Lords Sitting of 11 December 1984

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Ely.
The Earl Nelson The Earl Nelson—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his uncle.

Spain and Portugal: EC Fisheries Policy
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made in negotiations with Spain and Portugal over the common fisheries policy, with a view to their entry into the European Communities.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead): My Lords, the European Council, at its meeting in Dublin on 3rd and 4th December, reached agreement on the Community's position on a number of outstanding issues in the enlargement negotiations, including the fisheries aspects. This should clear the way for negotiations with Spain and Portugal to proceed.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, that is very good news for the fishing industry. Can my noble friend say whether we may be quite certain that the enormous Spanish fleet will not be allowed into the North Sea and thus compete with our fleets and other EEC members' fleets?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the Community's agreed position is that Spain ought in principle to have no more access to species of fish, subject to total allowable catches and quotas, than she already has. I hope that answers my noble friend's question.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is it not the case that the agreement in Dublin was not an agreement with Spain or about Spain but rather an agreement among member states about their common position—that fishing stocks and the traditional rights of member states should be protected? There was no agreement in Dublin to deal with the fact that Spain has 17,000 trawlers. If those trawlers were let loose in the traditional fishing grounds of this country and of other countries, then the British fishing industry would be at an end. Can the Minister indicate clearly to the House that the attitude of Her Majesty's Government will be one of defending that British fishing industry—or at least what remains of it?
Lord Belstead: My Lord, the noble Lord is quite right when he says that the European Council adopted an agreed negotiating position on fisheries in the light of the concern felt by member states over safeguarding the balance of the common fisheries policy following
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Spanish and Portuguese accession. Without being too explicit, I believe that that agreement among the Community member states fully safeguards United Kingdom fishing interests. But so far as concerns the specific point which the noble Lord puts to me—about the size of the Spanish fishing fleet—it is certainly the position of Her Majesty's Government that we believe there should be a restructuring of that fleet, both before the accession of Spain and, if necessary, afterwards.
Lord Boothby: My Lords, is the noble Lord the Minister aware that what is causing anxiety in the British fishing industry is the sheer size of the Spanish fishing fleet, which is the largest in the world? Do Her Majesty's Government realise that some limit must be placed on the number of Spanish vessels which can fish in northern European waters?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I wholly agree. The noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has long experience of these matters, and it can hardly be a matter of surprise that I entirely agree with what he has said. This is inevitably going to mean a restructuring of the Spanish fishing fleet.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, have the Government obtained the full agreement of the other members of the EEC to the aim stated by my noble friend Lord Belstead in his replies to me in, this House last October? He said then that the common fisheries policy should not be re-opened, having concluded with great difficulty and being intended to last for many years.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, if I may say so, I do not think that that matter was explicitly discussed in Dublin: I think it is implicitly agreed. The question discussed at Dublin was whether the European Council should, in the middle of these difficult negotiations and in taking stock, decide that they were all saying the same things so far as their attitudes to the enlargement negotiations were concerned. They did so decide, and I repeat that the agreement at Dublin, so far as fishing was concerned within the Community, fully safeguards United Kingdom fishing interests.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the noble Lord has tried valiantly to reassure the House about this matter, but will he be good enough to explain what "restructuring" a fleet of 17,000 fishing vessels means? Does it mean reducing that number of 17,000 vessels substantially?
Lord Belstead: Yes, my Lords.

The Treason Acts: Prosecutions
2.41 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Treason Acts are still in force and, if so, what are the criteria for a prosecution under them.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I believe that I should declare an interest: one of the types of conduct constituting treason is killing the Lord Chancellor. I shall now proceed to answer my noble friend's Question. A number of Treason Acts, including that of 1351, are still in force. The criteria—which are of course for the prosecuting authorities—are the same as for any other offence; namely, the likelihood, on the available evidence, of securing a conviction, and the general interest of the public.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend for that Answer, which was full of clarity. Can my noble and learned friend tell me whether attempting to blow up Her Majesty's Government is high treason or could be charged as high treason? If so, does capital punishment still apply?
Secondly, in the event of a foreign citizen being involved in such a crime, can he be charged with high treason? Thirdly, and speaking as one who does not agree with capital punishment, if my two previous assumptions are correct, would it not be more sensible to repeal the law so that capital punishment does not apply to high treason? Is it right to have a law of this severity lying on the statute book unused when the crime itself seems to be committed fairly frequently, and is that not an unsatisfactory state of affairs?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, there are a number of questions. Is trying to blow up Her Majesty's Government an act of treason? Certainly it is an overt act. I suppose it would be a question for the jury, properly directed, as to whether such an act constituted,
"levying war against Her Majesty within Her Realm"
or, alternatively, encompassing,
"the death of the Sovereign".
The next question was about capital punishment. Yes, my Lords, the penalty under the Treason Act 1351, as amended, is death by hanging. Thirdly, on the question of foreign subjects, if my noble friend will consult, I think, Calvin's case in 1608 he will discover that all aliens owe local allegiance to Her Majesty and therefore the charge of treason will lie against them.
On the repeal of the law, that of course will be for my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to consider; but my noble friend might care to know that the Law Commission is considering currently the question of public order offences, which I suppose includes treason. I understand that it has hit on a number of major snags and it is not known when it is likely to report.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is my noble and learned friend aware that the abolition of capital punishment for this most serious of all offences would be highly controversial and probably would not get through Parliament?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, it is not for me to speculate as to what would get through Parliament. If one reads the Treason Act 1351 one is I think slightly puzzled by the Norman French of Stratford atte Bow. If one delves rather deeply into the various meanings
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attached to that statute by successive judicial interpretations one becomes more puzzled still, so that a revision of the statute law certainly could not necessarily be held to be premature.
Lord Denning: My Lords, may I ask whether prosecuting authorities in this country now treat the offence of high treason as obsolete? I take the instance of the Birmingham bombers. There were five IRA men resident in Northern Ireland, owing allegiance to the Queen, who came over to England and joined in Birmingham an IRA man resident here. They planted a bomb which killed 21 people and wounded 80. They were arrested and charged only with murder. They were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Was not their act, levying war against the Queen in her Realm? Were they not guilty of high treason? Ought not the prosecuting authorities to have considered that offence and charged them with it?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I can only say that they were both charged with and convicted of murder in that particular case. As I said in my substantive Answer, it is for the prosecuting authorities to decide according to the public interest what charge it is appropriate to bring. In the light of Joyce v. The Director of Public Prosecutions, I should be hesitant to say that the crime of treason was obsolete. In the case of using explosives it was, I think, the opinion of Lord Chief Justice Coleridge in a case called Gallagher, in about 1883, that even three people with enough explosives could be guilty of the offence.
Lord McGregor of Durris: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that a not too distantly related aspect of the criminal law of treason is the law of sedition? In the current atmosphere, particularly in the coalfields of Great Britain, would it not be prudent for the Law Officers of the Crown—all four of them—to have a review and careful consideration of the law relating to sedition?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, the Question on the Order Paper related to treason and not sedition.

Iran-Iraq Conflict
2.48 p.m.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what efforts they are currently making to seek a peaceful solution to the war between Iran and Iraq.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young): My Lords, we wish to see the earliest possible end to the tragic and wasteful conflict in the Gulf. We will support any realistic initiatives, especially through the good offices of the United Nations Secretary-General. On 4th December, the leaders of the Ten announced that they would continue to work for an early, just and honourable settlement and would give full support to any efforts to limit the scope of the conflict.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for that full reply. Is the noble Baroness aware that the efforts of Great Britain are acknowledged? This appalling war, with its inhuman terror, constitutes a great threat to the states of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. It could engulf the Middle East and have savage repercussions throughout the world. Does the noble Baroness not agree therefore that Britain with its great experience could perhaps now give a lead and encourage in particular our American allies to find, if necessary, a strong method to stop this exceedingly dangerous conflict.
Baroness Young: My Lords, we hope that both sides will agree to try and settle their differences by negotiation. On 9th June 1984 the United Nations Secretary-General appealed to both sides to cease attacks on the civilian population centres. This has largely been adhered to and is a useful first step. The United Nations Secretary-General has also called on both sides to refrain from using chemical weapons and to cease attacks on shipping in the Gulf.
Lord McNair: My Lords, can the noble Baroness assure the House that it is quite impossible for anybody in this country to export to either of the belligerents anything which could possibly be used for military purposes?
Baroness Young: My Lords, our normal trade relationship with both sides includes items of non-lethal military equipment.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is it true that the Government have offered Iraq credit to the amount of £300 million? If so, what is it intended that that credit should be used for? Furthermore, is it the case that in October 1983 Iraq was offered £275 million credit by Her Majesty's Government? Can the noble Baroness say whether that was taken up and what it was used for? Furthermore, on the question of the United Nations, can she say whether Her Majesty's Government have any intention to take an initiative themselves and raise the matter in the security Council?
Baroness Young: My Lords, as I indicated in answer to an earlier question, we have a normal trading relationship with both sides in this conflict. Any money that might be used would be, I think, in furtherance of that trading relationship.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the noble Baroness has not, as she normally would, answered my question specifically. I mentioned a figure of £275 million in October last year and £300 million now, making a total of £575 million. Surely Her Majesty's Government would not give credit to that extent without knowing precisely what the money will be used for in the context of the conflict that is now going on.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I think that under the circumstances it would be better if I wrote to the noble Lord on the point that he raises.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, how can the Minister reconcile the policy of taking any action to bring the conflict to a halt with continuing to supply non-lethal military equipment to both sides, which prolongs the conflict? Would it not be preferable if Great Britain took a lead among the Ten in imposing a complete embargo on all supplies of military equipment, lethal or non-lethal?
Baroness Young: No, my Lords, it would not work. In the case of Iran, even if there was a general Arab-Western embargo on arms, other countries would continue to supply them.
Viscount Buckmaster: My Lords, have Her Majesty's Government expressed their concern to the Iranian Government, in the context of human rights violations, about the continued recruitment of boy soldiers into the Iranian army, some of whom are as young as 10 or 11?
Baroness Young: Yes, my Lords. Recently a representative from the Community Presidency in Teheran made a démarche expressing our concern at the inability of the International Committee of the Red Cross to fulfil its obligations in Iran.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, in addition to the points that have aleady been made, may I ask the noble Baroness whether she is aware of this? The British Foreign Secretary had a remarkably successful tour of the Middle East. His speeches were well received on all sides, both by those for and against various points of view. That has placed Great Britain in a situation where we really could give a lead at the United Nations, and where we would have a right, because of the Foreign Secretary's endeavours, to ask our American allies to assist in bringing this frightful and dangerous war, with its evil consequences for all mankind, to a swift end.
Baroness Young: My Lords, as I indicated in my original Answer, we should like to see a negotiated settlement, but we believe that a condemnation of one side in this conflict would be likely to be counterproductive. What we have noticed, of course, is the stated willingness of the Iraqi Government to enter negotiations.

Exercise Brave Defender 1985
2.54 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Home Office and local authorities will be participating at national or local level in Exercise Brave Defender 1985.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Elton): No, my Lords. This exercise is a military home defence exercise to test the plans for the protection of vital installations in conventional war, and civil defence plans will not be tested.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, in thanking my noble friend for his Answer, may I suggest to him that it is most unsatisfactory? Does he not agree that the full involvement of local authorities with regard to their civil defence duties is essential in order to make home defence effective across the board?
Lord Elton: My Lords, we do not think that it would be appropriate so to do until civil defence preparations are more advanced than they now are.
Lord Renton: My Lords, bearing in mind even what my noble friend has said, is it not elementary that in any attempt to defend this country the local authorities would be involved? May I therefore suggest that at least the emergency planning officers, or perhaps the chief executives of local authorities, be invited to attend the exercise, if only as observers?
Lord Elton: My Lords, my noble friend's suggestion will be borne in mind, but I should say that as regards the strictly civil defence element, we think that it is necessary to be further advanced in planning. Answers to the civil defence questionnaire which was recently sent to local authorities have come in, and a preliminary analysis shows that considerable and extensive effort is being made on the part of most county councils, the vast majority of which provide at least some form of contingency planning. We hope to make the results of the analysis available before Christmas.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, in view of the very low morale in local government generally and in many local authorities, can the noble Lord envisage the sort of reply that he might get?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the noble Lord thinks that I am a pessimist, but I am an optimist. I believe that the local authorities have here an overriding duty to the public whom they serve which they would not shirk.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, will my noble friend possibly explain what happens when the local authorities declare themselves nuclear-free zones? When that happens presumably nothing happens as regards civil defence. Is that the position?
Lord Elton: No, my Lords; duties have been put on local authorities, and the extent to which they are honouring the obligations put on them is being revealed in the questionnaire to which I referred earlier. My noble friend, of course, will be aware that no hostile force would be interested in whether an area had declared itself nuclear-free.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, in view of my noble friend's welcome remarks about the responses he has had to the questionnaire, can he assure me that in a future year, after the next one, he and the Home Office will encourage any exercise planners to include civil defence as a matter of routine from 1986 onwards?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I think that that would be going a little far, but we already encourage exercises at local and regional level. Where an opportunity to involve a military aspect arises, I shall make sure that
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my right honourable friend has my noble friend's suggestion in mind.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon, my noble friend Lord Avon will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement which is to be made in another place on the rate support grant settlement 1985–86. That will be followed by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, who, again with the leave of the House, will repeat a Statement on the indemnity given to the sequestrators of the NUM funds.
It may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that the Committee stage of the Food and Environment Protection Bill will be adjourned at approximately 7.30 p.m. for a short period; and that during that adjournment the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers' Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 1984 will be taken.

Licensing (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to amend the Licensing Act 1964 in relation to orders for extended hours at premises providing entertainment and in relation to special hours certificates. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Harmar-Nicholls.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Highland Regional Council (Uig Pier, Skye) Order Confirmation Bill
Considered on Report.

Lochmaddy and East Loch Tarbert (Improvement of Piers, &c) Order Confirmation Bill
3 p.m.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now considered on Report.
Moved, That the Bill be now considered on Report.—(The Earl of Caithness.)
Lord Alport: My Lords, I am sorry to rise rather slowly on this, but, not having followed the previous proceedings, I was not quite clear whether I was entitled at this particular point to say how very much I should like to welcome this order and how grateful I am to the Government for proceeding with it, and also for the fact that it should be done through the European Council's contribution. I must declare that I have a special interest in this matter in so far as I have

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been very familiar with all these ports over a long period of time. I know how very much this move on the part of the Government will help those who live on the islands and all those who visit it during the summer holiday period. This is particularly important from the point of view of the islands; and these are matters which will ensure that in the future more people in this part of the world and in the rest of England and Scotland will understand and have the advantage of that very beautiful part of Britain.
My Lords, if I am out of order in any way in introducing these particular sentiments at this point it is merely in order to make the point, which I know will be appreciated in the islands, that your Lordships have passed this Bill, which is so much to their advantage.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend.
On Question, Bill considered on Report.

