Clause 96 (Hansard, 24 June 1968)

§ Mr. Scott-Hopkins
I beg to move, Amendment No. 81, in page 83, line 26, at the end to insert: 'but excluding those substances specified in the Pesticide Safety Precaution Scheme'. 87 This Amendment arises directly out of our discussions in Standing Committee, and also our discussion of a new Clause which I moved last Thursday. I move this Amendment so that any misunderstanding may be cleared up and so that we may be quite clear exactly what Clause 96 is intended to do.
It is the Clause which allows the Minister to bring within the ambit of the Bill substances which are not medicinal products. In our discussions in Committee it because clear that substances which the right hon. Gentleman and also the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture had in mind included insecticides, herbicides and pesticides and it became clear that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary had in mind that the substances within the ambit of the Bill are confined specifically to the insecticides.
We also heard in Committee that the Minister of Agriculture is thinking of introducing new legislation at some later stage concerning pesticides and the existing conditions relating to safety precautions which are at present operated under the voluntary scheme.
The purpose of the Amendment is to exclude from the ambit of the Bill all those substances mentioned in the Pesticides Safety Precautions Scheme. If the existing safety precautions scheme is adequate—and there is no dispute that it is not adequate—and is allowed to continue until the Minister brings in new legislation to cover this specific point, there will be no need to have these substances included under any provisions of Clause 96. The sole purpose is to exclude those substances coming under the Pesticides Safety Precautions Scheme which will come under the proposed legislation. There are many other substances which the Minister may wish to bring in under some future Order under Clause 96, but this does not concern this narrow Amendment.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will see fit to advise the House to accept the Amendment. There is no danger to public or to animal health and life in excluding those substances which are covered by the existing scheme. If the Parliamentary Secretary accepts this Amendment, he will go a long way to 88 allaying the worries and anxieties existing outside this House about the intentions of the Minister in using this Clause in future. A lot will hang on this. There are many people on the fringe of this industry manufacturing these substances who want to know what their future will be. Therefore, I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will see fit to advise the House to accept the Amendment.

