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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 258-iv House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE (SUB-COMMITTEE ON PROGRESS ON PESTICIDES)
Thursday 24 February 2005 RT HON ALUN MICHAEL MP, DR SUE POPPLE, MR PAUL O'SULLIVAN and DR IAN DEWHURST Evidence heard in Public Questions 317 - 372
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (Sub-Committee on Progress on Pesticides) on Thursday 24 February 2005 Members present Joan Ruddock, in the Chair Alan Simpson Paddy Tipping Mr Bill Wiggin ________________ Memorandum submitted by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and HM Treasury
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Rt Hon Alun Michael, a Member of the House, Minister of State for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Dr Sue Popple, Policy Director, Dr Ian Dewhurst, Principal Scientist (Toxicology), Pesticides Safety Directorate; and Mr Paul O'Sullivan, Head of Environmental and Transport Tax Team, HM Treasury, examined. Q317 Chairman: We are ready to start with our continuing inquiry into the Progress on Pesticides. I am delighted to welcome today the Rt Hon Alun Michael, MP, Minister of State for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality from Defra, Dr Sue Popple from the Pesticides Safety Directorate and Paul O'Sullivan, Head of Environmental and Transport Tax Team at the Treasury, and we are joined by Ian Dewhurst whose designation I do not have. Dr Dewhurst: Toxicologist from the Pesticides Safety Directorate. Q318 Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. Welcome to all of you. Thank you for coming and giving us your time. Obviously we have had some written material and we have had a great deal of oral evidence presented to us over the course of our inquiry, which I have to say has left us in a state of some confusion as to just what has been happening in terms of real progress on pesticides and particularly in relation to the Voluntary Initiative. We hope to get enlightenment from the Minister today. I want to start by looking at a quote that came from the 2004 Pre-Budget Report which said that the Voluntary Initiative "is the most effective way of reducing the environmental pollution associated with pesticides" provided that it is "fully implemented". May I ask why it is the best way and has it been fully implemented? Alun Michael: I think in order to answer that question we have to look at the background. The Labour Government came in, in 1997, with a commitment to considering the use of fiscal measures to tackle environmental issues. What happened then was that the then Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions commissioned ECOTEC Research and Consulting Limited to investigate the potential for a pesticides tax to achieve environmental benefit. ECOTEC's report suggested that a tax could be applied on a banded basis at the point of first use or of sale, but following publication of the company's report the Treasury then undertook a public consultation exercise and that closed in June 1999. That consultation raised a lot of questions, particularly concerns as to whether a tax would be an effective means to achieve the end of reducing the environmental impact of pesticides. It must be borne in mind that the commitment to examine a tax was not about raising revenue, it was about changing behaviour and protecting the environment and human health, so the question of whether it would work to that end was the issue rather than the question of what finance it would raise. What happened as a result of those discussions, as I am sure you are aware by now, was that the Crop Protection Association proposed a voluntary approach. After a period of negotiated improvement on the package offered, Budget 2001 invited the industry to implement the package nationwide and yield environmental benefits above and beyond those a pesticides tax might yield. So it was a comparison of whether that approach would do more or less than a pesticides tax that was the essence of that decision. I think in some ways the nature of the title, which I gather took up quite a considerable amount of ministerial and official time, is not necessarily the best. When I took over this responsibility a couple of years ago I made the comment that I thought the title, the Voluntary Initiative, made it sound as if it was about community engagement in rural villages. It is a title that does not necessarily describe the approach to pesticides. Therefore, we now refer to it as the Voluntary Initiative on Pesticides in order to make that clear. We felt because the title had become recognised it was not one to change now. Nevertheless, I think it might be in the future because "voluntary" makes it sound as if it is an option but it is not, the suggestion is that it is a better way of doing things, to do things with the engagement of the industry, full information and understanding of the impact and with the intention of changing behaviour in a variety of ways, practices, not just in terms of spraying but what happens within the farmyard and in the management of materials that are used as well. That was more likely to be more comprehensive in its effect than simply taxing and, therefore, addressing only the amount that is purchased or the amount that is used. Initially, it is fair to say that there was something of a gap between those involved in the Initiative and the aspirations of Government but it was agreed that it was the industry that should put its measures in place. Since then it has become much more of a partnership. I think there are a number of points that are worth making on this because they go right to the heart of improvement and, therefore, progression in terms of the outcomes that are achieved. We recognised from the start that it was challenging for the Initiative to demonstrate environmental results straight away but it has done well in pulling the industry together to provide a concerted response, and that is very much to be welcomed. Some of the projects have made good progress but others, such as indicator farms, have some way to go. I think our view is that the Initiative does need to be challenged and that is a continual process because every time we have any discussions I feel that is part of my role as the responsible minister. It needs robust targets. I think it is worth just making the point that Professor Barry Dent has recently provided us with proposals on water and biodiversity targets which have only just been received which are being considered by us and, as you will be aware, he chairs the Steering Group. The final point that I would want to make in setting the context is that it is not a question, as a decision on fiscal measures would be, of a one-off decision but of a continual relationship and continual improvement. We see the Initiative as something that more and more has to move from being best practice to being standard practice. Workers also have to go on looking at the sorts of tools that can measure outcomes in order that we can both squeeze out the best possible results from this Initiative and continue to be assured that it is the best way of approaching it, that that is our view. From a Treasury point of view, given that you quoted specifically from the 2004 Budget Statement, perhaps --- Q319 Chairman: May I just say in response that obviously we are more than aware of the relationship between the threat of a pesticides tax and the start of the Voluntary Initiative but this is a quote from last year. Alun Michael: Yes, quite. Q320 Chairman: After four years of experience. The evidence that we have taken does not convince us that there has been a great deal of achievement in terms of environmental aims. There has been quite a lot of achievement in terms of good practice of operators but in terms of environmental gains we have not seen the proof of that, so I am wondering why after four years it is still considered the best approach. Alun Michael: When you say that you have not had any evidence, the evidence from the Environment Agency is that the incidence of pesticides exceeding the EU Drinking Water Directive limits of detection of 0.1 μg per litre has dropped by 23 per cent over a five year period to 2003. What we have been looking for is, if you like, not just overarching indicators like that but better tools to demonstrate a positive link with changes in practice, whether it be in the farmyard or in spraying practice, or another issue which is the maintenance of spraying machinery, for instance. There is evidence of considerable progress. Certainly I would not say that it is perfect or where we want to be but, as I say, this is about changing behaviour, changing attitudes, changing professional practices, and that should see a continual improvement over time rather than a one-off improvement. Q321 Chairman: Minister, I need to respond to that because, again, we have taken evidence from the Environment Agency, we have taken evidence from a lot of sources, but what we are unable to be absolutely certain about is that these improvements, particularly in water pollution, are a direct result of the Voluntary Initiative. Even the Environment Agency, I think, says that there is uncertainty around that causal relationship. Alun Michael: I am not sure whether uncertainty is the right word. I think proof of a direct relationship is more challenging and that is why we have been trying to develop tools which will allow us to be much more precise. I acknowledge entirely the need for that to be developed but there are the six Voluntary Initiative river catchments and on all six of those pesticide reduction trends are promising. We are not complacent. As I said, the relationship between Defra and the Voluntary Initiative is one of challenging. What we want to do is to challenge the Initiative and, therefore, those who are actually undertaking the work on the ground in a way that pushes