Friendly Societies Bill
3.2 p.m.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Gowrie I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of commitment be discharged.—(Lord Brabazon of Tara.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Food and Environment Protection Bill [H.L.]
3.3 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Belstead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 15 [Control of pesticides, etc.]:
Lord Gallacher Lord Gallacher moved Amendment No. 56A:
[Printed earlier: col. 1531.]
The noble Lord said: I spoke to Amendment No. 56A along with another amendment on the first day of the Committee stage of the Bill. In response, the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, said that he would have good news for me on Amendment No. 56A, and in order to receive that news I now beg to move Amendment No. 56A.
The Earl of Swinton: I am indeed most grateful to the noble Lord. As I in fact said on Amendment No. 5 I think I have better news on this one. I understand
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that the noble Lord may have indeed identified a weakness in the powers of disposal set out in Clause 15(1)(e). I should like to take this matter back again, discuss it further and probably come back with a suitably worded amendment to cover this point at Report.
Lord Gallacher: In the light of that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Craigton Lord Craigton moved Amendment No. 57.
Page 13, line 20, after ("pesticide") insert ("or delivery device").
The noble Lord said: This subsection gives the Minister power to seize the pesticide or anything treated with it. But suppose the offence is to have used an unsuitable spray device with an otherwise suitable pesticide. Without this amendment, has the Minister power to seize that spray device? For instance, I am told that some farmers make their own spraying equipment and that such a power may be necessary. If the device used is in fact the guilty party and the pesticide used is not, then without my amendment the Minister's hands are tied as he has no power to seize the unoffending pesticide. This point must surely be allowed for in the Bill.
There is a secondary point, in that the provision now authorises the seizure of a device along with the pesticide. But that provision is unclear; I may be told that this can be done. If the Minister gave me an assurance on the second point, I would accept that; hut my amendment would clarify both points. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: My noble friend has made two points in moving this amendment. I wonder whether I might take the second one first, which is the seizure point, which is in fact the effect of this amendment, and just say this in reply to my noble friend. I do not believe that it would be effective in this Bill if one was only to look at the delivery device. As I sought to say to the Committee last week, there is a whole variety of other reasons why spraying may not be up to standard. A machine may be eminently suitable for use with one product and may be totally unsuitable for use with another—a point which my noble friend made himself when speaking a moment ago. A machine which when correctly adjusted, maintained and used is eminently suitable as an applicator of a range of pesticides may be totally unsuitable and potentially dangerous if incorrectly adjusted and poorly maintained or misused.
Therefore, I really do think that to put a power of seizure of spraying equipment in the Bill would not only be very heavy-handed indeed but also would not be dealing with where the real problem lies. That leads me to the first point which my noble friend made in moving this amendment, which is whether there is a power to match the pesticides which are being used to the way in which they are being used. It is very firmly the Government's opinion that in order to ensure the safe use of pesticides machines must be matched to pesticides and the users instructed as to what machine to use and how to use it.
That is why, last week, in Committee, I gave an assurance that we intend to look at each chemical,

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either as a new product or on review, and approve each chemical in relation to safe application methods only. This will involve, in many cases, the specification of particular types of machine and the specification of how those machines must be adjusted and used.
I hope that answers my noble friend. We do, I believe, have the power in the Bill that he has asked that we should have, and therefore the amendment is not necessary. But in addition to that, the effect of his amendment would be to allow the seizure of spraying machines. I really do think that that would be a very big step which the Government would be extremely hesitant to take.
Lord Melchett: I think I am becoming a little clearer as to how the Government intend to tackle this problem of how pesticides are actually applied. I hope the noble Lord agrees with those of us who have already raised this point in Committee that this will very often be as important as the question which chemicals are applied, and for what purposes. However, I still personally do not follow what the noble Lord envisages happening if, once they have given a particular chemical clearance in the way he suggests, for use with particular sorts of machinery and in particular conditions or whatever, machinery is not used which is right for that chemical.
Suppose they have cleared the chemical for particular uses and it is then out on a farm being sold to farmers with inappropriate spray equipment, with spray equipment which is badly adjusted, or whatever. What happens at that point? I hope the noble Lord would agree that it cannot be enough just to clear the chemical. I really do not follow what steps will be taken when the chemical gets into the wrong machine.
Lord John-Mackie: This is a very difficult point. There is no doubt that you could not possibly fault the machine. It must be the operator who is ultimately at fault. Later in the Bill, there is an amendment to see that all operators are well trained. This should meet the point about ensuring that he would not use a faulty machine. If he is a certificated operator, that will solve the problem raised by the noble Lord, Lord Craigton.
The Earl of Onslow: It seems to me that there are two sides of this coin. Unless we have proper machinery, either it will put on too little of the dose or put on too much. If you put on too much, there is bound to be economic cost to the farmer, which he will learn the second time round, and there will also be environmental harm. It would seem that the follow-on is that you cannot avoid licensing machinery if you licence the stuff as well or give it some form of certificate of approval. This must be the right way to proceed. I should have thought that it was selling things under false pretences if there was not some form of approval.
Lord Stodart of Leaston: Listening to this debate, I have the horrible fear—I am sure it is not intended—that a farmer will possibly require different sprayers for different chemicals. That would virtually put spraying by the farmer or his men out of existence. It would become totally uneconomic. Sprayers are
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expensive machines. The task would therefore be almost certain to pass into the hands of contractors. It could be argued that this might be a good step. It would mean that the task was being done by highly skilled people. I agree, however, with the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, that if too much liquid is put on, more gallons per acre than is the recommended dose, that is not the fault of the machine; it is the fault of the operator in using the wrong size of jets. We shall be discussing later matters such as the licensing of operators. The supervision lies in the human element and not in the condemnation or seizure of the machines.
Lord Somers: It is easy, I suggest, to have an adjustable spray. This is used, for instance, on machines for spraying various weedkillers on lawns. It can also apply perfectly well to a spray.
Lord Craigton: Regrettably, I do not find the Minister's reply very satisfactory. I hope that he will read the debate. To me, the insecticide and the sprayer used are one and the same in respect of the instructions of the Ministry as to what should be done to protect crops. If there is a fault in one, there can equally be a fault in the other. I am not at all satisfied. I shall have to look at the matter before Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Melchett Lord Melchett moved Amendment No. 58:
Page 13, line 21, after ("used") insert ("from land, water or air").
The noble Lord said: We are to have a debate on aerial spraying on Amendment No. 68; so I do not intend to raise that point on this amendment that is designed purely to get information from the Minister. I should like to restrict myself to the question of spraying from water. As the noble Lord will know, quite a lot of spraying applications are carried out on water, although nothing like the amount carried out on land. The spraying, from specially constructed boats, of herbicides in watercourses has become more frequent. In some areas like Romney Marsh and the Somerset Levels, conservationists fear considerable damage has been done. I hope that the noble Lord can assure me that where spraying is carried out over water from a boat, the powers in the Bill are sufficient to ensure that any regulations that the Government bring forward will cover those operations. I beg to move.
The Earl of Onslow: I should like to support the noble Lord. I declare an interest. I carry out a considerable amount of spraying of chemicals into water for clearing a fishing lake. It is infinitely easier to be careless and irresponsible in spraying on to water than it is over land. I have had the experience recently of being sold a chemical and being told verbally by the Ministry of Agriculture and the company concerned that it was free and available for use and then being told by the Thames Water Authority that under no circumstances was Ito use it, even though it had been cleared for use in the United States of America. It is important that the regulations in this case should be extremely strict and clear.
Lord Belstead: The answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, is that, yes indeed, there is power in the Bill to do what he has suggested and, indeed, to do what my noble friend Lord Onslow suggests. I do not think that on this amendment I should go much further. I wonder, however, in courtesy to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, whether I may answer a question that he raised on the previous amendment. I was rather slow to my feet and failed to reply to it. The answer again is very short. If there is misuse of machinery on the farm, the answer is that those who are responsible for enforcement and who have powers to sanction enforcement under Clause 17 in Part III of the Bill—namely, the health and safety inspectors—would be those responsible for checking up.
Lord Melchett: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I shall not pursue the point arising from the previous amendment now, although I register my continuing disquiet about the route that the Government have chosen. On the particular amendment that we are discussing, I am grateful for the Minister's assurance and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol moved Amendment No. 59:
Page 13, line 35, at end insert (", and if any pesticide has been exported from the United Kingdom in contravention of any such prohibition or condition either of the Ministers may require that it shall be returned to the United Kingdom")
The noble Baroness said: This amendment was associated with Amendment No. 50, which the Minister has undertaken to reconsider. I wonder whether he can give an assurance that when reconsidering Amendment No. 50 he will also reconsider the sense of a proposal to prevent pesticides which had been refused by an importing country reentry into this country, which would be rather a ludicrous situation. I wonder whether the Minister will take on board the sense of the amendment and consider both at the same time. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: Although I was glad to support the noble Baroness on Amendment No. 50, I am afraid that there is a reason why this one could surely not be accepted by the Government. The noble Baroness is asking that Ministers may require somebody abroad to return something to the United Kingdom. Ministers would have no authority and no power to require that this should be done. I feel therefore that my noble friend the Minister will have to be very cautious before he says anything encouraging the acceptance of this amendment or anything like it.
The Earl of Onslow: There is a lovely idea, which I have suddenly seen, presented by this amendment. This foul, noxious stuff produced in a tin distillery in the back streets of Bolton is exported to some obscure third world country which says, "No, we don't want it", although it is allowed to be exported. But then, if the Minister has the power to ban imports of stuff, it cannot come back in again. So where, pray, does it go?
Lord Belstead: First, it would be churlish if I did not say to the noble Baroness, who, on the extremely difficult Amendment No. 50, said that she would be
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prepared to await the next stage of the Bill before the Government replied, that I shall do my best to consider this amendment in conjunction with Amendment No. 50. There are, however, two problems. One has had the finger put on it by my noble friend Lord Renton and the other by my noble friend Lord Onslow. Indeed, so far as my noble friend Lord Onslow is concerned, there could be a rather difficult yo-yo effect.
I was reminded as the noble Baroness was speaking of the situation (which I think was the subject of a poem many years ago) of the man who presented himself at the gates of Heaven and was asked whether he had done anything very good in his life, and he said no he could not think of anything very good that he had done. So he was refused entry. He then went to another place and was asked if there was anything very bad that he had done, and he could not think of anything very bad he had done, either. He found himself very much in the position which I think my noble friend the Earl of Onslow foresees under Amendment No. 59.
Having said that, we certainly will have a look at it. Nonetheless, as the noble Baroness knows, there are very great difficulties so far as our consideration of exports is concerned, but I am looking at the question genuinely.
Baroness Nicol: I understand the spirit in which the Minister has made his offer and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Melchett Lord Melchett moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 13, line 35, at end insert—
(" ( ) impose conditions on the use of pesticides on any land which forms part of, or is adjacent to, a highway (including a footpath or bridleway) or is land to which the public have a right of access for open-air recreation;").
The noble Lord said: This amendment deals with the question of the application of pesticides on rights of way, or land which is adjacent to rights of way. I put it down because I think it is fair to say there is now growing and widespread concern among people who walk in the countryside about the adverse effect that they are finding from contact with pesticides while exercising their legitimate rights to walk—or to ride if it is a bridleway—down a right of way in the countryside. It is of course possible that spraying on a right of way might amount to an illegal obstruction, or at least a nuisance, but there is no case law on the subject and it would clearly be a difficult case to try, in particular because of the difficulty of proving the presence of pesticide in a particular crop especially as the effects of contact with the crop and the pesticide may not be apparent immediately as the person is walking.
However, it is clear that this concern is not simply something which is felt by walkers in the countryside. A farmer in Hertfordshire earlier this year actually gave a letter to local school children in the area where he farmed to suggest that they and their parents and animals should be kept away from local footpaths for a period of time because spraying was about to take place. This, on the one hand, was I suppose very

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praiseworthy action by the farmer to try and avoid young children and animals—pets—and so on coming into contact with fields that have been sprayed. On the other hand, it is clearly a quite illegal attempt to deny people a public right of access. It is as illegal as it would be for a farmer to put a notice out saying that he did not want people to drive down the M.1 next week because he would be straw or stubble burning and the smoke might obscure the road. A public highway is a public highway. It seems to me that there is a very clear conflict; a conflict of which many farmers are conscious, and of which walkers are becoming increasingly conscious.
If I could just give another couple of examples of recent injuries suffered by walkers, near Cambridge this year two women were walking on a footpath alongside a field which had been sprayed with a fungicide. They suffered a severe rash and burning sensations to the legs. Two young puppies that were with them—on a lead I hasten to add—suffered considerable ill effects including severe thirst which lasted for several days.
A member of the Ramblers Association in Kent was recently discussing with a local farmer the possibility of diverting a footpath which ran through an orchard so that it would be alongside it. The farmer's reason for wishing to divert the public right of way was that the apple trees were going to be sprayed regularly—in fact up to 28 applications between April and October if a MAFF advisory booklet was followed—and some of these chemicals were extremely dangerous. I should remind noble Lords that at the time of this discussion the footpath ran through the middle of the apple orchard—and may still do so if the diversion has not been put into effect—and the farmer in that case was telling the local representative of the Ramblers Association that some of these chemicals that he would be spraying and had been spraying on the apple trees were extremely dangerous. Indeed, one of the containers had a skull and crossbones prominently marked on it.
In these circumstances where there is clearly a degree of confusion—some clear evidence of suffering on the part of those exercising their local rights to use public rights of way, and concern, rightly, from the farming community—it seems to me that it would be sensible for the position to be clarified. Spraying with the sorts of pesticides now in use can be very dangerous. Operators working the machinery often have to wear overalls, rubber boots, rubber gloves, respirators, and so on. It cannot be right that those chemicals can be applied to fields often with crops growing across a public right of way on which members of the public are free to walk immediately after the spraying operation has taken place.
There is a conflict here. It seems to me quite clear that what is needed in the Bill—or if not in the Bill, in the regulations—is a provision to ensure that no dangerous chemicals are placed in areas where members of the public are likely to come into contact when exercising their lawful rights. I beg to move.
Lord John-Mackie: This is also a very difficult question and I quite see the concern of the ramblers and walkers in the countryside, particularly if they
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read some of what look to me to be scare stories about what sprays can do, although I agree with my noble friend that there are a lot of dangerous sprays used. Perhaps I could give my own experience. I have 6,000 yards of footpaths through my farm of 430 arable acres. Nevertheless, if I could not spray these, every yard that I do not spray is an acre and a half unsprayed. I remember an occasion when, because of a tree, we missed a small portion of a wheat field when spraying for aphides; and they spread like lightning that year. It was a very bad year for aphides. It would be very difficult in my case to miss areas round footpaths—and I suspect in the case of many farmers as well.
The point that I should like to make is that I have been spraying on this farm, which is 20 miles from where your Lordships are sitting. We get a lot of walkers, and I have never had a complaint of any description about spraying, and we use all the various sprays for arable crops. I agree that something should be done but I would rather my noble friend had pinpointed a little more what he would like done and had not just left it to the Minister to say that he should put something in regulations. I feel that in spite of what he says the display of notices saying that spraying has taken place would be something that could be done. As it happens most of the footpaths on my farm are wide enough so that no one needs to touch the crops at all.
I suspect that in one of the cases that he mentioned, walkers had been going round the field at the particular time of the year when nettles, and what we call cleavers or sticky willies, were about, and the result might have been the prickles of that on their legs because I cannot think in this particular case—which has had wide publicity—that a week after spraying fungicide it could have done harm to people's legs. But I agree that there has been publicity and I feel something should be done. I feel there should be notification by signposts of some description to say that spraying has taken place in order to warn people to keep to the footpath, which in the regulations should be wide enough to prevent people actually walking into the crops.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I do not much like this amendment—in fact, I do not like it at all. The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, is really trying to throw the baby out with the bath water again. If it is dangerous to spray near a footpath the Minister has powers to stop us, as he told my noble friend Lord Craigton in an earlier amendment.
Secondly, if damage is done to that individual person walking down the footpath, as the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, said, with a fungicide—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, I am surprised it was a fungicide—then that person has a perfect case in law to bring a case against the farmer. But the reason that I really object to this amendment is that it would cause irritation, indeed near panic, that all spraying—even though I know the amendment does not say this—near rights of way would or could be stopped. This would encourage the eco-rambler—I do not mean the proper rambler; I welcome him—to cause great trouble in the farming community. This would be most regrettable, bearing in mind the great progress that has been made

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over the last five years to get farmers to open their farms to the public and the good attitude that the great majority of ramblers and other people who walk in the country have towards farmers. I have great experience of them, farming, as I do, quite close to Oxford.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Northbourne: The present network of rights of way across farmland in this country was designed for a system of farming which is very different from the system we follow today. If the Ramblers Association were prepared to be more flexible than they have been historically in agreeing to divert footpaths onto equally good and equally long routes more suited to public rambling, and more suited also to the use of the land for modern farming, then I am sure that it would be easier for the farming community to avoid any contact by the rambling public with spray.
The Earl of Onslow: I think there is just a little in what the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, says. I am awfully pleased that we have now had an eco-rambler joining with the eco-freaks; that is a great advantage. Would it not be possible to think along the lines of making sure that spraying is not done near footpaths on Sundays, and not done in the middle of the day? There obviously is some cause for concern. We, as farmers, must show some consideration for others. I can hear in the background my noble friend Lord Stanley saying, "No, no, no", which is an unfortunate attitude for the farmers to take because it gives us a bad name, which I do not want. That is my view.
Lord Walston: I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, and rather more sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley. This is surely a question of balance. I think it would be wrong for farmers to be able, at will and without any warning, to spray dangerous chemicals over a footpath, but I think it is impractical to follow the suggestion put forward in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett. Would it not be possible for a list to be prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture of those sprays which are potentially dangerous to human beings or animals, on contact, and then to lay it down that when such chemicals are used on a field or an orchard adjacent to a footpath the farmer should be obliged to put up a notice at each end of the footpath saying that he has sprayed these chemicals on such-and-such a date? The farmer should leave the notice up for however long it may be that the chemical has an adverse effect on passers-by.
I suggest that would cause the minimum of inconvenience to farmers and make certain that no inconvenience is caused to the legitimate users of the footpath. It would also meet the point which the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, has raised—that one does not want to have antagonism between ramblers, users of footpaths, and the owners of the land and the cultivators of the land. There must be goodwill between them. That would be put in jeopardy by this amendment, but not by some form of modification such as I have suggested.
Lord Henley: Following on from the noble Lord, Lord Walston, I should like to ask whether this
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amendment is really necessary at all. I think that paragraph (c) already gives the Minister power to impose conditions. Would not that be enough for him to lay down regulations to the effect that notices be put up or that certain sprays should not be used near the highway?
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My noble friend Lord Stanley expressed the fear that people might become so alarmed that all sprays were dangerous that the whole fun would go out of rambling. I should like to point out that not all people exploring the countryside are on rights of way or belong to the Ramblers Association. On my farm there is a camp site where 2,000 young people come every year. They have permission to go on a whole lot of routes across ground which does not include public rights of way or highways. If they became alarmed that every field they went into which has been sprayed was dangerous, I do not think the experience would be any fun at all. Should there be chemicals which are known to be dangerous to walk across, they would of course be told. No sensible farmer who welcomed them would fail to do that. The whole thing is not quite as cut and dried as the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, thinks.
Lord Belstead: I think the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, my noble friend Lord Stanley and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, have put their finger on perhaps the main problem with this amendment, which is that it calls for conditions without stating what the conditions should be. That I think was perhaps more implicit in what the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, was saying, but it was explicit in what the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, and my noble friend Lord Stanley said. Indeed, the noble Lord on the Front Bench opposite was quite explicit when he said that, with the best will in the world, with the enormous number of footpaths running across his own farm, if there were really stringent conditions, this could have a very serious effect on his farming operations; and that he would regret this because he felt that he had taken sufficient care and his relations with the local people who are walking on his land were of such a nature that it would not be necessary. So, if I may say so, I think that is the difficulty.
My noble friend Lord Henley is of course quite right in saying that there is a power in the Bill to do what the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, would be asking for; it is to be found in Clause 15(1)(c). But, with the best will in the world, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, that I think it is difficult, in view of the speeches which have been made, to support this amendment when, as I say, the conditions are not set out. Although the noble Lord was eloquent as to the problems, as he saw them, I do not think he actually gave the Committee very much of a lead as to the conditions he would like to see imposed.
However, having said that, I wonder whether I can be a little more helpful and say that, under the Pesticides Safety Precautions Scheme, pesticides are indeed scrutinised very closely today. The potential risks are evaluated to include those to bystanders as well as to users, and these evaluations will most certainly continue under the statutory scheme; and of course they would be backed up, if this Bill becomes

