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1753 Pollinators and Pesticides
6 JUNE 2013 Pollinators and Pesticides 1754
[Neil Carmichael]
hon. Lady suggests. Indeed, I would go further and argue
that we need to amplify the CAP’s impact environmental
protection. It needs to be understood more clearly by
the wider public. If people understood its more positive
implications and outcomes, we could generate greater
support for the CAP.
To sum up, I think it is right to have the moratorium
on neonicotinoids and that it was postponed to allow
the supply chain to adjust. It is necessary, however, to
maintain a weather eye on neonicotinoids, so I welcome
the Government’s commitment to field studies. It is
important that they be conducted transparently and
that their outcomes be made transparent. It is also
important to recognise the value of good management
and the impact that the reformed CAP can have. I
would like more farmers encouraged down that path. In
broad terms, we should celebrate the fact that many
organisations—including those in my constituency I
mentioned—are doing a lot of good work for the protection
of bees. We should be supporting and welcoming those local
solutions. Gardeners, too, have a responsibility, because
in the past they have used neonicotinoids. It is important
to recognise that all of us—I indulge in a spot of
gardening myself, though I do not use neonicotinoids
—should promote good practice wherever it is necessary,
and it is necessary in our gardens, as well as on our farms.
3.46 pm
Martin Caton (Gower) (Lab): It is a pleasure to
follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael),
who is a fellow member of the Environmental Audit
Committee, and I join him in paying tribute to the
leadership of our Committee Chair, not only on this vital
inquiry, but on all our inquiries.
I strongly support all the conclusions and
recommendations in our report, but my interest in what
is happening to our pollinating insects goes back quite a
bit further than last November, when we started taking
evidence. In fact, it probably dates back more than
40 years to when I was at agricultural school and
undertook a course in apiculture. The certificate I secured
at the end remains a treasured possession. More recently,
about three years ago, that interest was further spurred
by a 2009 report produced by the organisation Buglife,
which our Chair has already mentioned, and the Soil
Association. It was a review of the scientific literature
on a group of systemic pesticides called neonicotinoids
on non-target insect species.
Although the combined evidence in the report was
not conclusive, even at that time it rang serious alarm
bells that should have received an urgent response from
the Government. I secured a Westminster Hall debate
on the subject, which a surprising number of Members
from across the House attended to express their shared
concern about the potential threat posed by these pesticides
to a vital group of invertebrates—pollinating insects.
Since that debate, thanks to intelligence supplied by
Buglife and other environmental organisations, I have
tried to keep track of further research and, when significant,
have drawn it to the House’s attention through early-day
motions and other parliamentary means.
As our Chair said, last autumn, the Committee decided
to conduct what has turned out to be a major inquiry
taking evidence from the organisations she mentioned.
The first thing the Committee had to recognise was that
many of our pollinating species appeared to have been
in decline for some time. Of course, when we look at
pollinators—especially any threats to them—the first
focus is usually honey bees. That has been particularly
the case in Europe and the USA in recent years, with
alarming reports of what is sometimes called colony
collapse on an international basis.
As a result of their economic significance, honey bees
attract far more scientific attention than any other
pollinator. Their decline has been ascribed to a range of
causes—pests and diseases, such as the varroa mite,
which has been mentioned, along with weather conditions,
poor nutrition, poor husbandry, urbanisation, agricultural
intensification, habitat degradation and the use and
misuse of pesticides. However, honey bees are not the
main pollinators in the UK—far from it. Ninety per
cent of insect pollination is done by the thousands of
other, wild pollinators—other bees, hoverflies, butterflies,
carrion flies, beetles, midges, moths, and so on. These
other pollinators are not monitored or studied like
honey bees, so we do not know exactly what is happening
to them. However, we received disquieting evidence
from some witnesses of how, as the Chair has said, two
thirds of wild pollinator species are declining, including
moths, butterflies, hoverflies and bumble bees. We were
told that of the 25 UK bumble bee species, two or
three—no one is sure because the research has not been
done—have already become extinct, while probably
10 others have suffered large range decline.
We were advised that DEFRA has a bee unit that
does a good job of monitoring honey bees. There are
70 Government scientists dedicated to researching honey
bees, but just part of one scientist looking at the health
of wild bees. That has to change. We cannot afford to
remain ignorant about our wild pollinators. That is why
we call in the report for DEFRA to introduce a national
monitoring programme to generate and monitor population
data on a broad range of wild insect pollinator species.
If we do not really know what is going on, we cannot
make the right policy decisions to halt decline.
Most people looking at pollinator decline would come
to the conclusion that, at least in most cases, multiple
factors are at play—those that I have listed for honey
bees and perhaps others. Most of our witnesses who
addressed the wider picture accepted that there were
probably a range of causes. However, the representatives
of mainstream farming and especially the agrichemical
industry were absolutely adamant that the decline
had nothing to do with pesticide use and especially
not the use of neonics. Our Chair has described how
neonicotinoids work, which I will not repeat, but I will
add that they are systemic, which means that they get
into every part of the plants that are treated with them.
Pollinating insects absorb them and carry them back to
their nests or hives, even though they are not the target
species.
Dame Joan Ruddock: My hon. Friend is making
some interesting points. Does he think, as I do, that the
Government perhaps need to rewrite their national
pesticides action plan? There are methods other than
the use of chemicals. They ought to be encouraged so
that farmers and horticulturalists do whatever they can
to reduce the chemical pressure on the environment and
the pollinators.