them as far as possible without being unrealistic or asking for changes which cannot be achieved within a reasonable timescale, but it has to be continual improvement both in terms of the challenge, the targets set, the improvement of the methodology that we use and then trying to take everything a step further again. Mr O'Sullivan: Really, I think the initial position about why a Voluntary Initiative rather than a pesticides tax, as put forward, is wholly consistent with Treasury thinking at the time and the position now. The reason why we did not pursue a pesticides tax at the time was initially the ECOTEC work and then the subsequent consultation work on the Voluntary Initiative suggesting that if you want to get reductions in water pollutions and the environmental outcomes you want it is far more important to tackle where pesticides are being used, when they are being used, how they are being used, how they are being handled in farmyards, those sorts of issues. If you had a straightforward tax you would have some impact on the overall level of pesticides used depending on how you price it but that would have none of the behavioural changes in terms of how pesticides were being applied that you were trying to achieve. So you would have a tax on farmers that might in many ways be interpreted as them doing their bit via a tax on pesticides but without those changes in behaviour you would not have any of the impacts coming through in terms of pollution and environmental impact. I think our view is given the Voluntary Initiative as put forward by the industry at the time, that was potentially a much better and more cost-effective way of changing behaviour without the administration and complexity required in setting up the tax. Whether it has been fully implemented and whether it has achieved any of those outcomes remains to be seen. I think the key test is the evaluation in 2006. Clearly as we and Defra have been discussing this with the industry and with the Steering Group we have been learning about this and we have been providing some of the targets and we have seen some good progress there. I think the key test will be in 2006 with the evaluation of the Voluntary Initiative as to how it has performed against the targets it has set itself and then how well those targets have translated into the reduction of pollution and environmental outcomes. Q322 Chairman: So wait until 2006 is your view? Mr O'Sullivan: I think having set in place a Voluntary Initiative it would be premature at this point in time to start concluding that the Initiative was not delivering, particularly given some of the good signs of success we have seen coming through and the ongoing engagement improvement in some of the indicators and some of the targets that have already been set under the Voluntary Initiative are currently being brought forward. Alun Michael: Can I just say that I do not think it is a question of waiting until then in the sense of the continual discussion and improvement. You will be aware of the work that we commissioned with Newcastle University, which I referred to a moment ago in terms of trying to develop tools. That has proved quite difficult and challenging. The work that has been undertaken is currently subject to peer review and will be published once we have it in a form in which we can be confident about what is being said. It demonstrates some difficulty in getting to exactly the point you referred to earlier of being able to demonstrate a direct relationship. One of the things that are worth bearing in mind is that 40 per cent of water contamination is caused by run-off from farmyards. That is data that has been confirmed by the Crop Protection Association and Friends of the Earth. That means that it is not about the quantity of pesticide that is being used which would be addressed by a tax, but how it is being used, how containers are dealt with after material has been put into sprays. Another issue is the efficiency and effectiveness of spraying machinery. I am not sure if this is a point that has been brought up, but it was rather a surprise to everyone concerned to find that actually very basic maintenance of spraying machinery makes quite a difference in terms of the unintended pollution. Those are very much about affecting the professionalism and the behaviour with which people undertake things. Finally, and this is an instinct of mine, Voluntary Initiative is the title but I would prefer to talk about it as the Initiative because in the sense of being voluntary, it does not mean it is optional. We need to emphasise with the industry that these are things that need to be done, not just things that are beneficial and it would be rather nice if they did them, they are essential. The pesticides tax remains there in the background as a possibility if the engagement of the industry does not achieve the outcome. I think there has been a shift in attitudes; certainly I have seen that in terms of discussions with the farming industry and leading figures in the NFU, for instance, over the past couple of years. We go back to your point can we demonstrate that it is sufficient and adequate, but the question still remains would a tax actually achieve more or would it possibly achieve less. Q323 Chairman: Perhaps you could tell us about the new tools that you hope to apply coming from the Newcastle study. When are you going to publish the findings of that report? Alun Michael: I think the point that arises out of this, and perhaps I will ask Sue and Ian to come in on these points, is that it has proved quite difficult. The Newcastle report came up with three tools: the use of focus groups; an ecological network model; and a socioeconomic study to link changes in farmer behaviour to environmental improvement. The idea is to go exactly to the point you were raising earlier, which is to assist in comparing benefits delivered by the Voluntary Initiative with those that might result from the introduction of a pesticides tax. It requires peer review and there is more work to be done before we can be satisfied that we have tools that would really work. We hope to be able to be more specific on that by publishing the report once that process is complete. Dr Popple: Following on from that, I think when we came to look at it we felt that perhaps just by assessing where they were with targets at the end of VI might not be sufficient in itself to be able to judge whether or not the VI had delivered environmental benefits over and above those a tax might deliver, which was why we commissioned the work at Newcastle to provide us with some new tools. They are not actually assessing the VI but they are looking at tools that we could use perhaps to assess it. I think it is perhaps fair to say that they found it quite a difficult challenge to take that forward and perhaps the tools might not be as useful as we would have liked. Certainly we are going to have the work peer reviewed and it will be put in the public domain so that people can see it. We felt that it would be helpful to us to try to have some additional measures to be able to see how the VI was doing. Q324 Chairman: But is it not going to be too late? By the time you have done all of this work and then published it, are we not going to be in 2006? Dr Popple: We need to be looking towards the end of this year to see how the VI is delivering across the board. It is quite challenging for them to be delivering environmental benefits within the short timeframe that has been given. This was to try to help to be able to pick out where they might be moving in the right direction. Alun Michael: I think also there is a series of questions to be asked in 2006. One is has the Initiative, as it is currently being developed, delivered adequately? Are the changes in farming practice, the professionalism with which substances are being handled, becoming embedded in standard practice rather than best practice? Are there other options in terms of driving that forward? The fact of the matter is that we are continually looking at wanting to diminish the use of chemicals that cause any harm to human health and the environment and to make sure that the materials used are better and safer and all the rest of it as well as looking at issues of run-off into pollution and so on. The thing that strikes me is that we come into a situation where the whole situation is diffuse, it is not like using a chemical in a paint shop where there are four walls and it is very tight. At the same time, if pesticides were not being used there would be a variety of crops in particular which could not be produced in the UK which can otherwise. The question is getting this balance to make sure that levels of impact are minimal and acceptable. It is not just about quantities or farm practices, there are other issues as well, that is what I am trying to say. Q325 Mr Wiggin: One of the things I have picked up from what you have said is that actually what you are concerned about is things like the 40 per cent run-off and the way people handle things. I am just a bit surprised that perhaps you have not done more to support the Initiative because certainly from the evidence we heard before they did not feel that there was interaction between the Department and themselves. A good example is that they call it the Voluntary Initiative whereas you are very keen, and I agree with you, that it should be an Initiative and people should be getting on board. I just feel that perhaps there is something more that you could be doing. Alun Michael: So far as the name is concerned, as I think I said just before you came in, perhaps because I have got a background in the voluntary sector and volunteering I was a little uneasy to use this title but it is a title that was approved by ministers at the time when it was started and I do not think one can interfere with that now. 2006 is the time that we might look at the profile of the Initiative and the way that it