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law, by powers to control application on the ground where that would be seen to be necessary. That could be done through codes of practice, and in the statement of intention which I circulated to your Lordships on Thursday of last week we make it absolutely clear, in paragraph 11, that the Government would be looking very seriously at the need for codes of practice following the passage of this Bill.
Perhaps I could consider the suggestion which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, and see whether that is something we ought to think about for the future or, indeed, for a code. I like to think that what my noble friend Lady Carnegy said is the case—that any good farmer should be making it known to people who are camping on the land or are known to be on the land, or who could be coming across the land, that there is a need to beware in a particular circumstance.
Before I finish, I should like to say that we should not run away with the idea that sometimes we are not all, as members of the general public, told to take care. We are sometimes told to take care if we are passing a building which has scaffolding around it. We are sometimes told to take care if somebody has dug a hole in the road. I see nothing reprehensible, if I may say so, on behalf of the farming community, in putting a notice up sometimes, if it is necessary, to say that those who are crossing the land should be aware of a particular factor. As to whether it would be right to do it in the way that the noble Lord. Lord Walston, has suggested, that is something which, if the noble Lord will allow me to do so, I should like to reflect on.
Lord Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon: I do hope that my noble friend the Minister will very seriously consider the proposal put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Walston. To take but one example, where a pesticide has been sprayed and it is dangerous to animals it is very important for people taking dogs for a walk in the country to know the situation. Most people with any sense keep their dog on a lead on a footpath in a field where, for example, there are sheep, but they do not do so in an open field where there are no sheep. The dog is likely to be off the lead and wandering around the field probably covering 10 times as much distance as the owner walks. But I think that most sensible people would say that if they could see a notice saying that a dangerous pesticide had been sprayed on the field they would then put their dog on a lead and keep it to the footpath throughout, and I think that that would be very sensible and helpful.
Lord Belstead: I have said that the Government will look at the suggestion which the noble Lord, Lord Walston, made, particularly in view of the probability that legislation—if it reaches the statute book—will almost certainly be the subject of some forms of codes of practice. But that is in the future. I hope that that undertaking is acceptable to my noble friend Lord Maude.
Lord Melchett: We have had a longer debate on the amendment than I had expected. I should like to make three points before I withdraw the amendment. First,
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with respect, I think that it is a bit of a cheek for the Government to say that my amendment is not nearly specific enough about what type of conditions I want to see imposed, when their own Bill has been criticised from all sides of the Committee on the grounds that it gives them very wide powers to make regulations without their saying what they intend to put in those regulations in detail at all. I was simply following a lead which the Government had so ably given in taking the widest possible powers and not attempting to be specific in my amendments. So it really is a bit much. Half the time the noble Lord is saying that all the amendments are much too specific and will tie his hands, and now he is turning round and saying that the amendment is much too general and that I have got to say what I mean. I tabled the amendment because I wanted to make sure—and I think that it quite clearly does this—that the Government have power to impose conditions if they are necessary. That will change over time, as the noble Lord has not hesitated to tell us on numerous occasions when debating other amendments.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, raised the question of diverting paths which go across fields to field edges so that they take—to use what I think was his phrase—a more sensible route in view of modern conditions. It is true that for many years the Ramblers Association agreed very readily to such diversions. The Ramblers Association only recently changed its policy in this regard and it has done so because it found that field edge paths, which had been created as a result of such diversions, were regularly being ploughed out.
It is legal to plough a path which goes across the middle of a field, but it is against the criminal law to plough a path which goes along the edge of a field, and it is also against the law to plant such a path with a crop.
Two of the incidents of which I have heard where people have been adversely affected by pesticides, and which I did not have time to mention when introducing the amendment, actually concerned such cases, and they both arose in Lincolnshire. The first concerned a group of people who last spring walked around the edge of a field on a public right of way which had been illegally planted with a cereal crop. They suffered a severe rash and intense irritation on their legs for about seven days. I have a photograph of a path, again going along the side of a field and again in Lincolnshire in the parish of Deeping St. James, where a notice has been erected at the entrance to a field of oil seed rape, warning people of the danger of pesticides. The height and thickness of the oil seed rape crop is such that it would be physically impossible to walk along the footpath around the edge of the field without coming into contact with the crop.
On the question of notices, which a number of noble Lords raised, I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, that when he considers the situation I think that he will find that it is a dangerous route to go down. It seems to me that we shall get into exactly the same problem as we have with farmers putting bulls in fields which are crossed by public footpaths and where the Ramblers Association's advice to walkers is to trespass rather than run the risk of serious injury by entering the field. Moreover, in doing so they are also

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following advice from the Health and Safety Executive, which says that all bulls are dangerous and none should be trusted to be safe.
The fact of the matter is that if a group of ramblers had been walking since, let us say, early in the morning on a hot summer's day for several miles along a linear route where there are no opportunities to turn off and they are a couple of hundred yards from a pub at lunch time, but come across a notice on, for example, Lord Walston's farm (or for that matter anybody else's farm) which says, "Danger. Pesticides in this field"—the last field which they have to cross before they can get to the pub—they will either cross it nevertheless, or go round the edge of another field and trespass on the noble Lord's land. Either of those outcomes seems to me to be undesirable from both the walkers' and the farmers' point of view. So I do not think that erecting notices which imply that a legal right is in some way being withdrawn, will do.
3.45 p.m.
I assumed that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, was saying that we have to walk around scaffolding on a footpath in a town. If a public footpath in a town or on a highway of any type is blocked up, the people who block it have to get permission to do so and they usually have to provide safe alternatives. That is why one sees around building sites special corridors set aside for pedestrians. If that were done in this case, if a safe alternative route was provided by the farmer around the field that was sprayed, I do not think that any sensible walker would object. They would not object to what in other words is a temporary diversion. But that is different from putting up a notice which purports to deny people their legal rights. I do not think that notices of that nature will provide a solution—they will make matters worse. I hope that the noble Lord will bear that in mind when he considers this point. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of Swinton: I think that this might be a convenient moment to take the first Statement. I therefore beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Rate Support Grant Settlement 1985–86
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (The Earl of Avon):
My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat a Statement on the rate support grant settlement 1985–86, being made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment in another place. The Statement reads as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a Statement on the rate support grant settlement in England for 1985–86.
"In my Statement to the House on 24th July I set out my proposals for the main elements of the rate
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support grant settlement for next year and listed the 18 authorities which I was designating for rate limitation. I have today laid before the House the main RSG report for 1985–86 and I am sending rate-capped authorities notices advising them of the rate or precept limit proposed for them. Copies of all the material being sent to local authorities today are available in the Library and the Vote Office.
"I have also laid today two RSG supplementary reports. The third supplementary report for 1983–84 adjusts authorities' grant entitlements in the light of the latest information on outturn expenditure for the year. The second supplementary report for 1984–85 implements grant abatement for Liverpool City Council, whose budget was received too late to be taken into account when I implemented grant abatement for all other authorities in July. Both reports also contain other technical adjustments to grant.
"I now turn to the main report for next year. For 1985–86 for the first time the Rates Act enables me to influence directly the spending levels of the worst overspenders by imposing limits on their rates. As we promised throughout the passage of the Rates Bill in Parliament, this means that rate limitation will not only benefit the ratepayers of the selected authorities. It will also benefit low-spending authorities, since I am no longer obliged to ask them to make cuts because of the excesses of the high-spending minority.
"I have decided to confirm the targets I proposed in July with two important changes. The first allows most low spending authorities an increase over this year's budgets of 4½ per cent, instead of the 4½ per cent. I previously announced. This reflects the slight increase in the forecast inflation rate over the period. For the first time targets for the lowest spenders imply spending increases in line with inflation, or in other words, no further real terms cuts. The second change relates to a particular group amongst those low spenders—namely, authorities such as Berkshire budgeting this year to spend not only below GRE, but also at or very close to target. They will be allowed a further relaxation of targets so that they may increase spending by up to 4.625 per cent.—a little more than inflation—without incurring penalties. With these changes, the targets for low spending authorities fulfil to the letter the undertakings which I gave to the House last January.
"I have decided to confirm the stringent holdback tariff which I announced in July at the rate of 7 pence in the pound for the first percentage point of overspend, 8 pence for the second, and 9 pence for each point thereafter. I believe that it is only fair to match realistic targets with a strong incentive that they should be met. I propose, however, to continue to exempt from penalty increases in certain urban programme and civil defence expenditure, and increases in expenditure on schemes jointly financed with health authorities. Aggregate exchequer grant will be £11.764 billion. That is slightly higher than the figure which I proposed in July. The grant percentage is 48.7 per cent.
"I turn now to grant distribution. Following consultation with local government, I have decided

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on some limited but important changes to GRE assessments, affecting primarily the GREs for passenger transport support, highway maintenance, rate fund contributions to council housing, and recreation. I have also increased the slope of the block grant poundage schedule. This increases the importance of spending in relation to GRE as a factor in grant entitlements, and increases the marginal cost of spending above GRE for all authorities. Again, this helps low-spending authorities, since it gives more of the available grant to authorities spending at or below GRE.
"In the light of this RSG settlement, I am issuing maximum rate or precept limits for the 18 selected authorities. Since July, when I announced expenditure levels for these authorities, it has been open to each of these authorities to apply for a redetermination of their expenditure level at a higher level, but none has done so.
"Rate or precept limits for 1985–86 are therefore based on the July expenditure levels. I am today sending out statutory notices informing each authority of the limit that is proposed for it. A list of these limits has been placed in the Library and is available in the Vote Office. In calculating the rate or precept limits I have taken account of the expenditure levels set and the authorities' block grant entitlements next year. I have also had regard to the level of financial reserves available to each authority, making assumptions as necessary.
"Authorities now have until 15th January to comment on the rate or precept limits proposed, and to draw my attention to any relevant information of which I may not be currently aware. Unless I have comments by 15th January, it will, in the absence of agreement, be necessary to move on to the next stage of asking the House to confirm the rate limits by affirmative order.
"The proposed rate and precept limits I am announcing today will be warmly welcomed by ratepayers in the areas concerned. For 13 of the 18 authorities I have set rate or precept limits which are lower than the rates or precepts being charged this year. In the five remaining cases, however, the rate or precept will be lower than it would have been without rate-capping.
"Mr. Speaker, this year's average rate increase was the lowest for 10 years. If authorities budget to meet their targets next year, the average rate increase next year should be even lower. The first stage of rate limitation will at long last bring relief to ratepayers in the rate-capped areas. Moreover, rate-capping has allowed me to set much fairer targets for low-spending authorities. This settlement has meant increasing the provision for local authority current spending next year by £820 million above the provision in the public expenditure White Paper. In present economic circumstances, this is a reasonable and fair settlement, and I commend it to the House".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl the Minister for reading the Statement so beautifully. As it is the first rate settlement Statement
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that he has read, perhaps I may congratulate him on the fact that he made it sound very much better than, in truth, it is. I should like to ask the Minister some questions. First, is he aware that the Government have taken away £9,000 million in the rate support grant and that, as the Association of County Councils pointed out last January, it is for this reason that rates have doubled? Is it not the case that by reducing the rate support grant, with an increasing burden on ratepayers, services will shrink even further? There has been a 5 per cent, cut in real terms, so the effect of these very seductive words is entirely cosmetic. The figures disguise the fact that the cut is 5 per cent, below what is required to maintain existing services throughout the country as a whole.
In their relaxation, the Government have tried to buy off the shire counties by increasing spending from 4½per cent, to 42 per cent. They are trying to help their friends by giving increased targets. Then there is the increased slope. This has the effect of discouraging further spending above GRE. The increased effect of spending above GRE helps those spending at or below GRE, which includes 29 out of 39 shire counties. However, I am afraid that this is a big con, because the aggregate Exchequer grant of £110 million in cash is at least £600 million less in real terms.
Will the Minister confirm that every council spending at target this year will receive less grant in real terms than it did in 1984–85? I stress that I am speaking in real terms. Will the Minister say how many councils spending at target this year will receive less grant, taking into account the transport supplementary grant? Is it not the case that major spending councils will receive less in real terms? When will the Minister's right honourable friend be making an announcement, which I understand has been held up, on housing investment and other capital investment programmes?
On the question of rate-capping, the Secretary of State has evidently chosen the path of confrontation, because on 24th July he said:
"Rate-capping does not therefore mean that services must be slashed. The spending limits that I am setting are reasonable and should be perfectly attainable".
How does this square with the rate limits announced today, which are based on expenditure limit cuts ranging from 6 per cent, to 28 per cent.? It really is quite impossible. The Secretary of State went on to say that:
"authorities could use the redetermination option".
But in practice it is a closed door, as it involves a lower limit and becomes a Catch-22 situation. Councillor Gibson, the Conservative leader of Portsmouth Council, said in an article published in the Municipal Journal of 3rd August:
"It is too early to say whether we should go for a redetermination. It is obviously an area that we must consider, and consider very seriously. The thing about redetermination is that it could come with strings attached that my council could not possibly accept".
Those are the words of a Conservative councillor.
In July the Secretary of State set expenditure limits for authorities. He set a cash freeze—an average cut of 11.9 per cent, in real terms. For some authorities it was much more. In fact, the cuts range from 17.8 per cent, for Merseyside to 12.5 per cent. for Sheffield. Today he will set these in concrete by setting the maximum rates

