
all taxation or they are not valid arguments.
Q177 Mr Wiggin: What I am worried about
is that the Chancellor would leap on the fact that it is not actually
possible to level the playing field because of the reasons you
have just given, and then keep the tax and we would all be at
a disadvantage. That is why I am pressing you on this one.
Lord Melchett: I do not think
that farmers who do not use pesticides or who minimise their use
of pesticides would be disadvantaged in the circumstances you
outlined; they would be advantaged competitively and that would
be good for them, and it would be good in terms of achieving the
government's new objectives for agriculture which are to see agriculture
produce food that the customers want. We know that they want to
avoid pesticide residues—that is the Food Standards Agency's
advice—and we know that the government want agriculture
to be more sustainable.
Dr Avery: Could I just chip in
that if there were a pesticide tax that reduced pesticides going
into water then clearly the water consumer would benefit because
we are paying as a whole in England and Wales £122 million
a year in our water rates as the cost of removing pesticides from
water, and the water companies have invested something like £3.6
million in capital investment to have the kit to take the pesticides
out. So if you had a tax which solved that problem some farmers
would lose out—unless the tax were hypothecated—organic
farmers would benefit because the playing field would be adjusted
in their favour, and the water consumers would benefit in that
case. So exactly how—
Q178 Mr Wiggin: I am sorry, the Chancellor
is going to keep the money for the Met Office because we clearly
heard that the problem with pesticides is that when it rains they
go into the water! We have to face up to the fact that it is going
to be very difficult to get the level playing field that the Soil
Association is talking about, all the benefits from taxation that
you want. I am sympathetic but I do think that we are up against
it.
Lord Melchett: There are three
separate issues being confused, I think: the level playing field;
the banding, which achieves the objectives we both want; hypothecation,
which will put the money back into farmers' pockets in some way,
hopefully organic as well as non-organic farmers, which is the
thing you are raising objections to. I think our objectives are
met by the first two things, the existence of a tax and a banding
system which impacts on those that do most environmental damage.
I am not insisting on hypothecation because I know the Treasury
do not like it.
Q179 Chairman: We do need to move on,
we are getting behind, but Dr Avery said that if we had a draft
tax before us we could make a comment. I just want to ask if you
have studied at all the Norwegian example, and if so what you
have made of that? Does it work?
Dr Avery: We have had a look at
that and I will pass over to my colleague in just a moment. We
have also done some work ourselves to look at the whole issue
of whether banding is feasible in this country. We think it is
but we think it is difficult, so we have done some work which
convinces us that this is still a live issue and a practical way
forward, but, as I say, we would want it to be banded and we would
want hypothecation before we would be in favour of the tax.
Chairman: I think I will leave it there
without getting your colleague in because we need to pass on.
Paddy Tipping.
| 