develops. It is important that this is an approach developed from the industry side, owned by them and, in a sense, with our help, it is for them to prove that this is more effective than being taxed. As I also indicated in what I said right at the beginning in answer to the Chairman's first question, we have moved much more to a partnership approach. I do see people involved in the Initiative on a regular basis and make the point that the pressure for taxation or for more onerous burdens on the industry is bound to grow unless they, and we, can demonstrate that it is actually succeeding. I think people in the industry are now very well aware of that. It is support, encouragement, carrot and stick, if you like. I would be very surprised if there was any sense that the people involved in the Initiative did not think that we were both supportive and challenging to them. Q326 Mr Wiggin: I think that they accepted the challenging part but felt that it was challenging on a critical rather than a constructive basis and, therefore, they have upped their targets and they have sent us a list of what they want to do. What I was trying to do was to get back to the point that I think was made earlier about the behavioural side of it. It looks to me as though you are talking about a pesticides tax unless the industry improves, and while the standards or targets that the ministers keep challenging the industry to provide are being pushed forward we get this double message from you, if you like. Alun Michael: I am sorry, that is wrong. We are not actively considering a pesticides tax at the moment. We are discussing pesticides tax because it was there as an option in 1997 and because that is what the committee has asked us to address. It is not under active consideration. Of course, it will be one of the options that are considered in 2006 when we evaluate the story so far. I can see nothing that suggests to me that there should be a tax, which in many ways is a crude and blunt instrument which would be paid as much by those who were not undertaking those professional activities which reduced the amount of substances that run-off from the farmyard, for instance, as it does those who fail to undertake such good practice. Just as we need better tools for measurement, which goes back to the Chairman's first question, we also need better tools for improving the behaviour. Yes, our approach is to challenge the Initiative, not to challenge it to breaking point by saying that we want them to increase their targets to the point that farmers will not be able to respond and produce because behavioural change requires engagement, but it does need to be challenging otherwise people would be asking the sort of questions that the Chairman was asking a few minutes ago, why do we not go further? I think between the two of you we maintain a reasonable and constructive and creative engagement. Q327 Chairman: Before we pass on, I know Paddy Tipping wants to come in on this issue, can I say that we did not get an answer to the question of when will the Newcastle study be published. Alun Michael: We are waiting for the outcome of the peer review. It will be within the next few months. Dr Popple: Yes, I think it will probably be towards the end of the year because peer reviewing itself is quite a timely process. Chairman: Thank you. Q328 Paddy Tipping: You mentioned Professor Dent and he came and talked with us. I got the impression in the early days the relationship between he, as Chairman of the Voluntary Initiative, and the Department was not good but now it is closer and he feels more consulted and included. Could you just comment on why that was the case and what has happened? Alun Michael: Obviously I cannot answer for the earlier period but I think I would be right in saying that initially there was a feeling that it was for those in the Initiative who have made a proposal to Government and brought together a partnership to convince Government that they could do it, so "It is for you, oh Voluntary Initiative Steering Group, to demonstrate that you can bring about the results that are wanted". I think over time we have become satisfied that the Steering Group genuinely wants to make progress and achieve the outcomes and to have testing objectives and to move towards them, therefore the relationship, while there is still some distance and it is a question of those challenging them, is one of saying "We are on a journey in which we all believe in the destination we want to reach". I think the engagement with officials is much greater now, is it not, Sue? Dr Popple: Yes, we have quite good relations with them and try to be helpful where we can. Clearly we cannot be helpful in all the areas but certainly where there is scope for it we do help. Q329 Paddy Tipping: Are you on the Steering Group? Dr Popple: I am an observer on the Steering Group. Q330 Paddy Tipping: So the Steering Group belongs to the industry but you go along and, in a sense, listen to what is being said and comment. Dr Popple: That is correct. Q331 Paddy Tipping: But this is a train that you are on board now, it is not one where you have got to justify what you are doing and were the judges, as it were, it is a joint enterprise. Alun Michael: The sort of point one makes in discussion is that the option of a pesticides tax, while not under active consideration, has not gone away. There are people, like the Select Committee, who will be asking questions about the outcomes being delivered. It is part of our engagement both to look at what we want to see coming out of it and to reflect the interests which you are now reflecting, so I am glad I made that point, by undertaking this investigation. That is very welcome. Can I just make the point as well that there are other issues that we have been trying to address. The Voluntary Initiative on Pesticides - I insist on using the full title - is not the only approach that we are adopting. We have had a consultation recently on the impact of spray on bystanders. We have taken decisions as a result of that outcome in terms of recording and so on. Also, I asked our Chief Scientific Adviser to look at the science that underpins the work of the Pesticides Safety Directive and asked the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution whether they would consider undertaking some work in this field and they are currently undertaking that work. We are both actively engaged ourselves and encouraging objective scrutiny of what has happened because I think it is in everybody's best interests to have the best possible information and independent scrutiny of everything that happens. Q332 Paddy Tipping: I think that is helpful. One of the things that have happened is that the National Pesticides Strategy has just been published. Going back to Professor Dent and the Steering Group, again my impression was that they were not formally involved in the debate about the Pesticides Strategy. Were they or were they not? Surely they had something to contribute. Dr Popple: There was quite a lot of input from stakeholders in the early stages of us developing the strategy. Most of the people who are on the VI are actually represented on the Pesticides Forum and we use that as our main body because that has about 24 different stakeholders who are interested in pesticides on it, so we used that as our main body when we were sounding out about things to put into the strategy. In addition to that, I did meet the chairmen of all of our advisory committees and went through our plans with them as well. There has been quite a bit of dialogue. Q333 Paddy Tipping: Finally, just sticking with Professor Dent, in his evidence to us he was saying that there still was a threat of a pesticide tax in the background, that the stick was still there. He did not think that was helpful because he did not feel that encouraged farmers to become involved. If the stick is going to beat people, why not wait for that date rather than join the Initiative now? What is your view on that comment? Alun Michael: I think it would be foolish of us to rule out that option. Obviously it is a Treasury issue at the end of the day but there is more than one way of undertaking tax, there can be different levels, as we have seen with encouraging behaviour on the uses of lead-free petrol and diesel and things like that. One cannot rule it out but it is not under active consideration. I think what I would say, and do say when I get the opportunity, is "Do you want something that will be an undiscriminating added burden or do you want to work with us to get practical outcomes which are actually good for you, for your farm practice and for the wider environment?" I was quite interested just recently talking to a lecturer at one of the agricultural colleges and asking to what extent he felt there was an engagement with these sorts of issues and what he said was he was finding that the present generation of students going through the college are much more practical in terms of looking at the impact of pesticides, looking at soil quality, looking at issues that may affect the farm in the long-term, and many of them are obviously from farming families and going back and testing this out on their own farms. It is much more engaged and practical in terms of their studies than perhaps he had seen in the past. I think that is quite encouraging as well. Chairman: I want to go back because I think Alan Simpson wants to ask in a little more detail about the success or not of the Voluntary Initiative. Q334 Alan Simpson: I would hope that in the discussions about the policy options we are not ignoring the fact that between the tax and the voluntary agreements there is also the option of statutory obligations. I would hope all of those options remain open. My concern was the opposite of Bill's really about the squeeze. I know you said you did not want to challenge to breaking point but I want to see how far we have got beyond waking point. In your