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for the 18 rate-capped authorities. The system is really quite mad as, if rate-capping works and can reduce expenditure in the rate-capped areas, there will be less grant at higher rates in Conservative areas. In fact, paradoxically, the money goes to the Treasury and, therefore, the Treasury has a vested interest in fining local authorities, as local authorities can now be fined up to £10 for every £1 they spend.
In the past, the level of grant support has always been up to the Government to decide and the expenditure side has always been left to local authorities. But now the total expenditure of local authorities is being decided by the Government. This is a new, unpleasant innovation by this Government, and once again it is taking away from locally-elected councillors, from elected authorities, the right to make decisions for their own areas.
4 p.m.
Baroness Stedman: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the Minister for repeating the Statement in this House. Like the noble Baroness, I can see in it no tidings of comfort and joy for local authorities. This has been another sad day for local authorities. Throughout the time this Government have been in office local authorities' powers have been whittled away, their finances have been cut, and now their rates are to be controlled by Government and in some cases even fixed by Government.
The Minister says that rate limitation will benefit not only the ratepayers of selected authorities, but also the low spending authorities. But how can this be so when there is a lower percentage of grant than ever before to be shared out among the authorities, when the Secretary of State has given an assurance to the shire counties that they will get more, when in fact the lowest spenders will get increases of only 4½ per cent., supposedly in line with inflation? The low spenders will get that little.
The rate-capped authorities, because they are rate-capped, will probably get more grant than they might otherwise have done. What about those in the middle? Are they the ones who are going to pay for the extras for the shire counties and the others? Such an increase is unlikely to benefit the good housekeeping shire counties (such as mine, Cambridgeshire) which, by just standing still in service provisions, are spending over target, though well below their GRE, and so are penalised.
Eighteen authorities are to be issued with maximum rate limits. How many authorities, in addition to those, have intimated that they may be considering levying illegal rates? We live in difficult times. We have greater pressures than ever on the social and humanitarian services provided by local government. Cutting the RSG without giving local authorities any alternative means of raising additional finance, with targeting, with penalties, with rate fixing, does nothing to help those in these hard times.
Surely over the years it has been proved that patchwork policies in regard to local government do not work. This Government continually go for quick, piecemeal remedies and solutions when what is needed, and what we have been arguing for from this side of the House for many years, is a long-term
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strategy for local government. I believe that we are well on the way to destroying the financial stability of local government, and the Government are now demanding cuts in services that authorities just cannot achieve.
On the penultimate page of the Statement the Minister refers to the level of financial reserves. Surely this is an arbitrary exercise of ministerial discretion in regard to the rate-capped authorities when assumptions only are being made as necessary. It is going to be a miserly Christmas present for local authorities and for those who need and depend on their services. One can only hope that one day even this Government might manage to dispense a little Christmas cheer.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Baronesses for their personal welcome to me, if not to the Statement. May I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, that all authorities budgeting this year to spend three-quarters per cent, or more below GRE are getting targets for next year which will allow spending to increase in line with inflation by 4½ per cent. Even the lowest spenders' targets this year implied real-term cuts of about 2 per cent. That comparison shows clearly how it has been possible to discharge to the letter the undertaking given to the House last January. On top of that we have given a modest extra improvement to targets to those authorities spending at or very close to target as well as below GRE. These are allowed up to a 4.625 per cent. increase in spending.
My right honourable friend felt it was right to increase the weight given to GREs in grant distribution, but this benefits all authorities whose spending is at or below GRE. I do not think that inner-city authorities as a group should have cause for complaint. Many of them will do well out of the GRE changes in this year's settlement.
While we are on the subject of the quantum grant and the expenditure groups who were worried about the uplift of the £1·7 billion which they wanted, I should point out that, after the necessary classification changes and using the Government's inflation estimate, the local authority bid of £1·7 billion is, we take it, equivalent to £1·4 billion, and the uplift of over £800 million which was announced today goes more than half way to meet this. I believe that this is a sizeable step in the right direction, and I do not believe that it is unreasonable to ask local government to come the rest of the way to meet us.
The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, mentioned in particular a figure of £9 billion off the RSG. She mentioned restoring the AEG to the 61 per cent. level pertaining when the Conservatives took office. It is our contention that only £3 billion extra grant would be paid. In any case I am led to understand that the ACC favour cuts in grant to increase accountability. I understand also that the ACC wanted inreased slope of the schedule to put more emphasis on GREs as a basis for distribution.
I was asked about an assurance of grant reductions in terms of real cuts. I do not think it is possible to say that, as it depends on authories' budget decisions. But there is no cap on the gains in grants due to grant mechanisms. I am sure here that the message is to spend to target and to avoid penalty.

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The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, mentioned the lowest spenders getting a 4⅓ per cent. cash increase. The high spenders have of course to reduce in real terms by 1½ per cent., which is a cash cut of about 6 per cent., and that I believe is as much as we can reasonably ask anybody to do in a year. I am sure that the noble Baroness will agree.
The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, asked about the capital allocations, and I appreciate that authorities are anxious to know where they stand on capital, so that they can make their plans for next year. I am sorry that we have not managed to make announcements to coincide with the announcement today as usual. I cannot give a precise date or any details at present. We are still trying to sort out the position on the final decisions on public expenditure. I hope I have covered a number of the points raised by the noble Baronesses.
Lord Sandford: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend two questions arising out of that Statement? First, may I thank him for repeating it and welcome a good deal of what is in it. It must be a good thing to reduce aggregate Exchequer grant and thereby take a step towards the position where more of local services are financed by taxes raised from local electors. To the extent that the Statement indicates a further step in that direction and a further step towards more accountability it must be welcomed.
However, two questions arise from that. First, may I have my noble friend's assurance that in the spring local government will have the help of central government in dealing with their critics, because at that time when rates are set there will be a general increase in rates of some 10 per cent. This is as a direct result of meeting the reduction in the aggregate Exchequer grant and in competing with continuing inflation. At that time we shall undoubtedly get criticisms from ignorant people who are not fully au fait with local government finance, from some mischievous critics, and from some critics who ought to know better. The first question, therefore, is: can we count on central government support in rebutting those criticisms when that happens?
I come to my second question. There must be a point in this process—which is itself welcome—at which the rating system in the unreformed condition in which it is, and unsupported by any other way of raising finance locally, will not be able to take the strain imposed on it by this process. In that connection I think that the House would be glad to hear—I certainly would—that the review of local government finance (for which we have all been asking for so long, and which at long last the Secretary of State announced, in ringing terms at the Conservative Party Conference this autumn) has now begun and is proceeding constructively to a satisfactory conclusion.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his welcome of this Statement. Of course the Government will take their own responsibilities for any increases necessary in the spring. May I say at the beginning that I hope it will not be necessary for 10 per cent. to be the level of increase, but we shall certainly take our share of responsibility.
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The inquiry is progressing. I know that progress is being made, and I am sure my noble friend will be pleased to hear that it is going as fast as it can.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, I should like to remind the Minister that there were two or three questions that he did not answer. I thank him for the answer to the question on the announcement to be made on capital grants, although it does not seem to be in sight. I asked him whether he would confirm that every council spending at target this year will receive less grant in real terms in 1984–85. I assume, as he did not mention it, that that is so. That is the way it works out from the figures. I asked him to tell us how many councils spending at target this year will receive less grant, taking into account TSG. I also put it to him that major spending councils will receive less in real terms. I think that was a point that was also made in a slightly different way by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman. All these will add up to fewer services for the elderly, fewer services all round and difficulties for local authorities maintaining what they have been trying so hard to maintain for all these years in the face of the difficult criteria set down by the Government.
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, it is difficult for me to answer the specific questions which the noble Baroness has asked without the figures we all need to have in front of us. So far as the future increased expenditure is concerned, the figure I mentioned—I believe the noble Baroness mentioned it as well—of £600 million we believe to be a step in the right direction. It should not lead to cuts in expenditure on the social and other resources of the counties. Until we have seen the figures in more detail I cannot answer the noble Baroness more clearly.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I welcome the statement that my noble friend made about civil defence expenditure, which will mean that local authorities will no longer have a financial excuse for not carrying out their statutory and humanitarian duties with regard to civil defence. But to clarify the matter, will he confirm that the exemption applies to all civil defence expenditure on both capital and current account?
The Earl of Avon: My Lords, I can confirm that it applies to all civil defence expenditure on capital and current account.

Food and Environment Protection Bill [H.L.]
4.15 p.m.
House again in Committee on Clause 15.
Lord Craigton Lord Craigton moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 13, line 35, at end insert—
("( ) provide for the inspection of pesticide application and delivery devices;").
The noble Lord said: With the approval of the Committee, I should like to discuss this amendment with Amendment No. 109.
Amendment No. 109: Page 15, line 29, after ("pesticide") insert ("or delivery device").
First, dealing with Amendment No. 61, at column 1539 my noble friend Lord Belstead said, on 6th December:
"It is our intention that the Government look under the statutory scheme at each chemical, either as a new product, or on review, and consider the likely machinery by which the product will be applied".
I repeat those words:
"and consider the likely machinery by which the product will be applied".
Consideration is impossible without inspection. This amendment includes inspection in the regulations, which must give power to inspect in any case if the purpose of this Bill is to be fulfilled. That is the reason for my first amendment.
Turning to Amendment No. 109, such official consideration and inevitable inspection must, as the Seventh Report of the Royal Commission wished, lead to improvements in the devices used. So it is logical to ask the manufacturer of the device to pay for its approval or consideration just as the chemical manufacturer pays for his pesticide approval under this Bill. In effect, what I am saying is that delivery devices should be approved after inspection for which the manufacturer of the device should be charged. I do not think the Bill permits this now. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: For reasons which I have already sought to put before the Committee, I do not take the same view as my noble friend, that it would be practicable to introduce an inspection system for spraying machines. That does not mean that the overall objective of my noble friend and the Government is not the same. We agree that the need is to ensure that pesticides are only applied through machinery which is appropriate and safe for the purpose. We are agreed on the ends; we are only at a difference on the means.
As I see it there are two problems here. The first is the one which I have already endeavoured to explain to your Lordships; that it is not just a question of looking at a machine and deciding whether it passes an inspection, because once the machine is out in the field there are a whole host of other factors which will affect the effectiveness with which the machine is being used.
The second problem is that this would amount to an MoT system for sprayers involving a vast number of officers who, I suggest to my noble friend, would be much better employed making sure that the farmers and contractors used the equipment they had with the appropriate chemicals—I stress "with the appropriate chemicals"—and in the correct way.
I am not simply saying that for something to say because in Clause 17(4) and (5) we find that the officers who will enforce Part III of the Bill, who will be health and safety at work officers, will have powers to impose improvement and prohibition notices on anyone who uses pesticides in a way likely to create a hazard. Thus anyone using a machine incorrectly or using an unsuitable machine could be told that he could not continue to use that machine while it remained in that condition or that he would need to have some instruction on the correct use of the machine. I feel that in taking those powers, we have gone about as far as it is reasonable to take the powers of the Government in this matter.
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I very much regret having to say that because the objectives of the Government are exactly the same as those of my noble friend Lord Craigton; nonetheless, we feel that to set up a testing system for spraying machines is something which would hardly be practicable.
Lord Melchett: May I ask the noble Lord a question about this aspect? What would be the situation if a farmer bought a pesticide application system, a sprayer or whatever, from a manufacturer? In the hypothetical case that I am suggesting it would probably be a small manufacturer. The manufacturer sold the farmer that machine as being appropriate and safe for use with a whole range of herbicides. The farmer then used the machine for applying a whole range of herbicides. A health and safety inspector saw the farmer at work with the machine, stopped the farmer working and said, "This machine is neither appropriate nor safe for use with herbicides. It should not be used to apply herbicides at all. It is completely wrong for that. You have broken the law and I am going to prosecute you. You must stop using the machine immediately".
I understand that the farmer would have a case in civil law against the manufacturer, for he had been sold something which was not right. But the farmer at that stage would be in the process of being prosecuted under the criminal law, as I understand it. Would the farmer have a defence against the criminal charge that he had bought the machine in good faith from a manufacturer who had said that it was appropriate and safe for use with a herbicide and therefore that let him off the hook? His "due care and diligence" had been exercised simply by his accepting the manufacturer's word. Or would that not be a sufficient defence for the farmer?
Lord Belstead: I shall give the noble Lord a reply which I often find myself giving to those who write to Government departments—and I know that the noble Lord has probably done the same in his time in the past: Consult a really good solicitor and then await the decision of the court.
Lord Craigton: The Government are missing a very great opportunity here to follow the suggestion and advice of the Royal Commission in its 7th Report, which drew the attention of the public to the fact that you can get the same value from spraying with one-fifth of the amount of pesticide if you use the right sprayer. The burden of the Royal Commission's complaint was that not enough enthusiasm was behind the improvement of the sprayer and there was no push from the Government or really from anybody else because the incentive is to use more pesticide and not less—because that is the incentive of the manufacturer. I believe that the Government are missing a great opportunity in not putting into this Bill, not what I want but what the Royal Commission wants.
Lord Melchett: Before the noble Lord withdraws his amendment, is it good enough to say to all the farmers who are potentially affected by this power that the Government are taking that if they get into trouble they should consult a solicitor and await to see what

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the courts decide? This is a fundamental point. The Government are aiming their controls on application techniques at the farmers, making sure that farmers use due care and diligence in applying pesticides, and they have said (as the noble Lord has just said) that it will be too unwieldy to try to test machinery when the manufacturers are responsible for it. They want to keep all their controls on the farmer.
In the case that I have suggested, it seems to me quite possible that the controls would not bite anywhere. The farmer would simply pass back the buck to the manufacturer, and the Government have decided not to look at all at what the manufacturers do. With respect to the noble Lord, I think that it is a more serious question than his initial reply suggested.
Lord Belstead: If I may intervene, the noble Lord was perfectly reasonable to put this point to me again. It gives me the opportunity to say that the Government feel very strongly that the responsibility for the safe use of pesticides has to rest with the user. I have deployed the reasons why we feel that, but we do feel deeply. So far as the hypothetical case which the noble Lord has put to me is concerned, I was not meaning to be flippant. After all, if the noble Lord or I were to have the misfortune to go out in a car, to be driving and to have a very bad accident, it would be a matter for the courts to decide where the responsibility lay if we then started to argue that either our steering had gone wrong or the brakes had failed. I really could not from this Box conceivably give a different answer from the one I gave the noble Lord to the issue which was put to me. Having said that, I take the point that the noble Lord is concerned about where the control should lie. I hope that the noble Lord will not mind my saying that, even having listened to this debate, I feel that the Government are right in saying that the point of control ought to be with the user.
Lord Broxbourne: Does my noble friend appreciate that, so far from his original answer being flippant, it gave a very precise and informed assessment of the constitutional relationship between Parliament and the courts?
Lord Craigton: In view of that reply, which had nothing at all to do with my amendment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Walston Lord Walston moved Amendment No. 62:
Page 13, line 36, leave out from ("much") to ("and") in line 37 and insert ("and when a pesticide may be used on crops, food or feeding stuff and how much residue may be left;").
The noble Lord said: The object of this amendment is no more than to strengthen the clause to which it refers. We are in complete agreement with what the clause is trying to do, but it is difficult from the point of view of the grower to decide how much of a pesticide is eventually going to be left in the crop which is in question. It would be a very considerable help from the grower's point of view, and make the application of this regulation more effective in our view, if the amendment were adopted so that there would be guidance from the Government as to the quantities
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and the timing of the application that can safely be used without leaving undue amounts of residue in the crop. I would remind the Minister, as doubtless he knows, that all of Clause 15 is permissive; it is only that the Minister "may" do this and not that he is forced to do it. As I say, it is purely because we are in sympathy with what he is trying to do that we are putting forward this amendment, in the hope that he will consider it will make the clause as it stands somewhat more effective.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): If this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 63 or 64.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: I should like very much to support this amendment because it appears to us that to attack the problem as it does in the Bill is to attack the problem from the wrong end. There is an additional benefit in the Minister having the right to set the maximum use of pesticides. It does not only mean that the Minister can set the maximum use; he can also set the minimum use; and that is desperately important. We all know that using a pesticide, and using too little, raises the risk of building up immunity and resistance in both pest and pathogen targets. It is important that if the farmer perhaps is trying to save money and would use too little, he realises that to do so is just as important as using too much. I believe, therefore, that the amendment has a lot to recommend it.
The Earl of Radnor: If I may say so, I have sympathy with parts of this amendment. It has certain faults to it. I shall take up a point raised by the noble Baroness opposite and say that it is very important that minimums should not be specified so that people can experiment. I think a number of noble Lords would want to see if they can get the same results using less of the spray. I think it would inhibit that. The only other thing I would say is that I think that to ask the Minister to decide on the timing is very difficult indeed.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I rather agree with my noble friend over the minimum, but I would rather leave this question to a later amendment when we are discussing it in full. But, either way, whether my noble friend on the Front Bench accepts this amendment or whether he leaves the Bill as it is, I should like to ask him three questions about which perhaps he can try to help me. First, who will enforce that a particular pesticide is being used correctly, so ensuring that the right residue, or no more than the right residue, is left in the crop? I ask this particularly with regard to gardens. I should like to know what is my noble friend's view over gardens. I cannot believe that there can be a single noble Lord here who gardens who has not over-dosed, and vastly over-dosed, his garden with chemicals at some stage. I should like to know how the Government are going to deal with that particular problem.
Then I should like to ask my noble friend about the position of the farmer who is found to have too much residue in his crop. Whose fault is it if he can prove that he has used the chemical according to the instructions? I will not ask my noble friend to go too far down this road, but I am particularly worried about

