TOXIC CHEMICALS AND WILD LIFE (Hansard, 19 June 1963)

§ LORD SHACKLETON
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST. OSWALD)
My Lords, the purpose of this advisory catalogue is Ito give guidance to gardeners in the proper use of pesticides. That is a useful and beneficial purpose: I should not care to frustrate it in any way without good reason. Such disputed chlorinated hydrocarbons as appear in the booklet have all been considered from the safety point of view by the Advisory Committee on Poisonous Substances used in Agriculture and Food Storage who have made recommendations for their safe use. The recommendations are reflected in the booklet which provides a means of making them known to gardeners.
Noble Lords will be aware that the use of some of these chemicals in cereal seed dressings has already been severely restricted and this action has greatly reduced bird deaths, but in view of the continuing concern expressed by the wild life societies that the other uses of these chemicals in gardens and in agriculture may be responsible for bird deaths, my right honourable friend has now asked the Advisory Committee to undertake a 1278 further examination taking into account recent evidence and to report to him. The question of whether the Government should take any further action will be decided in the light of that report. Any possible decision on the booklet would have to be a part of such considered action.

§ LORD SHACKLETON
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his extremely carefully worded statement. In asking him one question, I am glad that what he in fact thought a fortnight ago ought to be the case, and found was not the case, is now after all going to be the case. May I ask him, in particular, to draw the attention of the Committee, when considering this booklet, to the statement in the introduction which says: All these preparations have been considered for possible dangers to humans, domestic animals and wild life…So far as is known, none of the garden packs when used according to the directions is likely Ito be harmful to birds or other wild life in the garden. Would they consider this definite statement in the light of the evidence of the slaughter of birds in gardens?

LORD ST. OSWALD
My Lords, undoubtedly this review will be absolutely comprehensive, and will, I am sure, cover every problem in which the noble Lord is interested.

THE EARL OF MANSFIELD
My Lords, arising out of the original reply, would the noble Lord say whether he has any idea when this further inquiry will be completed, whether it will be done before pesticides are used again later in the year?

LORD ST. OSWALD
My Lords, that has to be a matter for the Committee. One cannot give a Committee a time limit as to the period in which they carry out their review.

LORD HAWKE
My Lords, are the Government aware that the remaining birds in the gardens are quite sufficient to require a good deal of attention from most gardeners?

§ LORD HURCOMB
My Lords, arising out of what has been said, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will on this occasion fully and formally consult also the Nature Conservancy in this important matter?

LORD ST. OSWALD
My Lords, naturally the bodies which will be consulted are a matter for the Committee themselves; but, to my mind, it is inconceivable that the Nature Conservancy should not be among them. We should not stipulate to the Committee whom they are to consult. They are a highly responsible and learned body, and I am sure they will consult every body and every interest that could be consulted.

§ LORD SHACKLETON
My Lords, then why cannot the noble Lord ask the Committee to consult them?

§ LORD HURCOMB
My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether it is not the duty of every Minister to consult the Nature Conservancy on any matter of public importance which affects the conservation of nature or wild life? May I ask him also whether there is not some misapprehension in what has been said previously, that the Nature Conservancy has been consulted because some of its nominees happen to sit on the Committee to which he has referred? When he says that each of these individual poisons has been the matter of consideration by the Committee in the past, that process has, has it not, been considered over several years? The point now is that this booklet, with its extremely misleading preface, is what has caused the difficulty. I think, therefore, it is important that the Conservancy should have an opportunity of expressing their views as such upon the document as a whole and not merely through representation on a Committee which looks at individual substances.

LORD ST. OSWALD
My Lords, I am afraid I cannot accept the noble Lord's view that the booklet is misleading. However, I repeat that the Committee have been asked to carry out a very comprehensive review and I am perfectly certain that they will.

§ THE EARL OF SWINTON
My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord this question? While no doubt it would be improper for the Minister to give a direct order to the Committee as to whom they are to consult, surely there can be nothing to prevent the Minister himself from consulting the Nature Conservancy, receiving from them a full and considered report and then submitting that report to the Committee?