own assessment, your own and the Treasury's assessment, of the "success" so far, you pointed out amongst the failings of the Voluntary Initiative that it was slow to come up with sufficiently robust targets, the target of 30 per cent of arable land covered by Crop Protection Management Plans was not sufficient, the water quality target was not sufficiently robust and the targets proposed for biodiversity are too vague. When going through that it reminded me that as kids we used to have hurdle races but in order to make them fair they were so low that everyone could get over them and we all counted it as a success because no-one fell at any of the hurdles. Is that the danger that the Voluntary Initiative is going to fall into, that the industry will set itself targets that they cannot fail but outside there is not going to be much credibility from the environmental movement that says this has had the effect that really as a Government we are looking for? Alun Michael: I think you reflect the sort of dialogue that we have with the Initiative and with the industry more widely, which is unless the industry is working towards challenging targets and unless the Initiative is challenging the industry it is not going to be convincing to others and people are going to be making in a more confrontational way perhaps the points that you are hinting at. This is absolutely on the territory of our discussion with the industry. You are absolutely right to say that this is not a one stick approach and it is not just the Initiative that is the way of approaching things. Within the Initiative itself obviously we have got firstly the Crop Management Plans and the provision of guidance and advice on good agricultural practice, the identifying of environmental issues and looking for solutions at a farm level. Secondly, you have got the National Register of Sprayer Operators and there is a good deal of evidence that is leading to operator training and certification resulting in better practice. Thirdly, there is the one I referred to earlier, the National Sprayer Testing Scheme, and perhaps that has had more impact than we expected at the start in terms of demonstrating that the testing does actually bring about benefits. Then, of course, we have got the agri-environment schemes and we have got cross-compliance. We intend to use the new Entry Level Scheme to build on costs of the compliance standards so that, again, you are placing the requirements but also encouraging improvements. There are a number of measures which complement the work of the Initiative. Q335 Alan Simpson: I am trying to nudge those measures towards measurable outcomes. I just wonder whether your own views on this were, first of all, that it would be relatively easy to set a doubling of the target in respect of agricultural arable land covered by the Crop Protection Schemes. A 30 per cent target is a pretty low hurdle. I am just wondering in terms of coverage, it is not difficult for us to set a higher target there. The measurement of this is more complicated but it is relatively easy to set a more robust target in terms of water contamination. In a way I would just like to know, not just the cross-compliance and other schemes, what robust measures you want to see put into the Voluntary Initiative that would make it more credible than it would appear to be now? Alun Michael: I think the first instance is the getting better tools that have a direct relationship with the improvements that we are looking for and a measurement of the outcome of changing activity, that is the Newcastle work and all of that. I think we will be in a better position to discuss that in more detail when we are able to publish the outcome of that research. Again, you are very much on the territory that, with the Steering Group, we are looking for them to go as far as possible in terms of increasing the standards, improving the targets in the way that you are suggesting over time. It is a matter of judgment as to how hard you push. I do not know whether you would like to say a little bit more from the experience of the Steering Group, Sue? Dr Popple: The targets particularly on Crop Protection Management Plans and also the targets on water were two of the ones that have been pushed on recently and on which Barry Dent has very recently come back to us with some changes. In terms of the Crop Protection Management Plans, the fact that those are going to be taken up within the Assurance Schemes is going to have a much wider impact. They will achieve a much bigger target than the one they have, so I think they could agree a bigger target on that with us. Certainly in terms of water, the Environment Agency has done some work looking at downward trends in water and feel it would be realistic for there to be a more stretching target there. Those are the two targets that the Minister went back to the VI on. Alun Michael: Can I just add one other area. In terms of volume, agricultural use is the big one but there is a significant quantity of plant protection products used for amenity use - landscape, sports, golf courses, car parks in out-of-town areas and so on - and very often the users in those contexts may not have the sort of training that is now becoming standard within the farming industry. We are intending to engage with local government and others. I have it as an item with the Rural Central-Local Partnership, for instance, in the near future to make sure that we do not overlook that even though it is a smaller part of the whole than agricultural use. Q336 Alan Simpson: I think everyone has recognised the value that there has been in terms of improved farm practices and that is to be welcomed. Baroness Young also clarified some of her points for us and said her enthusiasm about the success is that it is good to see people working together in ways that they have not for a long, long time but she did put the sting in the tail of her comments by saying that it is very difficult to see measurable environmental benefits that are coming out. Since ultimately that is the concern of the Committee, and I think of the Government, it is just nudging things up to accept the improvements in practices but say what the consequences for environmental quality and environmental impact are. Really that is what I want to know, how far you think you can push before you get anywhere close to breaking point. Alun Michael: I think it is one of those areas, as are so many when you are dealing with a complex situation, where you start off thinking we know what we want to achieve, let us just measure it and that is it, but then you discover that measurement is not that easy. We have the measurements which are made by the Environment Agency, which I referred to earlier, but relating those measurements where you can see an improvement over time to specific actions taken by specific farmers is a lot more difficult. We have got the six catchment area pieces of work that demonstrate some benefit but in a sense, as with so many things, you are using something as a proxy to demonstrate progress rather than something that is a practical test. That is precisely the reason why we commissioned the Newcastle research which has demonstrated, as both I and Sue have said, that it was not as simple as we hoped it would be to produce tools that are much tighter in terms of measurement. We would share entirely the aspiration that you are pointing towards to have something that is very, very stringent so that you can be very, very precise about whether people are doing what they should be doing or not, and we are certainly not at that point but we are working on it and we are looking to others to help us work on it. Perhaps as a non-scientist, as a politician, I could turn to our two scientists to perhaps supplement that from their experience. Dr Popple: I think the thing I would probably add to that is that one of the more interesting projects that are in the VI at the moment is the indicator farms. These are coming slightly late into the Initiative but they are there and those particular farms will be implementing all the measures within the VI and all the measures of good practice. They should enable some measures to be seen on a local basis of what those environmental benefits are that you have talked about. Once you start to look on a global basis it is actually quite difficult to be able to sort out what is happening and what might have been caused by the VI and what might have been caused by something else, by other changes. I think that is quite an encouraging development. The downside is that they are going to take a little bit of time before they start to deliver those benefits and they can be seen. I think that they are in place and they have a baseline and, therefore, you can see the changes that will be put in place. Alun Michael: I have talked mainly about the practices but substitution is an issue as well and that is very much a central part of our strategy, to encourage the development and use of alternative products. One of the things that were a priority of the Initiative, for instance, was the issue of the use of IPU - Isoproturon - which is a particularly nasty and mobile chemical that has caused problems. One of the things that was identified was that there tend to be peaks, application followed by rainfall and, therefore, issues picked up by the Environment Agency as a result. That is the sort of area where there has been a measurable improvement, the Environment Agency tells us, in the figures that they were coming back with in 2003. We have to look for continuous improvement in that sort of thing. Looking for alternative products is not an immediate quick-fix but for the long-term it has to be very much part of the strategy. Q337 Chairman: I have to say, on that issue Friends of the Earth suggested to us that the reductions were actually due to the weather conditions. We have received conflicting evidence on the question of Isoproturon. Alun