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my noble friend's Amendment No. 129 knocking out "due diligence", which, as the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, pointed out, was a defence. But it will not be a defence if my noble friend's amendment is accepted. I hope that we shall be able to deal with that particular problem then, if my noble friend does not want to answer it now.
Finally, I must ask my noble friend how he is going to deal with the problem of residues left by imported chemicals. I accept that imported chemicals must be made safe, but it is of equal importance that the maximum residues that are decided here must be similar to those decided among our continental friends. Otherwise British agriculture will again be unfairly prejudiced.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Belstead: If I may say so, I think this is an interesting amendment. I was interested in particular in what seemed to he an amendment which proposed what your Lordships wished; namely, to write into the Bill a power to set limits for residues and, more importantly—this is what the noble Baroness and the noble Lord were chiefly speaking about—to specify when pesticides may be used on food crops or on feeding stuffs. Then when the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, started talking about "minimum amounts" I felt that there was an uneasy stirring around me and the feeling came again, at any rate to some of my noble friends, along the lines of, "Are we not beginning to tie the farming community up so tightly by what we are suggesting that we ought to take care?" Whether or not that is the case, it leads me to the conclusion that, if we can, I think it is better to try to leave the statements in this Bill in broad terms before coming down to making the detailed regulations later, which the Government have promised over and over again will be done only after consultations with all the various interested parties.
However, if the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Walston, feel that I am entirely avoiding the issue of their amendment in saying that, may I remind them that the statement of intention which I circulated on Thursday of last week explains the sorts of requirements and precautions which might be laid on pesticide users as conditions of use. Some examples arc given in paragraph 11 of that statement, and I am very ready to say that a specification of when a pesticide should be used could well be added to the requirements which would still be under the regulations; for instance, not using a spray when a crop is in flower, or not using a spray so many weeks before the harvesting of the crop. I believe I am right in saying that sometimes labels display a requirement that a spray should not be used longer than a certain period after coming out of store.
Also, it would be possible, following the thrust of this amendment, to have cases where a certain pesticide might or might not be used. Here again, an obvious example is that as the law stands at the moment—there is an amendment down regarding this which we shall come to a little later—Warfarin can be used for grey squirrel control, certainly in England and I believe also in Wales. But, as I understand it, there are certain counties where the red squirrel is still to be found, and great care has to be taken in the use of
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Warfarin. However, if I may say so, the issues of when and where a pesticide can be used certainly could be part of the regulations which would be brought in under the powers of the Bill.
Perhaps before I sit down I might add another point. This is an amendment which also mentions residue limits. I would simply say that we are taking powers in this Bill, as your Lordships know, to enable us to set legal residue limits for the first time; this is in Clause 15(1)(g). We may also need to implement European Community agreements on residues, which will facilitate trade. If the noble Baroness and the noble Lord will allow me to say so, I do not think there is anything very much in this amendment with which I would disagree, except that we immediately get into difficulties when we try to become too specific in the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Stanley asked three specific questions. The first was: who will enforce the residue limits? As I have already said to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, the Health and Safety Executive officers are responsible for enforcement under Part but this specific issue mentioned by my noble friend has yet to be determined. It is worth noting that local authorities, supported by public analysts, already have responsibilities under the Food Act 1984 and residue limits will serve to clarify the position on residues. This might well be dealt with in that particular way.
My noble friend also asked: what about the position of the domestic gardener? On residues, there is no real grounds for concern here, because when products are approved for domestic use full consideration is always given to the method of application and the safety of the user. It is of course important that gardeners should respect the instructions given for safe use.
Finally my noble friend asked: What about the residue limits on imported chemicals? It was felt that United Kingdom farmers should not be at a disadvantage compared with farmers in other countries. I assume that my noble friend is concerned here about the residues of chemicals in imported food. I must admit that no decision has yet been taken, so far as the Government are concerned, on the residues regulations: but it is likely that Community requirements will cause us to introduce residue limits on imported and exported foods. There is no danger of United Kingdom farmers being disadvantaged because an important part of the exercise on residues is harmonisation with Community standards which, by definition, means equality of treatment between different parts of the country.
Perhaps I may ask my noble friend to forgive me for not answering his question as to whether or not "due diligence" would be a defence if somebody is found to have in his crop residue limits which are too high. If I may, I would prefer to return to this when the subject arises, as I have no doubt it will, on a subsequent amendment.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, before the noble Baroness withdraws her amendment, I wonder whether I may proffer what I hope will be some constructive suggestions to my noble friend. I took the trouble to write to the German Agricultural Attaché, who has sent me a resumé of some of the German regulations. Since 1968 they have had this marvellous

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thing called Pflanzenschutzgesetz, which is the Plant Protection Act of 1968. They have powers; they can be used in some regions for some purposes, or under restricted conditions. So the Germans already, as I say, have these conditions and perhaps it might be worthwhile looking at the details of those regulations to see whether we can get some help or guidance from them.
The follow-up to that is that if we are to go for harmonisation of regulations and possibly variety, according to local conditions, this would seem to be a more helpful and constructive way to go about it, especially as it appears that very little harmonisation has been done. Again, according to the German Embassy, some progress has been made. Some things have been achieved; there have been, for instance, additives to food, and more feeding stuffs have been harmonised. But little has been done as regards pesticides, except in regard to some vegetables. One of the obvious problems with harmonisation lies in the control of pesticides, because the situation is so different in various member states. What I would hope is that when we get to the regulations and accept this particular aspect of them, we go for as much harmonisation as possible. This is a sensible thing to harmonise on; there is no question of sovereignty or anything like that being involved.
Lord John-Mackie: I feel there is a little difficulty in this amendment in terms of trying to decide how much residue would be left if you are spraying a different thickness of crop. I presume—although I am not sure whether I am right in this—that if you spray a thick crop of barley, there will be less residue, whereas with a thin crop you will very probably use the same amount of spray but the residue will be greater. So I feel that the amendment falls on that count alone.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: I feel I must get to my feet again to defend my "minimum standards". I am sorry if it has been understood as being a bar to experimenting on reducing the amount of pesticides you use in order to control your pests. Any pesticide that is sold has to be tested and licensed for use, and it seems to me that it would be perfectly possible to set minimum standards. All of us know that it is dangerous to use too little pesticide. Once there is no immunity against a pest, it is much more difficult to control matters later. I do not see that it militates against experiment in quantity.
Lord Walston: This has been a worthwhile short exchange of views and I am most grateful to the Minister for what he has said and for his undertaking to give thought to these problems. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Mottistone Lord Mottistone moved Amendment No. 63:
Page 13, line 37, leave out ("crops, food or feeding stuff") and insert ("agricultural products").
The noble Lord said: As your Lordships are no doubt aware, I am advised by the Food and Drink Federation on this amendment. When that body was
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forewarned of this Bill in June of this year, the Ministry said in relation to this particular subsection that its purpose was,
"to lay down by regulation maximum residue limits for pesticides in agricultural products".
The purpose of my amendment is to reinstate that wording. In fact, we have to become rather more specific with the wording that is in the Bill at the moment, and which I seek to remove. It is interesting that my noble friend the Minister, in replying to the previous amendment, said that there are always difficulties when one is too specific in a Bill. I suspect that in this case he is being too specific.
The term "agricultural products" is fairly broad but indicates that one is reasonably close to the farm gate—whereas food as described in Clause 22, which refers to Section 131 of the Food Act 1984, includes,
"drink, chewing gum and other products of a like nature and use, and articles and substances used as ingredients in the preparation of food or drink or of such products"—
and it goes on to describe what is not included. This is essentially directing one's thoughts towards processed foods as opposed to the raw materials of foods as produced on the farm.
I suggest to your Lordships that controls on agricultural products would be more appropriate and effective than controls on processed food—not least because of the difficulty of tracing produce back to the individual grower if an item of processed food were found to contain residues above a statutory maximum residue limit.
I believe we are becoming over-complicated and I would be most grateful if my noble friend will give me the benefit of his consideration of the points I have raised. At this stage, my amendment is by way of being a probing amendment but it may be necessary for me to follow it through at a later stage, if my noble friend cannot satisfy me now.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Before my noble friend the Minister answers, is it conceivable that this question might be looked at from another viewpoint? For example, does not the residue in flax matter? It is not going to be eaten, although it is an agricultural product.
Lord Belstead: I can understand why my noble friend Lord Mottistone has suggested this amendment. On the face of it it would simplify the wording of this Bill, but I foresee a difficulty. It would restrict the powers to set maximum residue limits in processed foods; but also, in, for instance, fish or game if that was felt to be necessary.
It is true that the timing and extent of the use of this provision has yet to be decided. It is clear that the term "agricultural products" would be too restrictive. Some agricultural products are only traded in processed form. For example, there is virtually no international trade in milk; at least, the Government feel very strongly that there should not be fresh milk coming into this country—let us put it that way. The fact of the matter is that there is not a great deal of trade in fresh milk across borders. But one finds that with overseas suppliers of butter and cheese there is such a trade. It is for serious consideration as to whether there should be standards for residue limits for products of that kind.

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4.45 p.m.
Oils and fats are another example. Indeed, they are likely to be included as, I am advised, are milk and cheese, in Community directives on pesticide residues. Furthermore, there are certain interests which, as your Lordships know very well, regard maximum residue limits on food products at retail level as a useful public health safeguard. I am not entirely sure of the usefulness of such a measure when we already have wide-ranging surveillance of residues which pays particular attention to foods at retail level; but we have to recognise that people feel that way about residue limits in food and not just rule out the possibility altogether.
I hope that my noble friend will consider what I have said about this matter. There is no wish on the part of the Government to be draconian. Without trying to make out that we are attempting to incorporate every single point in this Bill, I will say to my noble friend Lady Carnegy that the Bill would allow flax to be covered as a crop. But the point that worries me about this amendment is that, if it were to be made, it would mean that there would be a gaping hole at retail level where, quite suddenly, society would have said that they would not wish to put the question of residue limits into the Bill at all. I believe that would be a very questionable thing to do. It is on those grounds that I would ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Mottistone: I shall read with great interest what my noble friend has said. Perhaps I may press him further on one point, concerning the difficulty which could be created by the wording as it stands in the Bill, in relation to food. As your Lordships are well aware, I am particularly interested in biscuits. A biscuit involves second-stage processing; that is to say, the wheat is first processed into flour and then the flour is processed into a biscuit. How will the biscuit manufacturer be readily able to trace the source of the original wheat or the source of the pesticide that was used in the orginal production of the wheat? Would it not be much better if my noble friend could find a formula—and this is what I invite him to do—which is not quite so general as "all stages of food"?
The food chain is a very long one, from the farm gate right through to the customer. Quite frequently there are two levels of processing, sometimes three, before one gets that far—which takes one a very long way from the original pesticide. At the same time that I give consideration to what my noble friend has said, perhaps he will undertake to consider what I have said to see whether he cannot produce a better definition—perhaps not even relying on Section 131 of the Food Act 1984 as his basis for definition of food. Perhaps he can find some other way of narrowing the definition to make this matter easier to implement.
One is not fighiting the principle behind this subsection but against the difficulties which may in practice arise in trying to enforce the resultant regulations which may come out of the Bill as it is currently worded in subsection (1)(g).
Lord Belstead: Perhaps my noble friend will allow me to look at what he said. I give no commitment, for the reasons which I have sought to explain. Perhaps
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my noble friend and I could have a further consultation before the next stage of the Bill.
Lord Mottistone: I am deeply grateful to my noble friend and I am happy to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of Swinton: This might be a convenient time to take the second Statement. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

NUM Assets: Sequestrators' Indemnity
4.52 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I desire to repeat a Statement which has now been made by my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General concerning the indemnity which he gave on behalf of the Government to the sequestrators of the assets of the National Union of Mineworkers. The Statement is as follows:
"As the House will know, on 28th September of this year Mr. Justice Nicholls gave judgment on an application which had been made in an action brought by two working miners, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Foulstone, against the National Union of Mineworkers. In his judgment, Mr. Justice Nicholls restrained the NUM from, among other things, describing the strike in the Yorkshire area as official since it had not been called in accordance with the rules of the union. Despite that order and in full knowledge of it the National Executive Committee of the NUM and its senior officials made statements which affirmed the strike as official. This was a deliberate contempt of court by the union and on 10th October Mr. Justice Nicholls fined the union £200,000 and ordered the fine to be paid within 14 days. He made it clear that if it were not paid the union risked having its assets sequestrated. In imposing the fine, the Judge said:
'A great and powerful trade union, with a large membership affected by the court orders in question, has decided to regard itself as above the law, and to make this plain repeatedly, emphatically and publicly on a nationwide basis'.
"The fine was not paid within the 14 days and Mr. Justice Nicholls therefore appointed sequestrators, as he had warned the union to expect, on 26th October.
"The sequestrators accordingly set about taking possession of the assets of the union. However, by about 11th November they had been able to seize assets only to the value of some £8,500. The vast majority of the remaining assets of the union—amounting to many millions of pounds—had apparently been transferred by the union to banks in various countries abroad in a deliberate attempt to put them out of the reach of the court. The sequestrators, as was their duty, took steps in the countries in question to obtain possession of the funds which had thus been spirited away and in

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particular instituted proceedings in the High Court in Dublin where they had traced a substantial deposit of the funds. For the purposes of these proceedings it seemed likely that the sequestrators might be required to incur considerable financial liability themselves, including having to give a financial undertaking to the court. In those circumstances, I understand that they inquired from the High Court in this country whether this potential liability could be covered by funds at the disposal of the court and were told that there were no funds available to the court for that purpose. There was no communication at any time between Mr. Justice Nicholls and my department.
"When I learned of this situation, it seemed to me to be quite contrary to the public interest to allow the risk of the sequestration being frustrated in this way to continue. On the one hand, it was not right to expect the sequestrators to incur this increasing substantial financial liability themselves even if, at the end of the day, they could look to reimbursement out of the union's funds. On the other hand, it was totally unacceptable that the order of the court, made following the non-payment of a fine imposed for deliberate contempt of court, should be defeated by the union's tactics of transferring its assets abroad and keeping them abroad. I therefore sought and obtained authority to give the sequestrators, on behalf of the Government, an undertaking to indemnify them against the costs and expenses which were reasonably and properly incurred by them in carrying out their duties in pursuance of their appointment by the court. In the knowledge that that undertaking is available, they are now pursuing actions in various jurisdictions abroad to recover the assets which were surreptitiously removed from this country. The contempt of court committed by the NUM will therefore be punished and the law will be properly upheld".
My Lords, that concludes my right honourable and learned friend's Statement.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for repeating the Attorney-General's Statement. However, does the action taken by the Attorney-General on behalf of the Government, as described in the Statement, not give rise to serious constitutional and legal questions, with a number of which I must trouble the noble and learned Lord?
Was the financial backing given to the sequestrators volunteered by the Attorney-General or the Government, or was it requested by them? According to today's Daily Telegraph report the Attorney-General's intervention took them completely by surprise. According to a statement by the sequestrators on the tape today, Treasury help "was unsolicited". Therefore, it is not to that source that we must look for this unprecedented initiative.
Now I come to a crucial question. Is there any precedent for the Government's intervention, acting through the Attorney-General in this way, in contempt proceedings? On what authority—statutory or otherwise—did the Government or the Attorney-
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General purport to act? Will similar financial help be given by the Government in other future contempt proceedings that may arise? This surely adds a new dimension, if not a new terror, to contempt proceedings which are already subject to a great deal of criticism for their very nature and embrace.
Is the Attorney-General now, on behalf of the Government, going to state the limit and extent of this new role of Government as financial backer in contempt proceedings? Finally, how was it that the fact of the Government and the Attorney-General's intervention only emerged by reason of a note by the Financial Secretary to the Supplementary Estimates?
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, in expressing some anxiety about the course upon which the Government have embarked I make it perfectly clear that no one on the Alliance Benches is seeking to offer the slightest encouragement or support for the criminal antics of Mr. Scargill.
Our anxiety arises because these are essentially private proceedings. They are proceedings brought by two individual miners against their union. They are not Government proceedings. The Government could have been party to them if they had wanted to; hut, for perfectly understandable reasons, they decided not to. The Government, if they had wanted, could have brought proceedings for criminal conspiracy. They might have initiated proceedings against the trustees of the union for misuse of funds. In fact, they have taken no action of that sort but left the matter entirely to private individuals. The result is that the Government are now seeking to indemnify private litigation out of public funds for allegedly public purposes.
Does this not come very near to the historic offence of "maintenance'"? I know of course that the offences of "maintenance" and "champerty"—I have often wanted to use the word "champerty" in a public speech and I have at last succeeded in doing so—were abolished in 1967, but the noble and learned Lord will, I am sure, agree that the rule of law which they embody still remains. Indeed, Halsbury, fourth edition, volume 9, paragraph 400, gives the definition of "maintenance". The noble and learned Lord will, I am sure, agree with this because the editor of those volumes was in fact one Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone. Maintenance is described in this way. It is the,
"giving of assistance or encouragement to one of the parties to litigation by a person who has neither an interest in the litigation nor any other motive recognised by the law as justifying his interference".
Will the noble and learned Lord not agree that both in the Consett case in 1955 and in the Adams case in 1971 there are dicta that make it perfectly clear that those criteria are to be applied extremely strictly? In those circumstances, putting the matter as I do at its very lowest, will he not agree that there is at any rate some cause for doubt as to whether the action taken by the Government on this occasion is within the parameters laid down in the definition of maintenance which has for so long been accepted?
I accept of course that there is a problem. These are not the sequestrators' costs. We must be careful perhaps to be precise. These are the plaintiffs' costs in the last analysis. The noble and learned Lord will no

