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Neonicotinoid Insecticides and Bees
Thank you for contacting me about neonicotinoid insecticides and bees.
I entirely agree with you that bees and other pollinators play a vital role in the security of our food supply and the quality of our environment. I welcome the Government’s work to understand and protect them, most recently through the National Pollinator Strategy.
There are rules providing for the use of normally restricted products to be authorised in emergency situations to protect crops. If emergency authorisation is granted, this does not mean that the ban has been lifted: the facility to allow strictly controlled, targeted uses of pesticides under an emergency authorisation is an essential feature of precautionary bans.
These decisions are taken based on recommendations from the Expert Committee on Pesticides, the independent body of scientists that advises the Government. It takes all environmental factors into account, including the effects of using greater quantities of less effective alternative pesticides.
Last year the Committee recommended that an application for these treatments, covering no more than 5 per cent of the national crop and only on seeds to be sown in the summer and autumn, should be approved. Based on this advice Defra agreed to grant this limited authorisation, covering areas where crops were at the greatest risk of damage by pests.
This year there have been two separate sets of applications to use neonicotinoids on part of the country’s oilseed rape crop, but in each case the Committee advised that the applications did not give sufficient assurances that the uses would be limited to those areas most in danger, nor that they would be controlled appropriately. Accordingly, Defra followed the advice of the Committee and has declined these applications.
Rest assured that restrictions on neonicotinoids will not be removed as long as the evidence shows that they should remain.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me about this important issue.
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