Michael: Which proves the difficulty of being absolutely, totally certain. There again, comparing year on year when we have the 2004 figures and so on, that may help us to draw further conclusions over a period of time. Certainly the fact that monitoring is going on is obviously a good thing. Q338 Chairman: Except for our variable weather patterns, of course. Alun Michael: If you are asking Defra to change the weather patterns, I am not sure that we can achieve that in the sort of timescale you would want. Q339 Chairman: Before I bring Alan Simpson back in on a new issue, I just want to clarify we may have recorded that you have said that a pesticides tax "is not under active consideration". I think that may be what has been said in the evidence this afternoon but I see that it is actually one of the things within the list of options in the draft Pesticides Strategy which obviously is inviting people to have a discussion about what types of measures should be applied. Just for clarity, how should we interpret "not under active consideration"? Alun Michael: We are not currently considering introducing a pesticides tax. It would be very odd, especially given that it is an option that was discussed when the Voluntary Initiative was put forward - it was the alternative at that time - not to include it as one of the options that is available to Government. We have not ruled it out forever and a day but I think it is important to say that it is not under active consideration because at the present time we think that the results we are getting out of the current Initiative are more demonstrably successful than we think the blunt instrument of a tax would be. It is not ruled out for the long-term. I think what will happen is that we will evaluate the outcome of the Initiative in 2006 and hopefully by that point we will have got a long way forward in terms of the tools for measurement of effectiveness and more sophisticated measurements of the impact of pollution and we will also have made progress, I would hope, on the issue of substitution and different products and at that point it will be considered. Personally, I would be surprised if at that stage the answer was "Right, forget all that, we will go for a pesticides tax" but it is not ruled out at that stage. Personally, I would think from what I have seen over the last couple of years what we are likely to say is we need more and more sophistication in both the measurement of the impact and the methodology for trying to reduce the amount of pollution and a more focused approach on particular chemicals either because they need to be substituted or they have a particular impact. Mr O'Sullivan: I would like to agree with that in terms of where we stand on work on a pesticides tax. We want to be fairly clear that in the PBR, in the Budget, that if the Voluntary Initiative and the way that develops over time does deliver both the targets and the outcomes that we hope, that will be the most effective way of reducing pollution in environmental impact. We have continued over time to produce or think about what work would be needed if we were at any point to go ahead with a pesticides tax, and you will have seen there was a report produced, that Defra worked with, with RPA on some of the administrative and technical issues about pesticides tax were we to implement that. I think we have seen that very much on a contingency basis. What I think we have tried to make clear is that the aim is that the Voluntary Initiative will work. Q340 Alan Simpson: I know that one of the arguments in respect of pesticides tax is you would be hard pressed to measure the scale of the impact in both the short and long-term but one aspect is quite clearly measurable and that is the cost that the water industry pays in cleaning up pesticide contamination. We came into office in 1997 saying that we were going to reform environmental taxation and we were strongly wedded to the principle that the polluter pays. Why do we not make it possible for the water industry to recoup the costs of removing pesticide contamination from the water supply directly from the pesticide producers? Mr O'Sullivan: I think Defra colleagues may want to come in on exactly what the costs have been to the water companies. Q341 Alan Simpson: Let us just stick with the principle first. Mr O'Sullivan: In terms of the principle of the polluter should pay, as I think we said in 1997 and we said in Tax in the environment in 2002, in principle it is quite right that the polluter should pay. I think the issue then is subject to meeting tests of good taxation about the distribution implications, the fairness, the impact on competitiveness and whether it is the most cost-effective way of achieving the environmental outcome that you want. Here the difficulty with the polluter should pay, saying one should just recoup the cost of pollution through the pesticides tax, would be there is quite a wide range of costs of clean-up for the water companies for pesticides. At one point there was a figure of £125 million a year but that very much related to capital expenditure for a whole set of investment over a period of time in the 1990s of which pesticides would have been one element. We have an operating cost of about £18 million or so per year for cleaning up pesticides. Coming back to the whole issue about whether you have a pesticides tax or not, it is very difficult to identify the polluter. The pollution in the water is coming from a small number of people who are misapplying and misusing pesticides rather than all pesticide users, so you would be penalising some farmers, probably the majority of farmers, for the actions of those who are misapplying it. That is simplifying it a bit but there is this issue about identifying who the polluters are. Given that, and given the overall quality context of where we were on a pesticides tax versus the Voluntary Initiative, the view was that pursuing the Voluntary Initiative was more effective and more sensible. Alun Michael: I am not sure whether you were asking something slightly different in a way. We have talked about the option of a pesticides tax and you sounded to me to be talking about something rather different which would be a specific charge in relation to pollution in a particular area. Just as the measurement of improvement has proved difficult, as the Chairman was saying earlier is the point of our Newcastle research, you would have to be very sure that you had a mechanism for identifying the impact of the pollution in order to create a charging regime that would work. I think in terms of tax options the Government's view was set out in Tax in the environment in 2002 which highlighted the importance of engaging fully with stakeholders in looking at any tax options and making sure that the full range of policy approaches, including options for alternative approaches such as voluntary agreements, have been pursued in advance of coming to a taxation option. I think a similar question would arise in relation to a charging option, which sounds a little bit like a fining option. You would have to be very sure that you had the mechanisms and that you would actually achieve the required benefits in taking that step. Q342 Alan Simpson: I was just amused, Minister. I am pleased that there is a Voluntary Initiative, I am pleased that the pesticide companies are coming together, but it seems to me if we can agree that where the costs of water clean-up are able to be identified then in principle, under the polluter pays principle, those costs should just be passed back to the pesticide industry for us to be able to say to them, "You pursue the Voluntary Initiative. Here is the bill, you work out how you are going to cut it between you and if you want to chase farmers, that is fine. We are assuming that these are the chemicals that have to be cleaned up, this is the cost, you sort it out. We are happy for this to be done on a voluntary basis. As far as we are concerned, we have just empowered the water industry to take the burden of clean-up off the public and put it back on to the source of the pollution". It is just to see whether that avenue of the cost recovery would be something that you are considering. I am not sure that any of the evidence that we have had from the industry is too keen on picking up those clean-up costs at all. There are lots of resources going into working together but at the end of the day it is still the public who are picking up the clean-up costs. Alun Michael: Certainly, one of the major pieces of background to all of this is saying that the public is no longer content with the sort of pollution that we have and it has an impact, as you rightly say, on the water industry which rolls on to an impact on the public as well as the impact that it has in environmental and health terms. While I am pleased to give rise to a certain degree of amusement, we are talking about diffuse pollution, we are talking about some challenges in terms of identifying sources and we are trying to change behaviour. Another part of my brief is UK Chemicals Policy and the whole approach that we are trying to adopt through REACH to the reduction of chemicals of concern in a whole variety of different ways. The issue of substitution is not a straightforward one but the more that you work with industry, as we have in a number of fields, to reduce the use, because you are working on a timescale that allows them to do that and says we are going to have to change here because it is not tolerated in the long-term, we do not have great dissonances within the industry and the more we can achieve outcomes over a sensible timeframe. As far as the cost of water pollution and the evidence base there, Sue, have you anything to say? Dr Popple: I think the evidence we have at the moment is that the costs are lower than the £120 million that is frequently discussed as being the cost of taking pesticides out of water. That seems to be associated with