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doubt agree that there is a problem where the plaintiffs have brought proceedings successfully for contempt of court and a bill is likely to be presented to them which is beyond their means. Will he not agree that the proper answer in that situation is either that legal aid should be available to those plaintiffs or, alternatively, that a suitors' fund of the sort which the organisation Justice has for long recommended should be available as a public fund from which costs of that type should he met? Would that not be infinitely preferable to the Government involving themselves and embarrassing themselves by intervening in a matter which is essentially one of private litigation?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, perhaps I may deal in inverse order with the points raised. With the greatest possible respect to the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, he is onto a thoroughly bad point. What is at stake is the payment of a fine. The sequestrators are appointed by the court in order to enforce the payment of the fine; and they are therefore officers of the court. The law of maintenance has no more to do with this matter than the rule in Shelley's case.
As regards the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, I disagree with him that there is any serious constitutional question involved. The court has the obligation to see that its fines are enforced. When sequestrators are appointed it is important that the order of the court enforcing the fine should not be frustrated by want of funds. That is a purely public question as to how the penal order of the court should be enforced by the officers of the court. I think really that there is nothing more to it than that.
The noble and learned Lord asked me a number of specific questions, and I deal with them in the order in which they were asked, if I have it right. The first was, was financial backing volunteered or requested?; and then there was a reference to the Daily Telegraph of today, which I am afraid I have not read. As I understand it, what happened was this. I shall write to the noble and learned Lord if I turn out to be seriously wrong, but I think that I am right. There was, as the original Statement says, a procceeding in Dublin before the equivalent of the High Court there by the sequestrators, as a result of which the Dublin court gave an interlocutory injunction, to use popular language, freezing the assets of the NUM which had been sent across there.
As the noble and learned Lord will know, and as I think I am right in saying as regards English law, if as a plaintiff (and of course the plaintiffs in the Dublin proceedings were the sequestrators) you get an interlocutory injunction, you have to give an undertaking as to damages to the court, so that a right will be done in the end. If you are a foreign plaintiff—and for this purpose the sequestrators would have been foreign plantiffs vis-á-vis the Dublin court—you have to give some security for that sort of thing, and a bond was demanded.
The sequestrators then asked the English court where the funds to back the bond were coming from. It was at that stage, not because they asked the Attorney-General but because they made an inquiry of the English court and were told that there were no funds, that the Attorney-General offered an indemnity
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and gave it. It seems to me that he acted perfectly properly and intelligently, It was not in a sense volunteered. It was volunteered because it had been necessary to put up a bond in order to give security for costs, or the equivalent, to support an undertaking as to damages in the Dublin court. If I am seriously wrong about that, I shall tell the noble and learned Lord, but I think that what I have said is, broadly speaking, right. In fact, the Dublin court has I believe continued the injunction on that basis.
Is there any precedent for Government acting through the Attorney-General in that way in contempt proceedings? That for which there is no precedent is that in order to defeat the order of the court, any person in contempt has been wicked enough or foolish enough to remove his assets abroad. As there was no precedent for the occasion, there has been no precedent for the riposte. I think that it is a thoroughly good riposte and a thoroughly good precedent. Of course, I cannot say that it will be repeated. I hope that there will never be occasion for it again.
Is there any limit on the extent of the new role of the Government? I do not accept that this is a new role of the Government. What is difficult is this—and I do not think that it was more than a purely technical question. When the court has imposed a fine for contempt, the court has no funds—I was a little surprised to know it. Therefore the Government gave, as they are entitled to do, like any other individual, an indemnity to ensure that the sequestrators, who could hardly be expected to meet the matter out of their own pockets, should not be out of pocket. I hope of course and believe, that when the funds are ultimately acquired the costs will be obtained out of the funds so acquired, and there will be no liability on the Government if that is so.
How was it simply brought forward in the Supplementary Estimates? I think that the fact of the matter is—and here again I shall correct myself to the noble and learned Lord if I am wrong—if there is a contingent liability of a continuing character, one has to seek statutory authority to do it, but when it is a one-off exercise, then I believe that one has to put it in Supplementary Estimates, and that was the way in which it has to be done. I really think that this is much ado about nothing, but it may be that I am unduly optimistic.
5.8 p.m.
Lord Wilson of Langside: My Lords, will the noble and learned Lord not agree that the Statement and the issues which have been raised today upon it lend support to the view of the many in the country that the issue arising out of the miners' strike is one which ought long ago thoroughly to have been debated in Parliament? Since the fundamental issues involved are political issues, is Parliament not the place in which they ought to be discussed? Is the noble and learned Lord aware that there is a widespread feeling in the country about this matter that the Government have failed the nation, and in particular that Parliament ought to have been consulted at different stages as this deplorable chapter in our industrial history developed?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I am afraid that the Attorney-General's Statement had nothing whatever

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to do with the merits of the miners' strike. It had to do with the giving of an indemnity to sequestrators, and I think that I must limit myself to that.
Lord Diamond: My Lords, on the limited aspect of giving notification to Parliament, is it not the case—according to my recollection it certainly used to be the practice—that it is normal for the Treasury to seek an opportunity to advise Parliament of a contingent liability which it is undertaking and which would otherwise not be known to Parliament until the Estimates came before it at some later date?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I am not at all sure what the answer to that is because I have never worked as a Treasury Minister. I know the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, knows a bit about these things. But my understanding of it was that the earliest (and, indeed, for this purpose the latest moment) at which it could be done was by putting it in the Supplementary Estimates in the way that it was. That was my understanding of the matter; but this is not a matter upon which I would claim to be as big an expert as the noble Lord.

Food and Environment Protection Bill [H.L.]
House again in Committee on Clause 15.
Lord Northbourne Lord Northbourne moved Amendment No. 64:
Page 13, line 37, after ("stuff') insert ("or soil")
The noble Lord said: I bring the Committee back to more earthly matters. I can find no reference in this Bill to the soil. This seems to me to be a very grave omission. The soil is really the foundation of agriculture. It would indeed be possible to say that it is the foundation of man's life on earth. We in this country have very fertile soils, perhaps some of the most fertile in the world. Their stability, their workability, their water-holding capacity and their ability to release nutrients to plants gradually depend mainly upon their organic content. An organic soil provides a well buffered medium for plant growth. The breakdown of organic matter in the soil is carried out by myriads and myriads of micro-organisms, micro-flora and micro-fauna—and some fauna that are not so micro, like earthworms.
Many modern agrochemicals are capable of destroying organic life in the soil, of upsetting its balance, or of destroying some aspects of it. One of the worst features of the situation is that we know very little indeed about what many of these agrochemicals are actually doing. I should like to give the Committee some examples. In the case of residual herbicides, there is ample evidence to show that traces of them remain in the soil from one year to the next and often build up.
My attention has been drawn to a paper produced by the British Agrochemicals Association in which they wish to resist this amendment on the grounds that the extent and rate of the degradation of chemicals in the soil varies in different types of soil and the residues vary in their bio-availability because some are tightly bound up in the soil particles. If I may say so, this only adds to the argument that there should be more
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research into, and more information on, the behaviour of chemical residues in the soil and that, where necessary, the residue levels should be controlled.
If I may give the Committee an example, in our own farming enterprise we found a few years ago, to our distress, that certain fields no longer seemed to have any earthworms active in them. Having looked very carefully at the possible causes, we came to the conclusion—which has not been entirely verified but we believe it to be true—that a particular fungicide called Benlate was responsible. We have subsequently found a good deal of evidence that Benlate does destroy earthworms in orchards in the Kentish countryside. I have here the Ministry's orange book on chemicals, under "Fungicide" there is absolutely no reference to danger to earthworms.
5.15 p.m.
I believe another very serious risk which we are facing is the fact that soil fumigants are beginning to be advertised by chemical manufacturers for use in the field of cultivation of' vegetables. Soil fumigants are precisely designed—if I may quote from an article in Grower:
"methyl bromide is technically the most attractive of the true soil sterilants. It is a general biocide that will kill most nematodes, weed seeds and fungi"—
in the soil. The article goes on to say:
"It works very quickly and dissipates from the soil within a few days. There are residues, but these are acceptable within present standards".
What does that mean? I believe there is important experimental work going on at Boxworth, near Cambridge. I should like to ask the Minister if he will give me an assurance that the results of that work will be taken into account in framing the regulations under this Bill.
Finally, I should like to say that I think most farmers (as I was) have been brought up, as I was brought up by my father, to believe that the health of the soil is the most important trust which any of us who live by the land can have. I believe that responsible farmers need support and much more information about the side effects of the chemicals which they are being pressed every day to use, so that they can avoid unintentionally doing damage.
I admit that I have probably drafted this amendment badly; but I believe it is also necessary that the soil should be included in some form within the regulations which the Minister frames, so that those few farmers who are prepared to sacrifice good husbandry to short-term expediency can be brought into the net and prevented from doing so. I believe that the soil is still this country's most important natural resource, and we must not destroy it. I beg to move.
Lord John-Mackie: I think that no one could disagree with what the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has said about the soil in this country. Whether or not his amendment is correct, I do not know; but I think we should give considerable thought to what we are doing to the soil by using the various sprays that we are using.
A few months ago, in a debate on the environment, I mentioned that, along with my fellow farmers, we went on spraying and spraying and adding various

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things to the soil without really knowing what we were doing. I appealed then for research in this way. I hope that the Minister will support the plea of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for research as quickly as possible so that we know what we are doing.
Lord Melchett: I also want to support this amendment, which has my name on it. I should like to make two very quick further points. I think the case has been very ably deployed for ensuring that the Bill provides some powers to allow the Government, if they wish to—and I hope noble Lords will remember that this is simply discretionary and not mandatory—to ensure that the soil of this country is not subjected to dangerous levels of pesticide residue. For example, I understand that in West Germany paraquat has been banned on the grounds that undesirable levels of residues of that chemical were building up in soils subject to minimal cultivations.
There is the greatest interest in this from the farmer's point of view. For example, I understand that it is quite likely that fungicide residues may slow the breakdown of straw. Straw incorporation and other means of getting rid of straw and stubble which is not burnt is very much in the news and in farmers' minds at the moment. It seems to me to be extremely undesirable from the farming industry's point of view that fungicide residues should so build up as to make straw incorporation that much more difficult. So there are good farming arguments for ensuring that residues of pesticides in soils are kept to an absolute minimum.
As I understand it, there are already examples in other European countries, other Common Market countries, of chemicals actually being banned because of the danger of residues building up in the soil. I therefore hope the Government will support this amendment.
Lord Tordoff: I wonder whether I could briefly intervene at this stage to support this amendment. Speaking as one who was on the sub-committee of the Science and Technology Select Committee, I think one of the outstanding moments of our investigations there was when we went to Rothamstead and were lectured by somebody from Soil Survey. I think it became apparent to us all that the soil is an area which does not have enough research into it carried out in this country, and, as the noble Lord has said, is fundamental to all our agricultural activities. Certainly, it had a dramatic effect on my ideas about how we should be looking at residues, not just in terms of crops but in terms of the soil itself. This is an important amendment. I hope that the Government will accept it.
Earl Peel: I am sure that the Minister will have a good reason why it is not practicable to put this aspect in the Bill. I would, however, agree with the noble Lord opposite. If we are going to look long term—I sincerely hope that we are—towards seriously reducing the amount of pesticides used in the countryside, then surely the quality of the soil will be all-important. We must therefore look after it now.
The Earl of Onslow: We should be warned, when talking about this amendment—which, incidentally, I
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support—about the discussion that is already taking place about the amount of nitrates leaking through chalk to the aquifer below, which is building up to levels that are causing concern. To leave out soil would be unwise. I know that my noble friend is a wise man. I am sure that he will include it in the Bill.
The Earl of Radnor: I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendment but perhaps not the knowledge to go with that sympathy. I feel however that nitrates are in a different category altogether to pesticides and more to do with fertilisers. I agree that levels are up to an enormous height. I have heard reports of almost dangerous levels of nitrates being brought up from 240 feet below in some chalk aquifers. However, that has perhaps nothing to do with pesticides.
The Earl of Swinton: I can say in all honesty that I share every concern that has been expressed by noble Lords who have spoken in this little debate. I personally take great pride in saying in front of your Lordships that I share a widely held principle that land—and when we think of land we include the soil, obviously—is something that should be handed on in a better condition than that in which it was received. I share very much the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. Having said that, I can certainly assure the noble Lord that our intention is so to control pesticides as to avoid unacceptable effects on soil flora and fauna and the environment generally.. These are the factors which are always considered when a pesticide is proposed for application to field crops or the soil.
My noble friend Lord Peel was good enough to say that I would have a very good answer. I like to think that I have. I hope that he will agree with me when I produce it, because I do not believe that this aim would be achieved by setting maximum residue limits for soil. For many pesticides it would indeed be impossible to arrive at a satisfactory figure.
The situation in relation to food is quite different. The aim is to ensure that when the crop or food reaches the consumer it does not contain unsatisfactory levels of residues. This is I think very much a practical problem. At what point would we set a limit for residues in soils? Shortly after application, the residue level could be high. In some cases—for example, residue herbicides, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne—the pesticide is designed to persist in the soil for a specified period, after which the residue levels decline at varying rates, depending on the pesticide itself, the soil type and weather conditions, until they disappear.
Surely, the aim is to ensure that no pesticide is used in such a way as to have persistent and damaging effects on the soil or any other aspect of the environment. I am sure that this is best done, first, by screening all pesticides so that their risks to soil flora and fauna, if any, can be assessed; secondly, to arrive at conditions for their use—if the use is likely to be acceptable at all—which protect the soil from deleterious effects; and thirdly, to make sure that those conditions are adhered to by the users.
Certainly, I can give the undertaking that we shall be taking into account most seriously the research work carried out at Boxworth when we come to forming our

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regulations. I might add that it is not just research at Boxworth. MAFF has research going on at a number of places into the soil and its problems. The powers to do all this are here in the Bill. I hope therefore that the noble Lord will agree, with my noble friend Lord Peel, that I have put up a very good case why this amendment is not necessary.
Lord Swinfen: I am sorry to enter upon the debate at this late stage but the Minister in his reply has supported the possibility of damage being done to the soil and of pesticides remaining in the soil for a long time. His reply however gives us the seeds of a method of controlling it. My noble friend said that some pesticides are designed to stay in the soil for a certain length of time. Would it not be possible to bring in regulations that refer to the type of pesticide and the amount that is still residual in the soil a particular period after application? This may be difficult but it would I think produce a practical answer in the long run. Perhaps my noble friend might like to consider it.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: It seems to me that no farmer, if he knows that there is any question of soil being permanently damaged by the use of a specific pesticide, will use it. Nor will he use it if he knows that if he persistently uses a certain pesticide it will build up in the soil. What is needed is the education of farmers, perhaps some advertising and maybe a specification on the container. These are all things that the Minister might think about. It is a very important issue. I do not believe however that farmers need very strong persuasion once they know the implications. They know that the soil is the most valuable thing that they have. It is their capital.
The Earl of Swinton: I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Carnegy for answering the question of my noble friend Lord Swinfen. The answer is that if any farmer knows that a pesticide will do this to the soil, he will not use it. Not only will he not use it but under this Bill we shall make jolly sure he is not able to use it. That is what the whole Bill is about. It would be extremely difficult to follow the line proposed by my noble friend Lord Swinfen. There are so many difficulties, as I have tried to explain. There are so many factors such as the type of soil and the weather conditions that all affect what the residue levels are.
Lord Northbourne: I am delighted to hear the assurances that have been given. I would only say that I do not feel that the controls that have been applied and the systems of screening applied heretofore have been sufficiently stringent. The evidence exists I think to show that this is the case. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 65 not moved.]
Baroness Robson of Kiddington Baroness Robson of Kiddington moved Amendment No. 66:
Page 14, line 6, at end insert—
("; and
(hh) require all manufacturers, suppliers and persons applying a pesticide over more than 0·5 hectares of land on any one occasion to keep and make available to persons authorised under section 17(l) records of—

(i) the supply of a pesticide in a quantity sufficient to treat more than 2 acres of land;

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(ii) all applications of the pesticide with details of the date and time of the application, the place, quantity and method of application, the personnel employed to apply it and the conditions under which it was applied.").

