Daniel Zeichner – 2023 Speech on Bee-killing Pesticides in Agriculture

The speech made by Daniel Zeichner, the Labour MP for Cambridge, at Westminster Hall, in the House of Commons on 1 February 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Nokes. I am grateful, as ever, to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) for securing yet another debate on this important topic, and for drawing attention to the attached petitions. As ever, his introduction was full and thorough, and I will echo many of his points.

I commend other Members for their contributions. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) hit the nail on the head in highlighting the contradiction between this decision and the Government’s wider aspirations. I very much enjoyed the account from my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) on the work done by Flourish, as well as hearing about the urban bee corridors that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport mentioned. A lot is being done on that in many places, including in my city of Cambridge, where Cambridge City Council is doing important work on it.

I was very pleased to hear the first Westminster Hall contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon). I must tell her that this is not an entirely typical Westminster Hall debate, because we did not hear from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—I am sure that he will not mind me saying that—but we normally do. My hon. Friend made important points about run-off, which must be taken seriously.

So here we are again, Minister—last week, he was a great advocate of following scientific advice, but this week, it is all different. As many here have pointed out, the Government’s decision to issue an emergency authorisation to allow for the use of Cruiser SB—which contains thiamethoxam, a type of neonicotinoid—on sugar beet goes against the advice from the Government’s expert committee on pesticides and the Health and Safety Executive.

While the UK Government turn against the science, it is ironic that that comes just days after the European Court of Justice ruled that authorising derogations for the use of banned neonicotinoids was prohibited, stopping further applications for emergency use. That means that we are now an outrider, with lower standards than our neighbours. That is not a place that we should be, and it is not a place that Labour would be, because, for us, pollinator health is not negotiable. I said that last year and the year before, and it was as true then as it is now.

People will look back and ask why on earth this Conservative Government were so slow to act on the damage that is being done. Never mind worthy targets, never mind environmental improvement plans—this decision has been taken here and now. The attack on nature continues for as long as the Conservatives remain in power.

This is a long-standing debate and, as colleagues have pointed out, the Government have ignored the advice of the panel for three years in a row—they have ignored the science and the advice of the expert committee for three years. We have heard the advice, but I will repeat it: the committee advised against authorising a derogation on Cruiser SB because

“potential adverse effects to honeybees and other pollinators outweigh the likely benefits.”

Last week, the Minister said that he believed in science and supported the work of experts, but now that advice is being ignored. I simply ask: why, Minister? I suspect that part of his answer may be the rules that go alongside the use of the Cruiser SB neonicotinoid-treated seeds. A period of time has been specified that must elapse before flowering crops can be planted in the same field. Herbicides must also be used to remove weeds in the field to reduce the exposure of pollinators to insecticides—I am afraid that that provision also adversely impacts pollinators through the reduction of available flowers, but we understand the goal to reduce overall potential risk.

It will probably be said that the threshold that will allow for its use has been increased this year, from 19% to 63%.We all hope that that threshold will not be reached—it was not the year before last. The truth is, however, that we genuinely do not know whether that will happen or not; it will depend on the weather.

But we do know for sure that neonicotinoids are extremely harmful to the environment. They affect the nervous system of bees and other insects, leading to their death. I cannot resist repeating what everyone else has said about the 1.25 billion honeybees that can potentially be killed by one teaspoon of the chemical. We all know how critical bees are for pollinating crops. As the brief provided by the all-party parliamentary group on the environment pointed out, wild bees are responsible for pollinating between 85% and 95% of the UK’s insect-pollinated crops. We also know that run-off into waterways and leaching into the soil and nearby wildflowers is a real threat, as the Bumblebee Conservation Trust highlighted in its brief on the impact not just on bumblebees, but on other animals and aquatic life.

We also understand the wider context, which is very difficult. Virus yellow is a cause of significant yield losses. The National Farmers Union reports that, for some, it is up to 50%. The most complex and serious is that spread by the peach potato aphid, and it is hard to control. In 2020, the sector lost 40% of the national sugar beet crop, bringing down the five-year average yield by 25%.

Frankly, the weather over the past few months has been really difficult. We all remember the searing heat from last summer—the drought—that hit particularly hard in key beet areas along the A14 and around Bury St Edmunds. And then, just before Christmas, there was a very harsh frost followed immediately by a big temperature rise, resulting in a rapid, rotting thaw. It has been really difficult, and that has been added to by a new pest, the beet moth, which seems to be attracted from Europe by the warmer temperatures here.

The overall result is that we are short of beet sugar this year, with beet having to be imported by the processor. That is tough on the growers, tough on the processor and adds more costs up the supply chain. With beet becoming a less attractive prospect to many growers, British Sugar already had to pay more to encourage people back into production. None of that is easy, and there are consequences and costs to any decision. I appreciate that, for farmers, it too often feels as though the tools that they need for the job are being systematically taken away. That is very difficult, because nature does not compromise.

We have to look at alternatives, as British Sugar and the NFU acknowledge in their helpful briefings. There are high hopes for varieties resistant to virus yellows and there is potential for the use of gene editing to secure that resistance. I hope that the Government follow our advice on the regulatory structures needed to make that happen. I am told that there is already a variety resistant to two virus yellow strains, but it is expensive and there is a yield penalty. I am also told that yield protection insurance is available, but again, that incurs more costs. Those are difficult decisions.

There are things that we can do, some of which have been outlined by other Members. We can develop non-chemical approaches, such as boosting beneficial insects, cover crops, better rotation and maintaining good farm hygiene. There is evidence that some farms have had success by adopting such measures. We should move much more quickly on adopting integrated pest-management systems. Ironically, as has been explained, that was part of the sustainable farming incentive package that the Government announced last week, and we welcome that. So I say to the Minister: be bold on that, listen to the scientists and get away from falling back on neonicotinoids, which we know do so much harm.