the initial capital costs of putting in place the equipment that was required to deal with pollution in the Water Framework Directive. Certainly the evidence we had of the capital costs in 2000 was that it worked out at around about, I think it was, £10 million a year capital costs and there is an addition £9 million for running costs in terms of replacing carbon filters and things like that. As I say, one of the main issues does seem being able to deal with peaks which cause considerable problems. Certainly the way that the pilot project on IPU is dealing with those peaks, and it might be something we can pick up in the national strategy where there might be other issues too of other peaks coming through, whether or not we have some concerted action on those might give a better overall result than trying to approach things in a more blanket way. Q343 Mr Wiggin: Just taking the tax questions a little bit further, what analysis have you done? I imagine that tax is a Treasury issue, not a Defra issue, but what have you looked at in terms of the various financial instruments that could be introduced in relation to a pesticides tax? Mr O'Sullivan: Ultimately tax is clearly a matter for the Chancellor, and Treasury as a consequence, although given the link between a pesticides tax when we first came to this and the Voluntary Initiative, obviously Treasury and Defra have been working closely on this. The key bits of analysis we have done have been the original ECOTEC report in 1999 and when the Voluntary Initiative work was being developed and consulted on there was analysis across both Defra and Treasury thinking about the merits of a tax versus the Voluntary Initiative. The most recent bit of analysis was work by RPA on a pesticides tax and some of the technical issues around if you were going ahead with a pesticides tax how you would design it and whether it would be possible to do that on a banded basis, and that was published in April of last year, I think. As I say, this was on a contingency basis. We thought it was important that we were continuing to do that and think about these issues, but it is not something that we would then be doing day-to-day analysis of subsequent to that. I think that analysis was quite helpful in indicating some of the issues around the policy and the technical and design aspects we would have to address if we were to go ahead with a pesticides tax. Q344 Mr Wiggin: What was your preferred option, banded or un-banded, and why? What assessments did you make of the costs of actually collecting this? Mr O'Sullivan: The conclusion of the RPA work was that if one was going ahead with a pesticides tax there would be advantages to a banded approach. I think there was a similar conclusion from the ECOTEC work. The reason why you would favour a banded approach is because it offers more prospects of reducing the environmental damage and the pollution by switching to less toxic and less harmful substances. The drawbacks are the complexity of designing a banding system and the fact that it would probably become a lot more difficult to introduce a pesticides tax when you have to start worrying about the banding and the boundary issues between different bands. There is also a question about the amount of information we have on toxicity of pesticides and also the link between that and environmental impacts. This is something that people like the RSPB have been thinking about. The Environment Agency has been doing some work in terms of harmful chemicals. There has been continual work being done on those issues by a number of organisations that we stay in touch with and are aware of. I think at the end of the day that we do not have a clear administrative view if one were to go ahead with the pesticides tax because we are not in that position about what the options might be, and there would be the issue about the potential greater benefit of a banded approach versus the greater difficulty of administering it. Obviously the cost would depend on the design of the system and a banded tax would almost certainly be more administratively complex. Because we have not been doing detailed work on bringing forward a pesticides tax, we have not done a detailed assessment of what the administrative costs would be. We are aware that they have been below 1 per cent of revenue for some of the countries that have gone ahead with taxes. In the UK generally, environmental taxes come in with administrative costs of about 0.5 per cent of the revenue. Q345 Mr Wiggin: And things like councils and the amenity side would not be particularly tax-sensitive anyway, would they? Alun Michael: I think that is quite a considerable influence. Q346 Mr Wiggin: What about the Treasury? How would they react to proposals to earmark revenues from this theoretical tax to pay for environmental protection policies? Alun Michael: With their usual lack of enthusiasm. I am just guessing! Mr O'Sullivan: When you get to a hypothecation in the tax system, it is always very difficult because it means that you are unable in all cases to spend money in the places where it is going to provide the best value for money. On the other hand, for the environmental taxes that have been introduced, we have certainly been open-minded about the prospect of revenue recycling, so when we introduced the Aggregates Levy and the Climate Change Levy, there we actually recycled revenue back through tax cuts, through reductions in National Insurance, but also some of the money went to be spent on programmes, so through the Climate Change Levy we set up the Carbon Trust and there were tax incentives for energy-efficient technologies. For the announced increases in Landfill Tax, which are coming through in this Budget and successive Budgets, we have actually recycled that revenue back into a spending programme and that was following consultation with business, that they were keen actually to recycle some of this money back to spending in order to help support adaptation and also landfill and waste minimisation. Q347 Mr Wiggin: That would not be so easy with this though, would it, or so straightforward? Mr O'Sullivan: I think always there are going to be difficult issues for Treasury ministers if you are recycling money. There is the question about whether, if there was a pesticides tax, some of that might help support some of the crop management plans and action by farmers and others and I think there would be a difficult ministerial judgment there, but it is certainly something that we have been willing to think about and have done in other instances. Q348 Paddy Tipping: There is European experience on pesticides tax, in Norway, for example. Presumably some work has been done to have a look at the system there. Mr O'Sullivan: When the RPA research was undertaken, they did an assessment of the European experience of pesticides tax and I think that was quite useful in illustrating some of the issues. It suggested that there had been in a number of instances reductions in the level of pesticides used, although there was a question that they were not able to resolve about the extent to which some of the reduction of pesticides was as a result of the tax, how much of it was as a result of awareness of better management at the same time as the tax was being introduced and how much of it was changes going on in industry anyway to switch to smaller doses, and also there were similar trends in some of the countries that had not introduced taxes. Nevertheless, certainly in Norway, I think Denmark and some other countries there was a reasonable amount of evidence that there had been some behavioural impact in terms of using less pesticides. I think the impact of the banded versus non-banded, it was more difficult to tell, particularly in France which has quite a sophisticated banded system, but we have not got a lot of evidence coming through yet on just how effective it has been, but obviously if you were returning to this, that is something we would want to look at again. Q349 Paddy Tipping: As the Minister knows, farming has had a tough time recently and there would be complaints, I guess there are always complaints, from the farming sector that if a pesticides tax were introduced here, that would put people at a disadvantage compared with other parts of the EU. Would that be a consideration? Alun Michael: I have detected no enthusiasm within the farming industry for a tax to be introduced. I think, on the other hand, there has been a recognition on the part of many people, particularly representative bodies and people like Tim Bennett and so on, that the Government has been willing to engage with the industry and to support the initiatives approach. That is very much conditional support. It is support, provided it achieves the outcomes, which of course brings us back into the whole question of measurement of outcome, making sure that you continue to drive behaviour, how to make sure that those who do not co-operate are brought into line in the fullness of time, and I would be the last to say that we have got to the end of the road here or indeed that in 2006 we will have reached the end of the road. I think there will be a continual need to press and improve and to have the whole range of options available from substitution to better practice to minimisation. Q350 Paddy Tipping: We have got the stick of taxation, but what about carrots to get more people into the VI, to get the 75 per cent of arable coverage higher and indeed to get the amenity side taken on board? We have only really got the stick, so what about the carrots? Alun Michael: I think there are carrots as well. For instance, in the Entry Level Scheme and in stewardship in the application of cross-compliance as part of the relationship with the farming industry, other than the Voluntary Initiative itself, it is being targeted specifically on pesticides. Q351 Paddy Tipping: I do not understand. Are you meaning that people who are not part of the