The noble Baroness said: This is an amendment of my noble friend Lord Mackie of Benshie. My noble friend is very sad not to be here but he is attempting to fly into Heathrow in the fog. We are still waiting for him to arrive. Hence, I should like to move the amendment on his behalf. It may appear an excessively bureaucratic amendment. Much has been said around the House today about the good farmer following the right principles in looking after the soil. I agree that any farmer with an interest in his soil would keep records of the pesticides that he puts on his land. Much has also been said about the residue left in the soil that can affect crops in future years. It is exactly for that reason that we believe it is correct for records of applications to be kept. It would be helpful in helping research in evaluating the residual values left in the soil. One would be able to go back to properly kept records of application.
It would help in other ways. When a person has been accidentally contaminated by a pesticide, there would be no problem for the doctor in finding out what particular pesticide had been the culprit. This is frequently the case now. I believe that it would not be a hardship to keep these records. It would be helpful both to the research and to farming practice. I beg to move.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Stodart of Leaston: I have absolutely nothing against the keeping of records; I think they are invaluable and necessary. However, as I have already said in the course of this debate, I think that too much is being asked in this particular detail. I do not know the set up of the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie. I suspect that he has an army of private secretaries. I do not have one, and even if I did I see the instructions that are given by the firm which supplies me with the pesticides. They write out on a sheet of paper what mixture should be put on each field; how many points per acre; and, because the tank does five acres to the fill, I therefore do some calculations and hand them to my foreman and say, "This is what you must put in".
Where I draw the line with this particular amendment is that I think that it is asking too much. Of course, there must be a record of the particular pesticide—or the blends of pesticides which is the usual case today—where either two or three of them have often to be put in. It is perfectly reasonable to ask for the date. It is going a little unnecessarily far to say at what time, particularly if you are doing two or three fields in the day, so that you have to say, nine o'clock in such a field, and half past eleven in the next. One must always remember—certainly on my farm, where I have two men—that one chap has to do the work and then has to remember to go home and fill in these details about the time.
The only other point I object to is making a note of the conditions under which it was applied. What exactly does this mean? Warm and sunny? Gentle breeze blowing? Slightly humid atmosphere? With great respect, this is tipping the balance a little over what I have begged should be considered; getting the

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balance right between the requirements (which I fully recognise) of what I describe as the environment, and of the practical side of farming.
It puzzles me why the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, starts off by talking about "0.5 hectares" and then three lines later switches to "2 acres". That I would not know, but if I may say so with the greatest respect, the Mackie brothers have always been in a class entirely on their own.
Lord John-Mackie: I was going to say that I almost completely agree with what the noble Lord. Lord Stodart, has said—and he said it better than I can probably say it—except that I do not understand the point requiring manufacturers to do anything about it. The supplier surely is the important person. As the noble Lord said, the detail required is far too much to expect an ordinary farmer to cope with. We keep reasonable records which should satisfy without going into these details—which I think the noble Lord shattered fairly well!
Lord Tordoff: I do not wish to come between the Mackie clan in any way at all; but in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, perhaps I could just assist slightly. I wish his plane would arrive because there is another amendment coming up which I may have to move if he is not able to do so.
There is one point I should like to interject at this stage which bears on the question of manufacturers and suppliers—but, certainly as Lord John-Mackie said, probably more on suppliers than manufacturers—and the need for records to be kept at that level. I am informed by my honourable friend the Member for what used to be called Ely (but I think is now called something else) that there is considerable concern in his part of East Anglia that as a result of the tragic accident in India there is a tendency of people to start stocking up with pesticides of the category that were being manufactured at that plant. Certainly if that is the case then of course it is something that the Government really ought to keep a careful eye on in order to make sure that an unusual level of stocking of those sorts of products is not being put into unsuitable buildings. I wonder whether the Government are aware of this fear at the moment and whether any steps can be taken to overcome the problem. I do not expect an answer now. I take this opportunity of raising it in this Committee.
Viscount Monckton of Brenchley: The speeches I have heard so far seem to apply only to very rich farmers. The account book would not allow the idea of small farmers like me buying in and storing extra fertilisers because they might get banned. The noble Lord who sits on this side of the Committee said that we should not spray on Sundays, or at 12 o'clock. Again, a small farm you spray when you can: when the land is dry, not when it is wet in the morning or wet again in the evening dew. I think we should be practical on this matter and look at the ordinary, small farmer's point of view.
Lord Belstead: The noble Viscount, Lord Monckton, the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, and my noble friend Lord Stodart feel that this is going into
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detail which would not be reasonable. At the same time, I hope that the statement of intention which I circulated last week shows that the Government are sensitive to the demands about the need for records. I can assure the Committee that the requirements for records—if they are to be made—would be kept to the minimum necessary for us to ensure the safe and efficient use of pesticides and would be the sort of records which many farmers now keep as part of normal, good agricultural practice. I say that particularly to my noble friend Lord Stodart who set out in very simple terms exactly how he felt about that from the point of view of normal, good agricultural practice.
I repeat what I have said many times before, that we will consult all interested parties fully before endeavouring to impose any requirements about records as about anything else in the regulations. We have been having informal consultations with the National Farmers Union. My advice is that those informal consultations would lead us to believe that it is possible to design a system of records which would be acceptable to farmers. Meanwhile, we have made it clear that the regulations would require what, in our statement of intention, we call certain records to be kept by users including farmers. It is difficult to go much further than that before the consultations with those who represent the users if those consultations are to have real meaning as we are determined that they shall. It is for that reason that I ask the noble Baroness if she will consider withdrawing the amendment.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: I shall certainly consider withdrawing the amendment; but before doing so, may I say to the noble Lord. Lord Stodart—who questioned why we had put conditions in—that there is an enormous difference between a still, sunny day and a howling gale. A farmer could be applying his pesticide when the wind was too strong and the pesticide was therefore spreading. I do not think it is unreasonable to refer to conditions. But with the assurance of the noble Lord, I shall withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol moved Amendment No. 67:
Page 14, line 6, at end insert—
("and
( ) specify the degree of volatility of any pesticide formulation,").
The noble Baroness said: I am indebted to the Royal Society for Nature Conservation for information about this particular problem. Certain pesticides, mainly herbicides, are so volatile that after they have been sprayed onto a target crop they may vaporise from the leaves or from the soil's surface and drift in the form of an invisible vapour. This vaporisation may occur up to several days after application, and it should be distinguished from spray drift, where a pesticide is blown away from the application area before reaching the target crop. A pesticide's liability to produce vapour drift is a result of its chemical formulation, not its method of application. Pesticides based on an ester formulation—that is, an organic formulation—are more volatile than those based on inorganic salt formulations. I am sure that other members of the Committee have been given this

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information by the Royal Society for Nature Conservation, but I think it is important that I produce the information they have given, for the benefit of those who have not had it.
In 1981, MAFF produced a leaflet warning farmers about the problems associated with ester formulation hormone weed killers. This leaflet recognised that horticultural crops are particularly susceptible to vapour drift. Many horticulturists are extremely concerned about this problem, and the Evesham branch of the National Farmers Union has called for a ban on ester hormone herbicides. The MAFF leaflet listed susceptible crops, which included nearly all of the broad-leaved crops grown in the United Kingdom. Many of these crops are related to wild plants of the countryside, but MAFF has not acknowledged that the native British flora should be regarded as susceptible to vapour drift. No compensation is available to owners of nature reserves affected by vapour drift, as it is to horticulturists so affected.
The Ministry of Agriculture itself has demonstrated, in a trial at Boxworth, that brussels sprouts plants were badly damaged due to vapour drift, and there are other instances which can be mentioned to support the argument. The problems of vapour drift could be reduced by encouraging the production of pesticides with salt-based rather than ester-based formulations. This could be brought about by including a test of volatility in the proposed statutory approval scheme and withholding approval when a new formulation was perceived to be of too great a volatility.
I appreciate the Minister's concern that we should not become too detailed in this Bill, but this is not a point of detail. This is a new dimension, a new hazard, which needs to be recognised; and as far as I am aware it has not yet been mentioned in any of the documents produced by the Minister—not even in his excellent declaration of intention in regard to the regulations. Therefore, I would ask the Minister to tell us his view on this new hazard, and whether the Government intend to take it into account in the regulations. I beg to move.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I am glad the noble Baroness has raised this problem. First of all, I would say to her that it emphasises the responsibility of farmers in this case. We were very well aware, about four or five years ago, that the ester formulation, particularly of CMPP, would go on the crop and then, in two or three days, take off and destroy a neighbouring crop. I am delighted to say that I am informed that no case has occurred in 1984, and the amount of spray used in the ester formulation, as opposed to the salt, has dropped to absolutely minimal proportions. I hope this perhaps brings out how farmers, too, can take a responsible and indeed an experimenting view.
However, if I can now pour some cold water on the amendment, I would say that I think it is going to be very difficult for the Minister to quantify volatility. First of all, the noble Baroness is perfectly right: in high temperatures you get this take-off after two or three days, which you cannot decide. Certainly ester formulations take off more than the salt. But it also depends I think on the type of weed you are spraying. If it is a flat-top weed that reflects the sun, you are
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more likely to get more take-off. All I am saying is that I think it would be very difficult in fact to put on the label how much volatility that chemical has. But I am entirely behind the noble Baroness in her reservations about ester formulations, particularly of CMPP.
Lord Renton: I appreciate the motive of the noble Baroness in moving this amendment, but I am puzzled about the way in which she has put it forward. When she says that the regulations shall,
"specify the degree of volatility",
I presume that she means they shall specify the maximum amount of volatility that would be permitted. But the amendment does not say that. If she could make it clear that that is what she intends, I think we should all have a better understanding of what she is getting at.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Melchett: I very strongly support this amendment. I think it is one which meets the very considerable concern of many farmers, in particular fruit growers, who have suffered considerable damage because of pesticides volatising from neighbouring crops, often some considerable distance away, and appearing sometimes some days after they were applied originally. My noble friend drew attention, in particular, to the problems which volatile chemicals of this sort cause to the natural interests in the countryside. After all, the nature reserve does not need to be annexed to or even very close to a field which has been sprayed with a particularly volatile pesticide to be affected very adversely by it—to say nothing of the generality of plants in hedgerows and alongside green lanes, most of which will be particularly susceptible to the types of pesticide which are produced in the most volatile formulations.
I hope that the noble Lord, when he replies to this debate, will deal with this problem. Whereas the damage caused to farmers and growers by chemicals which have come from a neighbouring crop, because of their volatility, is now subject to compensation, there is no similar compensation here. Indeed, in the MAFF guidance notes which I have seen there is not even any recognition of the problems which, broadly, weed species, wild plant species, suffer as a result of this.
To answer the point the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, made, I would say that it would surely be quite possible—and this amendment would do nothing to prevent this—for a standard test of volatility to be produced. It would not tell you exactly how volatile a chemical is going to be in any given circumstances, but, like any other standard test, it would give you a guide. After all, if the noble Lord's point were followed, I think it would be pretty well impossible to test anything for anything. You have to have a standard test—that is, standardise the testing procedure—and then subject all pesticides to that standard test. That would give you an index of volatility which would allow you at least to make a comparison between one pesticide and another. That is a particularly important point, it seems to me, because my understanding is that pretty well all, if not all, of the pesticides available in the ester, in the volatile form, are also available in a salt solution, in a non-volatile form. If that informa

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tion were available to farmers, rather fewer of the volatile chemicals even than are used now would be used in future.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: I do not know whether I am being very much of a dim-wit, but, quite apart from the issue of volatility, I do not understand the context of this amendment. It comes (does it not?) under Clause 15(1)(h), which says:
"direct that, if there is more pesticide or pesticide residue … than the proportion specified".
The amendment seeks to,
"specify the … volatility".
Is not the amendment in quite the wrong place, and should it be adopted—or am I misunderstanding?
Baroness Nicol: If the noble Baroness will look, I think she will see the amendment goes back to the very beginning of Clause 15, and it would in fact become paragraph (i). The subsection would then read:
"The Ministers may jointly by regulations—… (i) specify".
While I am on my feet, let me reply to the noble Lord, Lord Renton. Yes, the amendment is designed to specify the maximum volatility and I see it as making no particular problem for the farmer because if the chemical did not meet the Ministry's standards it would not be approved and it would not reach him.
The Earl of Onslow: My attention has been drawn to a paper given to the All-Party Conservation Committee and signed by my noble friend Lord Craigton, Sir Peter Hardy and Sir John Farr. It would probably have been better if my noble friend had produced this information but as I am on my feet I shall do so. It says that in 1981 MAFF produced a leaflet entitled Focus on Spraying with Hormone Weedkillers. It then says:
"However in this leaflet MAFF failed to acknowledge the implications of spray and vapour drift for wildlife. The leaflet 'invented' the idea of the 'susceptible crop' and gave the impression that in areas where these were grown special precautions must be taken, but outside of these areas there was no particular problem. The list of crops listed as susceptible includes all broadleaved crops grown in U.K.—if these were susceptible then it was clear that the majority of the UK's native flora were also susceptible.
"Details of a well controlled study conducted by ADAS were published in 1982. This showed that brassica plants could be damaged by vapour evolved from leaf surfaces sprayed with the herbicide mecroprop 30 hours after spraying. Damage was recorded 100m. from where the herbicide had been sprayed. The volatilisation and vapour drift of these herbicides is not new. The earliest report, in 1946, had involved the herbicide 2,4-D. Damage over I mile away from this pesticide was reported to the Third British Weed Conference as early as 1956. The results of a 5 year study of vapour drift damage by 2,4-D was published in 1970. It seems clear that MAFF and the agrochemical companies chose to ignore the problem of pesticide volatility and subsequent vapour drift damage".
There is a little more on the subject. However, it appears that it has been a problem which has not been given the attention that it deserves. It is a problem which should be taken very seriously when the regulations as regards this Bill are drawn up.
The Earl of Swinton: I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for raising this issue. Obviously it is an issue that has had a very good airing today, and it is one in which many of your Lordships are interested. It
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provides me with yet another opportunity to emphasise the wide spectrum of conditions of use which may be set by Ministers under Clause 15(1). The object is to protect the environment from pesticides whose volatile nature poses a risk and the Government of course go along with that. There is no reason why the environment should not include, among other things, nature reserves.
We could do this in two ways under the powers already provided under the Bill. We could refuse or revoke an approval for a pesticide product which we considered too volatile to be used safely in any way. If its volatility were such that it could be used safely in some ways, but not others, then we could set conditions on its use restricting it to the safe methods of application and we could penalise those who infringed such conditions. I should also stress that we propose to approve products individually, not just active ingredients, since, as the noble Baroness has recognised, formulations can affect safety as much as individual chemicals (whether by affecting the volatility of the product or its ability to permeate skin—to give two examples). I hope in view of what I have said the noble Baroness will not think that this amendment is necessary.
Lord Melchett: The noble Earl said that in looking at the safety of a particular product its effect on the environment would be taken into account. He then added, in parenthesis, that that would include nature reserves. But as I understand it, it would be a major change of policy from the existing scheme if, when the particular products were assessed, their effects on native flora were considered as significant as their effects on other broad-leaved crops when it comes to volatility. If that is what the noble Earl is saying, then it would be very welcome and would take us a considerable step forward.
However, as the noble Earl heard from both sides of the Committee in the debate which preceded his reply, the fact of the matter is that up till now his department does not seem to have acknowledged at all that the problem of volatility can affect broad-leaved species other than crop species, and those will be, as has been said and as was reported to the All-Party Conservation Committee, the great majority of the native British flora. If the effects of volatility on those plants are to be considered in deciding whether chemicals should be cleared under the new regulations, it would be a significant step forward and it would be useful to have that confirmed.
Baroness Nicol: Before I withdraw the amendment, I wonder whether the Minister would also clarify a point for me? Is he saying that in future volatility will be a consideration? If so, are the manufacturers aware of this? From the information which I have it does not appear to have been a consideration in past tests. It is very important that the situation should be made clear.
The Earl of Swinton: I can really only repeat what I have already said. I should stress that we propose to approve products individually and that formulations can affect safety as much as individual chemicals. I do not know whether or not the manufacturers are aware of this.
Baroness Nicol: If I were a manufacturer I would not be too happy about that particular reply. We are getting back again to the yes or no situation. Is volatility to be taken into account or not? Is it a hazard which is to be measured or not?
The Earl of Swinton: Yes; and volatility has in the past been taken into account.
Lord Melchett: May I press the noble Earl for a response to my specific question on the matter of whether in future the effects of volatile chemicals on non-agricultural species—on the native flora—will be considered a significant factor or not?
The Earl of Onslow: While the Minister is thinking of the answer to that question, his answer on volatility has not, with respect, been quite as hopeful as some of us on this side of the Committee had anticipated. It seems to me that it is dangerous not to get a proper level regarding volatility. If that is the case, it seems to me perfectly simple for the Minister to say, "Yes, this will be considered in greater detail than it has been shown to be considered over the past year or two".
The Earl of Swinton: I sometimes wish that my officials could write a little better than I write myself! Let me say to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, that in a way he has hit on the whole advantage of this Bill. It does give us power statutorily to consider the environment generally in dealing with chemicals. We cannot give a clear indication of the practical effects, but volatility is a fact to be taken into consideration.
Lord Melchett: I was going to intervene to say that the noble Earl might like to consider taking away the points that I have made. I do not necessarily expect the Government to give a reply to all these detailed points, particularly as we are dealing with some very general clauses. There is likely I suppose to be some weeks between now and the Report stage, and I would be very happy to receive a typed letter in reply to all these points and which we could both read at our leisure over the Christmas break. I am not trying to put the noble Earl on the spot now. But if he would like to take the matter away and write to me I should be very grateful. I think that both of us might find it more helpful.
The Earl of Swinton: I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett. I must say that if I wrote to him, never in a million years would he be able to read it: I shall make sure that it is typed. Of course, I shall write to him, but I am not prepared to take this particular amendment back and look at it again because I do not think that it is necessary.
Baroness Nicol: In order that the correspondence may take place, and that I may read with some care, in Hansard what has been said, I propose at this stage to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Mackie of Benshie Lord Mackie of Benshie moved Amendment No. 68:
Page 14, line 8, at end insert ("or section (Aerial spraying of pesticides)").
The noble Lord said: I must apologise to the Committee for not being here before but I had a board meeting which was arranged some time before the meeting of the Committee and it was considered quite important that I attend that meeting. I have no doubt that I have been deputised rather better than if I were present myself.
The Earl of Onslow: Is the noble Lord aware that that is a different excuse from the one given for his absence by his noble friend Lord Tordoff?
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I must apologise for not briefing him properly, but both of us were probably telling the truth. Amendment No. 68 leads straight to Amendment No. 100, which obviously it would be convenient for the Committee to discuss.
Amendment No. 100: After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:—
("Aerial spraying of pesticides.
.—(1) The Ministers may by order prohibit, or license unconditionally or subject to such conditions as they think fit, the aerial spraying of pesticides over a place or class of places to be specified in the order.
(2) The Ministers may jointly by regulations—

(a) provide for the licensing of operations over places that are the subject or an order under subsection (1) above;

(b) prohibit aerial spraying of pesticides within 100 metres of any building of a class to be specified in the regulations and over any land adjoining or crossed by a road, public footpath or bridleway or over any common land;

(c) require the person on whose behalf aerial spraying of pesticides is to be carried out to give at least 24 hours' notice in writing that such an operation will take place to—

(i) the local authority within whose area the operation is to take place;

(ii) the office of the Chief Constable of the area in which it is intended to operate; and

(iii) the owners or occupiers or uses of land adjacent to the area that is to be sprayed;

(d) provide for the information to be included in a notice in paragraph (c) above;

(e) require the person on whose behalf the aerial spraying is to be carried out together with the operator who will apply the pesticide to consult with persons in the vicinity of the area over which the operation is to take place and who may be affected by it as to the risks involved;

(f) direct that the person on whose behalf the aerial spraying is to be carried out shall mark the boundaries of the area to be sprayed in a specified manner.

