PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES - United Kingdom Parliament

463WH
Bee Health
26 MARCH 2013
Bee Health
464WH
[Sarah Newton]
Parliament rightly demands evidence-based policy
making, so let us start with the science. The Government
have committed large sums to the science budget. An
annual research spend of £4.6 billion has been ring-fenced
in the 2010 comprehensive spending review, with additional
investment of £1.3 billion in research budgets over the
next three years. The UK has world-class universities of
which we are rightly proud, and the science and innovation
that they generate are a potential source of prosperity,
as scientific discoveries are commercialised by businesses
working with universities, creating beneficial products
and services.
In addition to the DEFRA budget allocated for bee
and pollinator research, I should like to see the Department
for Business, Innovation and Skills working with the
major research councils to identify a pot of money from
the existing, and recently increased, funding for science.
This could be used to commission university-based
scientists, working in partnership with industry, to create
a new generation of pesticides and fungicides that have
less harmful effects to pollinators; to develop diseaseresistant
seeds to prevent the need for chemical treatment;
and to explore different methods of crop husbandry to
prevent the use of harmful pesticides and chemicals in
the environment. All these have the potential to improve
bee health, and are areas of science in which we already
have a great deal of expertise.
It is important to recognise that the UK’s crop-protection
sector has a vital role to play, but as with any market, it
can work well to deliver innovation and quality. It is
worth remembering that in the UK a pesticide is released
on to the market only after an average of nine years’
extensive research. However, as recent news about antibiotics
has shown, sometimes Government intervention is needed.
The chief medical officer has recently warned that,
because antibiotics are relatively cheap and not very
profitable to pharmaceutical companies, they have made
little investment in innovation. As a result, we face
humans becoming immune to current antibiotics within
the next 20 years—a risk to our well-being greater than
climate change. The chief medical officer has called on
the Government to use some of the money earmarked
for investment in science to discover the next generation
of antibiotics. She has also highlighted the need for
international collaboration on the management of
antibiotics. We need to think in the same way to tackle
declining bee health.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con):
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend’s suggestion about
creating a British bee strategy; that is vital. She makes
the case powerfully for a strong, healthy bee population
to ensure pollination in agriculture and biodiversity in
our environment. Does she agree that it is important for
a focus to be maintained across Government, and to
bring together all the different resources from Departments
to try to tackle and reverse this decline in bee numbers?
Sarah Newton: That is important. As I said, DEFRA
has done a huge amount, and this Government should
be proud of their track record in tackling the issue, but
we need to step it up with more urgency and draw on all
the resources of Government, not just on DEFRA.
DEFRA is quite a low-spending Department, and it
needs the extra sums that are available, particularly in
BIS, for science and innovation, so that it can bring
those extra resources to bear. DEFRA has done well to
be still investing in bee research, having had to make
cuts in expenditure—it is to be commended for that—but
the scale of the challenge is so great that we should be
reaching out to BIS and other pots of science money
and commissioning research. Not only would that be
beneficial for our bee population, agriculture, farming
and the environment, but once these products are developed
they could be exported and could generate a great deal
of wealth in our country.
All this takes time. Root-cause research would take
years—pesticides can take nine years to come to market—so
there are things we need to do in the interim. We should
listen closely to the calls of Friends of the Earth, which
put together a national bee action plan, with some
sensible steps that could be taken. I should like the
Government to consider that.
We could create bee worlds by encouraging local
authorities and the farming sector to work together to
increase the availability of good feeding and nesting
sites for bees. The mayor of Truro, Lindsay Southcombe,
is using her year as mayor to highlight what we can do
locally. We can do lots of things at a local level. We need
to protect existing sites, conserving the lowland and
upland meadows where bees thrive. We should ensure
that science-based advice and guidance is provided to
farmers and other bodies, setting out how those habitats
can be better protected. This advice can be provided
only if adequate expertise on bees is retained within
Government agencies. For successful delivery of habitat
creation and restoration for bees locally, we must ensure
that that expertise is available at all levels in local
authorities. We do have the bee inspectorate, and that
must be preserved, but it must also be built on.
Finally, we need to consider commissioning research
on new pest-control technologies and drawing on global
best practice, with the aim of developing pest-control
methods that maintain farming yields while minimising
the impact on pollinator populations. That is the clear
call of Friends of the Earth, which believes that stakeholders
can be brought together and can help develop best
practice, working alongside the Government, that can
then be rolled out across the UK.
The evidence that bee populations are declining is
clear. We have talked about that in respect of honey
bees, but it also applies to wild bees and solitary bees. If
we stand by and allow this decline to carry on, it would
hit key sectors of our economy hard. The Government’s
investment in a range of activities and research aimed at
slowing this decline, and better understanding it, is to
be welcomed. Now is the time to move to the next stage:
to put together a holistic cross-departmental strategy
aimed at developing new biodiversity-friendly approaches
to crop protection that the rest of the world will welcome.
Now is the time to show British bees, British farmers
and the British food and drink producers that we are on
their side, and will work with them to tackle this significant
problem for our health, our well-being and our environment.
4.18 pm
The Minister of State, Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath): It is a pleasure
to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I
congratulate my hon. Friend the hon. Member for