Initiative will not get the same subsidies under the new ---- Alun Michael: No, I was referring generally to the improvement of farming practices which the Entry Level Scheme is there to encourage and support, as is the Higher Level Scheme. Q352 Paddy Tipping: What about the amenity side? Alun Michael: The amenity side is, I think, quite different and it is much smaller. I think we are talking about 4 to 6 per cent, something like that. When I first heard that figure, I thought it was 46 per cent and, therefore, we needed to get very enthusiastic, but it is between 4 and 6 per cent, to be very precise about it. Q353 Chairman: And growing presumably? Alun Michael: I am not sure what indication of trends there is. That is the sort of percentage that I was given when I asked about this and that is sufficiently significant to be important in particular locations, so it is something we need to address and, as I say, we do feel that there is a need to talk to organisations, like the Highways Agency, for instance, and there has been quite a bit of engagement with the railway authorities, Network Rail, and with local authorities now in making sure that consideration of management is built into the planning stage with out-of-town locations and so on. Q354 Paddy Tipping: I do not think that is quite enough, Minister. I want to push you a bit further on this because, as I understood it, if you just simply peel the lid off your pesticide and throw it on the ground, that can have a more significant impact than if you spray a whole field in the correct way with a vast quantity, so it really does matter, and the 4 to 6 per cent can be responsible for a distortion in terms of the results, so I agree with your answer, but I felt that you could have been a little bit more specific on what you are really going to do engage these people. Alun Michael: Yes, but I think, in fairness, the engagement on this issue started in terms of the big user which is the farming industry and I think what we are recognising is that although it is a much smaller element, the amenity users, the local authority users and the transport users do make a significant contribution and we need to engage with them, so that is work that we are looking at now. Q355 Paddy Tipping: They are an easier group to get hold of, are they not, in that they are closer to government and they are more sensitive to your whims perhaps than some of my constituents? Alun Michael: Well, in some ways they are also quite a diffuse group because you will have, for instance, in relation to car parks and amenity areas a lot of contractor work and things like that, whereas in terms of training and best practice, the training of sprayers within a coherent industry, like the farming industry, I think has made quite a significant contribution. We are talking about a much more varied group of people across golf courses, roadway verges, village amenity areas and so on. I agree with you entirely that we need to work on this, but I suspect it is not going to be an instant job and the first thing is to engage the interests of those to have these concerns, principally, as I say, the highway authorities, local authorities and so on. Q356 Chairman: Minister, I just wanted to make the point that perhaps some of this progress might have been made if the National Pesticides Strategy had been published a lot sooner. I wonder why it has taken so long to reach the point of publication and now obviously a consultation which will delay it further. Alun Michael: I think one of the points worth making is that we are concerned with the sustainable use of plant protection products and to cover the whole of the environmental and economic consequence of the use of such products. As you say, it has just gone out to public consultation which started on 16 February. One of the reasons for taking some time to produce this is that it actually covers quite a complex range of issues. It looks at all uses of plant protection products, not just the agricultural ones. It looks at issues and challenges faced in measuring the Strategy's success and, as I indicated earlier, we are finding that that is more complicated than we had initially hoped. It proposes possible targets and indicators for each action plan and again that has taken some time to produce because those action plans relate to sustainable plant protection use in a variety of different fields, so it is quite a detailed document and I suppose the answer is that if we had rushed out something more quickly, you might well have been saying, "Why didn't you wait a little longer and produce a more sophisticated document?" Q357 Chairman: On the contrary, we would have wanted to comment on it, of course we would! Alun Michael: I think the process has been quite important with the stakeholders being involved in the development which Sue referred to earlier and there is a lot of that which has assisted with the development of the Strategy. Q358 Chairman: I think they might appreciate that, but at the same time they have been very frustrated with the amount of time and that is the evidence we have been given. I think RSPB and Water UK certainly both expressed concern that opportunities had been lost, particularly in the field of catchment-sensitive farming because of this delay in the publication and then there has been no way of linking the reduction of pesticides to that programme. Dr Popple: Well, catchment-sensitive farming is led by Defra and we are actively involved within the Department, so we have had discussions with them in drawing up a pesticides strategy. I think one of the reasons it has taken quite a long time is that there is a lot of environmental legislation coming through that will have an impact on pesticides and I think we did not want to have something that was just dealing with pesticides in isolation, but we really wanted to make sure that it was sort of meshed in with all these other initiatives that were going on and really to see how much benefit those were going to deliver or how much impact they were going to have on people changing their pesticide behaviour. I think it is partly why it has taken so long really because all of those have also been developing, but certainly we have been very closely involved with the Catchment-Sensitive Farming Initiative. For instance, I know they are quite interested in the work that has been done on the pilot schemes, particularly for text-messaging as a way of getting information out to farmers, so there is quite an active dialogue there. Q359 Chairman: It is interesting that obviously they had a somewhat different approach from the people who have given evidence to us, but, having said that, you raised the question of text-messaging and the work that has been done on the pilot catchments and some of the other evidence we have had suggests that the intensive work that is being done there would be very difficult to roll out to all farmers or all relevant farmers on a national scheme without new funding or new arrangements. Do you foresee that those sorts of things can be addressed through the National Pesticides Strategy? Is there thinking that it would be possible to produce a national programme which is funded and which will address the great spectrum of issues that have been touched on by the Voluntary Initiative, for example? Dr Popple: I think the Voluntary Initiative is taking it forward by looking in this coming 12 months at where they can roll it out to more catchments, particularly looking at the more generic issues that they can identify so that it does not require so much effort within each individual area, so I think there are some quite good lessons there that could be picked up and taken forward in a much broader way. However, we are out to consultation and some of these action plans will take some time to develop and I think then it is a matter for ministers as to how we go forward with that and how it links in with catchment-sensitive farming. Q360 Chairman: Can you anticipate at all for us how things might change in terms of pesticide use through the Pesticides Strategy which is being put forward in this document? Dr Popple: I think it is difficult as to whether you talk about overall changes in pesticide use or whether or not one of the things in the Strategy is that we have got five areas of action plans where we felt that it would be better to be tackling those specifically rather than trying to say that we are going to reduce pesticide usage overall. Now, clearly that does give you some indication as to what is happening, but pesticides are a very complex area and just reducing use in itself might not actually have any effect either on risk or impact, so I think it does give a sensible way forward to be trying to identify where there are problems and actually tackling those. Q361 Chairman: And finalising the Strategy - what is the timetable? Are you able to tell us? Dr Popple: The consultation is until June, but I think we will be working out and talking to some of the stakeholders about some of the action plans as they are at the moment because they are only draft and they have been designed so that we will be taking them forward in consultation with stakeholders and we are working in partnership with them, so I see the Strategy being almost a dynamic document so that it is sort of pointing the way forward, but some of the more detail in it will be refined with time. Q362 Paddy Tipping: There has been a suggestion that you could underpin the VI with a statutory mandatory framework. Is that a possibility and, if you were minded to do it, how would you do it? What bits would you pick out? Alun Michael: I think that is the sort of thing that would need to be considered with the evaluation in 2006 because clearly if there are farmers who are working hard to achieve the outcomes that we all want to see them achieve and there are others who are not, there is an unfairness in that. I think, by and large, what I would be