§ Mr. John Mackie
I am afraid that I shall have to disappoint the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins), because this Amendment is unacceptable. The substances dealt with in the Pesticides Safety Precautions Scheme are referred to by a rather broad general description which, although eminently satisfactory for the purpose of the voluntary scheme, would not be appropriate for the purposes of the Bill. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, West has emphasised that my right hon. Friend is probably bringing in a new Bill to deal with pesticides, but this may take a while because Parliamentary business is fairly full at the moment. I do not know what will happen next Session. Therefore, we must cover the present situation.
As I explained during the Committee stage, if we were to use Clause 96(1)(b) to apply any provisions of the Bill to pesticides we would do so only for a very limited number of products. They would be the sort of pesticides at present dealt with under the Veterinary Products Safety Precautions Scheme. This would not be possible if this Amendment were accepted, since the broad description of pesticides in the Pesticides Scheme would also cover such products.
It is not necessary in any case to attempt to find some way of adding this sort of qualification. I want to stress once and for all that we readily agree that this Bill is not the place to control pesticides—and this includes herbicides and insecticides, etc.—at present dealt with under the voluntary Pesticides Safety Precautions Scheme rather than under the similar Veterinary Scheme. It is intended that the Pesticides Scheme should continue until such time as it might be replaced by any legislation dealing specifically with pesticides.
Under the Medicines Bill certain products which could be thought of as 89 pesticides, which are at present considered under the Veterinary Products Safety Precautions Scheme, will be covered by the definition of medicinal products in Clause 116. Examples are sheep dips and warble fly dressings which are administered to the animals. We are agreed that these should be subject to the full provisions of the Bill.
On the other hand, some substances also at present considered under the Veterinary Scheme are not covered by the definition of medicinal product because they are not administered to the animals themselves. We have discussed this before. Nevertheless, we might find it appropriate to bring these within the ambit of the Bill if they meet the requirements of Clause 96(1)(b). But, as pesti-sides, they fall in the margin between the Veterinary and Pesticides Schemes.
These substances would be those manufactured, sold, supplied, etc. for a specific purpose where, by the nature of that purpose, it is clear that the substance concerned would be used in a confined space where animals would almost certainly come into contact with them—for instance, in a poultry house or dairy. An example would be a product for destroying red mite in poultry or cows where the application of the substance is not to the birds or to the cows but to the walls, etc. In these circumstances, a product licence, for instance, would be concerned only with the product manufactured, sold, etc. for the specific purpose concerned. As I have said, products of this sort are at present controlled under the Voluntary Veterinary Safety Precautions Scheme. This is not because they could be considered as being outside the broad description of substances which are covered by the Pesticides Safety Precautions Scheme, but because it is appropriate that they should be considered by the committee of experts concerned with the Veterinary Products Safety Precautions Scheme, and this is why it might also be found appropriate to deal with such products under this Clause.
Let me stress that it is only these kinds of products that we might control under this Clause. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, West, does not like the word "might". Nevertheless, we are saying that there are occasions on which some substances might need to be dealt with under the Clause.
90 I also want to make it quite clear that in an Order made under this Clause only those provisions of the Bill specified would apply to the substances concerned and, in addition, those provisions might be modified. How far the various provisions of the Bill might apply and to what extent they might need modification would have to be considered in relation to the particular substance or substances concerned.
I also want to emphasise that if a substance is manufactured in bulk and supplied in separate containers specifically for different purposes, the only product that we might be interested in would be the one which fell into the category I have already mentioned. A product licence, for instance, would then relate to that specific product. But if a substance is manufactured in bulk and not packed separately for specific purposes —for example, D.D.T.—we would not consider bringing such a substance under the control of this Bill unless the veterinary aspects far outweighed other considerations so that in present circumstances it might fall to be dealt with under the Veterinary Products Safety Precautions Scheme. I would remind hon. Members of our starting point, that fundamentally the control of pesticides is a matter for the present Pesticides Scheme or, if necessary, its mandatory successor.
Finally, there are important safeguards, as I have pointed out to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West often enough. Before any Order is made there would have to be consultation with interested organisations and there will be the added safeguard of affirmative Resolution procedure for Clause 96(1)(b). I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Mr. Scott-Hopkins
The Parliamentary Secretary has made. confusion worse confounded by his speech. I shall have to read it to be certain about what he said. However, I understand that the hon. Gentleman is saying that there is a grey area between the Pesticides Safety Precautions Scheme and the Veterinary Products Safety Precautions Scheme.
The hon. Gentleman wants to be certain, by having powers under Clause 96, of having control over all possible products at all times under the provisions 91 of the Bill, but with the proviso that he has no intention of controlling those which come under the Pesticides Safety Precautions Scheme. I think that this is wrong. The hon. Gentleman is making the issue more complicated and difficult than it need be. If the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to accept my Amendment —and I will not argue whether I have drafted it correctly or not—he should bring in an Amendment in another place clearly setting out the area into which he has no intention of intruding by the Medicines Bill, because that area will be covered by the existing voluntary scheme and later by new legislation which I am sure he will persuade his colleagues to bring in at the next Session.
6.0 p.m.
I think that the hon. Gentleman has made things a little more difficult, and we are now more confused about how far he and his right hon. Friend intend to go at a later stage. I am, however, grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that the alternative procedure will be available, and also for clearing up the confusion he created last Thursday when we discussed the new Clause about bulk manufacture. That matter has nothing to do with the Amendment, but I repeat that I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for explaining the confusion he created at our last Sitting.

§ Mr. K. Robinson
I beg to move Amendment No. 82, in page 83, line 37 at end insert: (3) No order shall be made under this section—

(a) in relation to a substance as being a substance in respect of which the condition specified in subsection (1)(b) of this section is fulfilled, or

(b) in relation to a class of substances as being substances in respect of which that condition is fulfilled,

unless a draft of the order has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

The Amendment, which applies the affirmative procedure to Orders made under subsection (l)(b), was foreshadowed by my hon. Friend a few moments ago. When we discussed this Clause in Committee, on an Amendment to apply the affirmative procedure to both subsections, I suggested that the case for the affirma- 92 tive Resolution procedure was much stronger in the case of subsection (1)(b) than it was for subsection (l)(a), and it was my impression that the Committee broadly agreed with that, but I promised to consider the matter again. I have done so, and I agree that it would be appropriate to apply the affirmative procedure to Orders made under subsection (1)(b).
I still think that annulment is sufficient for subsection (l)(a) Orders, because these will be made to bring ingredients used in manufacture within the scope of the Bill only when effective safeguards cannot be written into the product licence for the finished product, and this is something which we expect to be done very rarely indeed.