§ 15. Mr. McNamaraasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether parathion is included in the scheduled list of poisons covered by List 2 under the Pharmacy and Poisons Act 1933; if he is satisfied with the conditions for its sale; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. LaneParathion is included in Part II of the Poisons List. Controls over its sale are strict and I do not think they require review.
§ Mr. McNamaraI am grateful to the Minister for his reply and for the letters he has sent me in the past week about the unfortunate incident in my constituency. Action taken at that time, while very proper, showed that the police and fire services need to have continually brought to their attention new developments in this sphere, so that the type of alarm raised in my constituency will not occur again.
§ Mr. LaneWe try to keep up with developments so that the police and fire services have immediate information. It is greatly to the credit of the fire officer who gave the alarm that he should have done so. Fortunately, it turned out that the canister contained malathion and not parathion. I gather that malathion is not as toxic as parathion.