looking for is whether within the arrangements that are coming into place, things like cross-compliance, the way that the Water Framework Directive is implemented and all the rest of it, there are ways of making sure that there is a synergy between that and the Voluntary Initiative on Pesticides rather than having another totally separate set of regulations which I think would go down like the proverbial lead balloon. There is clearly a relationship between all these different areas of practice and regulation, as Sue mentioned a few minutes ago, so I think it is in that context that we would look at it as part of the evaluation. Q363 Chairman: I want to turn now to another issue which was not going to be part of our inquiry at all and that is the question of the health effects. The only reason we have taken this on board, and we have not made an inquiry into health effects, is that there were some very controversial press reports just as we began our deliberations about linkages between pesticides and various kinds of cancers. We have taken evidence on that because clearly it mattered to us, if we are making progress, how it is that we are now getting perhaps more evidence of health effects arising from the possible use of pesticides. I just wanted to ask you, Minister, whether the Department accepts that approved pesticides can result in detrimental health effects. Alun Michael: I think when we are addressing questions like that, it is very important indeed to have a very clear scientific and evidential base. Now, I am not a scientist and, therefore, I cannot give a scientist's answer to the question. There was the recent report by the Department of Health's Committee on carcinogenicity which identified only a weak association between pesticide use and prostrate cancer. The response to that was that it did not warrant any regulatory action. Nevertheless, we have agreed with the Advisory Committee for Pesticides' recommendation for the systematic review being commissioned to review the available epidemiological studies looking at the risks of those working in pesticide manufacture of developing prostrate cancer and, therefore, allowing information to be gathered on specific pesticides. I think sometimes in this field generally there tends to be evidence which, if you like, gives rise to a genuine question which needs to be answered and I think the responsible way to respond to that is to test out the evidence and to make sure that we have good evidence and answers to the questions. I do not think that it is responsible to jump beyond what the evidence actually shows, so certainly any evidence that comes to us we take seriously. Dr Popple: Yes. I think where there is evidence it is considered by the advisory committee and the advisory committee, as I say, in some circumstances might refer it on to another body that it feels has more expertise. Then they will provide advice back which will go to the Minister and be responded to. Q364 Chairman: We took evidence from the Committee on Carcinogenicity on the specific linkages and obviously that is a matter which is now on the record. We have had many, many reports, I am sure the Department is very conscious of this. Georgina Downs, for example, has produced a great deal of information about the reports that she receives and the research that she has done on ill-effects arising from people who believe that there is a linkage with the pesticide use in their localities. There is a lot of constant information/reports being brought from the public themselves. It is very clear in the public mind there is a potential linkage and concern. I just wonder if, when these reports are received from the public and from campaigners associated with members of the public, any research is commissioned as opposed to the monitoring that goes on by the CFC and other bodies. Alun Michael: Sue will come in on the particular work that is commissioned. I am glad that you refer to it as information rather than evidence because whenever information has been provided by any individual we look at it and say "What does this tell us? Is it evidence that requires either action or further investigation?" Sometimes there is evidence that is portrayed in the press and the media inevitably as providing clear conclusions of when scientific scrutiny and the advice we receive is entirely different. That is the point of us having independent advice and expert advice and on a number of occasions on these issues I have circulated to interested Members of Parliament the response and advice that we have had. Concern is not the same thing as evidence of impact or a connection. As I indicated at the beginning by asking our Chief Scientific Adviser to scrutinise the science used by the division in relation to some concerns and proposing to the Royal Commission that it look at some of these issues, I and the Department are very open to wanting to go further where the evidence justifies us to go further. I think there are some occasions on which we are asked to take steps that are not appropriate and do not fit with the evidence that is made available to us. Dr Popple: Picking up on your point about whether we do fund research, certainly particularly where the advisory committees have looked at questions or comments or instances that have come in and they recommend we put in place research or they have questions over uncertainty that they feel the research could help with, then we are putting in place that research. That information will be fed back then to the advisory committees for their further consideration and also to help out our thinking as well. Q365 Chairman: Is there anything specifically going on to health clusters in rural areas which have been reported as being associated with pesticide use? Dr Popple: I am not aware of any. Q366 Chairman: You are not aware of any fresh studies? Dr Popple: We are not funding such work at the moment. Q367 Chairman: No, I appreciate it would be Government as a whole, I am really asking about awareness but you have not any? Alun Michael: That would have to be a response to evidence that there was something specifically to address. Q368 Chairman: I think it is a difficult one. As someone who worked on pesticides in my youth and was working on their carcinogenicity, we do know there is linkage with other organisms, the difficulty is whether we have a human linkage, I think. Alun Michael: Yes. Q369 Chairman: You have answered the questions. Finally, just to ask about the revision of EC Directive 91/414, we wonder if you anticipate this will lead to some of the more toxic pesticides being banned. Alun Michael: You are referring to the Directive which establishes a harmonised framework for the authorisation of plant protection products, agricultural pesticides in Europe. What that does is to establish a two tier system with active substances being registered at Community level and products containing these substances being registered at a national level but in accordance with common rules. The key element in the regime is the review which is an EC review of all existing active substances and that is defined as those in the market on 25 July 1993. That is intended to ensure that active substances allowed under the harmonised rules meet modern standards of safety for people and the environment. As that review progresses more pesticides are registered under the EC regime which is gradually replacing national systems. Certainly it is the case that many older products were approved on the basis of limited data which does not meet modern standards. The review is creating a more level playing field for growers who cannot be undermined by the use of cheaper and less safe pesticides in some other Member States. It comes back to exactly the same sort of issues as live issues with REACH in relation to substitution. When you substitute you want to make sure you are certain about the substitute product not having unintended side-effects or uncertainty about its application. Certainly the review programme is resulting in the withdrawal of some of the older and higher risk products that are not being supported for commercial as well as safety reasons, and those two things very often run together. It does seem that the impact is less marked in the UK than in some particular Mediterranean countries. The current situation is that the Directive is being revised to reflect policy and technical developments since it was first negotiated, that was 15 years ago. Key policy issues involved in the revision are likely to be proposals for zonal authorisation, comparative risk assessment, hazard criteria, data sharing, access to information and public participation, and the impact of the review programme on agriculture. There is quite a comprehensive set of issues to be dealt with there. Q370 Chairman: Dr Popple? Dr Popple: I think we are waiting to see the Commission's proposal. There has been quite a lot of discussion, particularly over the last two to three years, on where they are going to go with the review of the existing Directive. Which of these things will be in it, we are not sure. Certainly we have done some work looking at comparative risk assessment and where it might be sensible to use it in practice but I think until we see the proposal it is difficult to be able to take a line on it. Chairman: Any more questions? Mr Wiggin: Members are very happy. Q371 Chairman: Are you sure! Alun Michael: Steady on. Q372 Chairman: Thank you all very much for coming, Minister, Mr O'Sullivan, Dr Popple and Ian Dewhurst, and for everything you have been able to tell us this afternoon. Obviously if you want to add anything, we will be very glad to hear from you subsequently. Thank you for your time. Alun Michael: Can I thank the Committee for their interest. It is one of those issues that I think we are continually coming back to and it is clear from the Committee's questions that you will be too. Chairman: We have that feeling! Thank you. |