LORD ST. OSWALD
My Lords, I am perfectly certain that the Nature Conservancy will make their views known, and that those views will be considered by the Committee in this new review.

§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH
My Lords, why cannot the noble Lord "come clean"? This is not a revolutionary proposition on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, who is himself, as a Director of the Nature Conservancy, a considerable expert in these matters; and, if my memory serves me aright, I think I had a hand in starting the Nature Conservancy. Surely the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, can say that either the Minister will invite the Nature Conservancy for their views or that they are at liberty to put their views, and that he will see that they are put before the Committee and the Minister. Really, it will not shake the foundations of the British Constitution if he goes that far. I would suggest to him that he should not be so nervous. Even a Parliamentary Secretary has a right to use his head on the Floor of the House. I invite him to use it and not to be so terrified of the pundits in Whitehall and his Minister.

THE EARL OF MANSFIELD
My Lords, what is the use of having a Nature Conservancy, as a supposedly official advisory body to the Government on matters concerning wild life, if that body is not to be officially consulted if questions like this arise?

LORD ST. OSWALD
My Lords, I really cannot go on repeating my absolute conviction that the Nature Conservancy will be consulted. I should have thought that that was contained in my assurance that the inquiry and the review would be comprehensive.

§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH
My Lords, the Minister is now utterly convinced that the Conservancy will be consulted. Why cannot he say that he will see that they are. This really is petty, infantile, puerile—and I shall produce some more adjectives if I stand here longer. Why cannot the noble Lord, for whom we have a great respect (and we do not want to quarrel with him) say that he will see that the Conservancy's views are invited and will be put to the Committee, or to the Minister, or both?

LORD ST. OSWALD
My Lords, it seems to me that there would be a risk of offending the Committee by suggesting that the Nature Conservancy would not be among those they will consult. However, I will certainly bring to the notice of the Nature Conservancy the fact that the noble Lord suspects that they would not be consulted.

§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH
My Lords, that is very naughty, because I was not going for the Committee but for the noble Lord. If he is now going to do what we want hire to do, that is fine; and I gather that he is. Why he could not have said so before, I do not know. Life would be much easier for the noble Lord if he would be more forthcoming on a point which is so obvious.

§ LORD HURCOMB
My Lords, I entertain no suspicions whatever of the noble Lord, and I am quite sure he means everything he said. But the simple point is that the Government, in all its Departments, has a duty, and I think I am right in saying a statutory duty, to consult the Nature Conservancy on anything which is within their province. My point simply was that we should like to feel that it was the Minister who would consult them and not merely leave it to be done second-hand by the Committee.

LORD ST. OSWALD
My Lords, my right honourable friend is in close touch with the Nature Conservancy, although as the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb is aware, the Nature Conservancy in fact come under the Department of my noble friend the Leader of the House.

§ LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH
My Lords, in his original Answer the noble Lord laid a great deal of stress upon bird deaths. Will he also take into account the possibility of human deaths and illness?

LORD ST. OSWALD
My Lords, the Question is related to the use of pesticides in the garden. I do not think I should enlarge on it beyond that.

§ LORD SHACKLETON
My Lords, since we seem to making some progress, might I support my noble friend and suggest that the Parliamentary Secretary asks the Committee to consider this terrifying document issued by the Ministry of Health as to the symptoms of 1282 death and illness caused by the misuse of these chemicals? And perhaps the Committee could consider all this in the light of the also rather frightening advice from the scientific advisers to the President of the United States on the long-term dangers of these chemicals.

LORD ST. OSWALD
My Lords, in so far as the noble Lord is sincerely interested in this side of the problem, it astonishes me that he should call for the withdrawal of this booklet which urges the proper use of the pesticides by gardeners.

§ LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH
My Lords, the noble Lord does not realise that we want it strengthened.