(3) Regulations under this section may only be made by the Ministers after consultation with the Secretary of State for Transport.").
6 p.m.
The amendment paves the way for the new clause, which is Amendment No. 100. It is extremely important because I do not think that anything has caused more annoyance to the public than aerial spraying. From all over the country there come complaints—and sometimes exaggerated reports—of the damage done as a result of aerial spraying. However, from my experience of aerial spraying I know that it is enormously difficult for an operator to confine himself precisely to the boundaries of the crop.
It was evident from the Second Reading debate that most of the farming interests present thought that because of the expense and everything else aerial spraying could be dispensed with in the light of some of the new techniques, including wide booms, tramlining, and so on. I doubt whether it can be dispensed with in all cases. Exceptions were mentioned on Second Reading. In answer to a previous

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question, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, gave us a very helpful resumé of the Government's attitude; he mentioned that many of the Civil Aviation Authority's regulations were in the process of being stiffened up, and in general showed an awareness of the size of this problem, which of course is shared by all who have an interest in it.
The new clause speaks for itself. We want to know the Government's attitude to particular problems. Again on Second Reading my noble kinsman mentioned the difficulties of farms across which there were many bridle paths and in many cases the necessity to spray forestry, hill-land and bracken. All these matters need to be looked at, as do the new techniques which may depend on some form of aerial spraying. Therefore, it is very necessary for the Government to take power to license aerial spraying, which is what this amendment seeks to do. We say that aerial spraying should be allowed only in specific circumstances. I think that that is true. One can of course envisage immensely wet times when the only way to stop a disease which might ruin a crop might be by aerial spraying. But we need to reach the point where aerial spraying is licensed only in exceptional circumstances. We cannot ban it altogether, but the right way to proceed is to introduce regulations to license it only where it is absolutely necessary.
I shall not go into all the complaints from the public, but they are very real, and if any aerial spraying is to be carried out at all, we need regulations of the sort contained in our new clause. I shall not go into each of the subsections of the new clause, but I should like to hear what the Minister has to say on regulations of the sort which we suggest in this amendment. I stress again the importance of such regulations in relationships between the farming community and the public. I beg to move.
Lord John-Mackie: In spite of his board meeting, I am glad that my noble kinsman has arrived here at last and we are grateful to him for tabling this amendment. As he rightly said, aerial spraying has given rise to the fear of spray drift by the public. I should like to divide aerial spraying into spraying by fixed-wing aircraft and spraying by helicopter. I have done both in Scotland and in Essex, and I am perfectly certain that in arable areas we could ban fixed-wing spraying without there being much loss to any situation. A plane can spray only at a speed of about 80 miles per hour. If the pilot is in the process of climbing and at the same time forgets to switch off the spray, in those one or two seconds it is very easy to make a mistake. We were speaking about drift earlier; if spraying is being carried out at about 200 feet, with wind drift the chances of making a mistake are very much greater. Apart from hill and forestry spraying, I think that we could safely ban fixed-wing spraying in arable areas, urban districts, and so on.
As regards spraying by helicopter, that is a different kettle of fish. There the pilots have much more control of the spray and can spray much lower. The spraying contractors have pointed out that just over 1 million acres of crops are sprayed from the air. That is a very small percentage of the total amount of spraying that takes place. I believe that for all the various reasons
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which my noble kinsman gave—and there are many other reasons as well—the amount of spraying earned out by air, whether by fixed-wing plane or by helicopter, must be absolutely necessary.
Whether aerial spraying is carried out under licence or simply as a result of having to ask permission of the Ministry, not much more or less would be done than is done at present. I do not think that the spraying contractors have anything to fear from a reduction because due to the cost factor at the moment aerial spraying is absolutely necessary. I believe that rather than introduce a licensing system—because aerial spraying needs to be carried out at short notice—it would he better to have to apply for permission. I suggest that there should be considerable conditions, such as wind speed and other factors, before permission is granted, and that the conditions for aerial spraying should he quite rigidly applied. Permission should not be given too freely. I do not want to comment on the wording of the amendment. We support it in principle, with the reservations that I have given.
Lord Burton: Noble Lords opposite have considered only farming, and I am very surprised that forestry appears to be entirely forgotten. Surely any of this spraying applies equally to farming as it does to forestry. In some of the remoter areas it would be extremely difficult to comply with some of the regulations which the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, has just suggested.
Lord John-Mackie: The noble Lord could not have been listening very carefully. I said quite distinctly that fixed-wing aircraft should be allowed for forestry and hillside bracken spraying. I said that on Second Reading and I repeated it a few minutes ago.
Lord Burton: I apologise to the noble Lord, I must have missed his remarks.
Lord Walston: In principle I support what my noble friend Lord Mackie of Benshie and what the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, have said. As farmers, I think that in almost every case we can manage without aerial spraying, although I accept that there are certain occasions when that is both desirable and sometimes even necessary. Forestry and hillside bracken spraying is an entirely different category, and there the regulations should clearly be far less stringent than those needed for proper agricultural spraying.
There are two questions which I should like to ask the Minister. First, as I understand it at the moment aerial spraying is under the control of the Civil Aviation Authority. I should like to know whether in the Minister's view the Civil Aviation Authority is at present able adequately to enforce the correct methods of spraying, and if those methods were tightened up whether this would be done in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, or whether in his view it would be better for the Ministry of Agriculture to take over responsibility either from the Civil Aviation Authority or in conjunction with them?
The second point is that I have been handed what is described as a notification card agreed at the 11th October meeting with crop sprayers. This is

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notification to tell all neighbouring dwellers and neighbouring farmers that spraying is proposed to take place as soon as the weather is suitable, or something of that kind, and it specifies what type of herbicide, insecticide, fungicide, or even fertiliser is to be used.
Could the Minister tell us whether this is simply a voluntary notification so far as he knows which may or may not be used, or is it statutory, or would he consider making it an obligatory one rather than leaving it to the goodwill of the aerial spray operators? I accept that the great majority of them are amply supplied with goodwill and have no desire to cause any trouble. Those are two specific questions I have to put to the noble Lord.
I understand also that they have agreed to widening the area close to gardens, houses and so on which will not be sprayed from the air. Is the Minister satisfied that this is statutory, or purely voluntary, and does he consider that it is adequate, or would he prefer it to be a rather wider area than at present has been agreed by the spraying operators?
Lord Belstead: Could the noble Lord repeat the last question? I did not hear it.
Lord Walston: As I understand it, there is agreement with the operators of aerial spraying to increase from 75 feet to 200 feet the minimum proximity distance from residential buildings. Could the noble Lord tell us whether this is statutorily binding or a voluntary agreement, and whether he considers that the 200 feet is adequate, or whether he would rather see it extended to something like, perhaps, 100 yards?
The Earl of Onslow: I know that aerial spraying is one of the things which causes an enormous amount of concern among the public, and rightly that concern has been shown in your Lordships' Committee both last Thursday and today. One is inundated with paper over this Bill, but there is one piece of briefing which I know has been given to my noble friend which seems to me apposite on this.
We admit aerial spraying to be essential under certain forestry conditions or bracken conditions. If a certain amount of aerial spraying other than that is not allowed, it could be that we shall kill off the ability to do aerial spraying at all. I put that in, not as a point of view that I hold myself but as something for people to bear in the back of their minds.
The Earl of Radnor: I am entirely in sympathy with this amendment, but perhaps not as it is written, because this licensing is so complicated. It seems so complicated to me that it might put people off altogether. If you are going to do that, I think that with modern machinery—and taking the point about the helicopter—we could well do without aerial spraying altogether.
I have talked to a number of my neighbours at home and to the farm managers I am fortunate enough to employ. Their reply was that the fixed-wing aerial spraying was so inaccurate on the crops on which we used it that they would really prefer to find some other means. If it is that inaccurate, then it should not be allowed. I am not experienced here but I suspect that
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there is perhaps a more efficient way of wording the amendment. The sort of approach I should like to see taken is that fixed-wing aerial spraying would be banned except in such places where either the terrain or the flora—which would cover the forestry situation—did not allow the use of these modern tractors and booms, and so on, that we use today.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Melchett: I support the amendment. May I respond to the point which the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, made, which I think was put to him, as it has been to me, by the United Kingdom Agricultural Supply Trade Association? They suggest, as I think is agreed on all sides of the Committee, that if some aerial spraying is necessary—for example, for forestry operations where clearly no other form of spraying is a practical possibility—then, the argument runs, we must keep aerial spraying available for everything to ensure that there is a viable aerial spraying industry around to spray the trees.
I find that a nonsensical argument. I am astonished that the noble Earl gave it the light of day. For one thing, the aerial spraying—which I think on all sides it is agreed we should at least severely curb, if not ban—would largely take place in the south and east of England, and it would be the contractors in those areas who would be affected, whereas it would be contractors in the north of Scotland and the north and west who would be taking part in any spraying of forestry crops.
It may be that there is no other way of spraying trees, and it may be that the price would be slightly raised because the operator would not he spending some of their time spraying crops in other parts of the country, but if people are prepared to pay for it then somebody will come along and be prepared to do it. It does not seem to me to be a sufficient argument that because we have to go on spraying trees from the air we must allow people to go on spraying anything else they want to from the air.
I shared the experience that the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, said that he had had of trying hard as a farmer to get aerial spraying done accurately. When I first had responsibility for the farming company of which I am now a director we had been for a couple of years spraying not a weed killer but a nitrogen fertiliser, putting it on from the air on to some grazing marshes. We had complaints from the local nature reserve that some of the nitrogen was falling in their pools.
The first year I was responsible for this I went to enormous trouble with the contractor to explain exactly where the fertiliser had to go and where it did not. We looked at it on the ground. Every precaution you can imagine was taken. The day it was done people driving down the approach road to the nature reserve got nitrogen fertiliser bouncing off the roofs of their cars. That convinced me that it is impossible to do this job with anything like enough accuracy to make it acceptable except in areas where there is no alternative, like forestry and possibly bracken control, although I personally have my doubts about that. I support the amendment.

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The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, gave us a detailed reply on this point, and I am sure he does not want to repeat it all again. He mentioned all the various ways in which the Government could control and put conditions on the use of this method of applying pesticides. The noble Lord needs to address himself to a sharp difference of opinion between what he said on behalf of the Government and what was said by noble Lords in many parts of the House with a fair degree of unanimity during the Second Reading debate. The view he put was that aerial spraying should continue on much the same sort of basis as it does now but they will have all sorts of powers to put regulations here and controls there, and lengthen the distance from houses and make sure that all these rules are kept. What many noble Lords have been saying is that we need to end aerial spraying for many of the uses to which it is now put.
There is a consensus that some aerial spraying should continue, that licensing or some such procedure would be desirable for those exceptional cases, but that that is all we should be left with. That is a sharp difference of opinion which the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, did not address himself to when we last discussed this in Committee. I hope he feels able to address that point today.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Some noble Lords may have been saying that, but I do not think all noble Lords have. I think all noble Lords have agreed that the public dislikes aerial spraying. It seems to me to be of the greatest importance that anything the Government do by regulation should leave room for the development of more accurate ways of spraying arable crops by air, and more successful ways, as well as spraying that cannot be done from the ground.
I am a little surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, does not feel that speedy aerial spraying, carefully and accurately done away from houses, is not important for seed potato crops with high tops on them which could be badly damaged by being sprayed from the ground. Spraying for blight very often has to be decided on overnight for some varieties. The noble Lord obviously does not see this problem; I think I do.
It seems to me that flexibility is very important in this; consideration for the public, yes, but let us move forward scientifically. Helicopters can pick up a man from the ground. They can be very accurate indeed now. The fact that they have not always been accurate when spraying arable crops is another matter. I hope that we will not block the way forward for experimental research and the careful use of helicopters on arable crops, and that we will not confine them to being used on trees and bracken.
The Earl of Onslow: May I come back to take up one small point that the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, made. I was not advocating that this was definitely the truth. But if we are to have a system of licensing of pilots, they must work quite hard at it and not just be part-time aerial sprayers. I am not necessarily saying it is essential that what they are saying is true, but there is sufficient force in their argument for it to be taken account of. That is what I am saying.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I am glad that my noble friend Lady Carnegy said something, because then I am not the only black sheep. I think your Lordships are being a little hard on the aerial sprayer. Your Lordships are being hard, I think, because of TV and media coverage and the thought that aeroplanes must be inaccurate because they rush about madly, spraying and looking like a sort of dragon pushing out fire. They are not. Many pilots, particularly helicopter pilots—I think I shall carry the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, here—are very accurate indeed and probably more accurate than many of your Lordships when you get on a tractor. They are certainly more accurate than I am.
I would ask your Lordships to remember the first point, that a ban on aerial spraying in the United Kingdom would unfairly prejudice us against our continental partners. I know I have said this once before, and I shall go on saying it, but it is a fact that there is enough against us already. As my noble friend Lady Carnegy said, aerial spraying is by far the most effective way to spray potatoes and also, when it is wet, to apply slug pellets.
Another point that your Lordships have missed is that aerial sprayers have brought great technological advances. For instance, they are far more developed in the technology of CDA spraying and many of them who spray abroad on cotton have experience of spraying very low rates in oil.
Finally, as my noble friend Lord Belstead has reminded us, the CAA has strict controls. However, I admit that there have been worries over spraying in particular with fixed wing aircraft. I ask my noble friend to consider one or two points. One was made by the noble Lord, Lord Walston and by my noble kinsman Lord Onslow; it relates to the question of the pilot. It is the pilot who should be licensed, not the area, as was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie. The pilot should be licensed to spray agricultural chemicals, preferably, as the noble Lord, Lord Walston, said, by the Ministry of Agriculture.
At the moment the CAA licenses the pilot and he may have had no agricultural experience whatsoever. His last job might have been to fly Concorde; then he comes in and flies agricultural chemicals. That is crazy. He should have some agricultural training and he should be licensed. This would help to stop some of the terrible things that have happened as a result of using pilots who are probably not nationals of this country or who do not belong to this country, but have come from abroad; and even though they have a pilot's licence, they have done some fairly awful things.
The second point is that when a rule is contravened at present the company is taken to court. The pilot and the company should be taken to court and the fact should be put on the pilot's sheet, and if he has two or three convictions, he should lose his agricultural spraying licence. Lastly I agree with the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, that there is a vast difference between fixed wing and helicopter spraying.
Viscount Monckton of Brenchley: Once more your Lordships are considering and thinking of rich, large farmers and once more you are ignoring the small

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farmer. The small farmer uses aerial spraying as a last resort when MAFF tells him that he has a disease and this is the only way of dealing with it because of the time of the year or the state of the soil. The cheapest form is the fixed wing and it is mostly very accurate. Please do not forget that. Incidentally, many interesting things are found from the archaeological point of view, as well.
Lord Belstead: I am interested in the debate which has taken place on aerial spraying, for the second time. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, for flying in in time to enable us to have this debate. I think we want to be a little careful about some of the assertions which have been made. My noble friend Lord Stanley made some very helpful remarks, but I am not entirely certain that he is accurate in saying that when the CAA is awarding an aerial application certificate it does not take into account the experience of the pilot. My information is that the agricultural experience of the pilot is a factor, but I should like to look into that and maybe my noble friend will as well.
Before I reply briefly to this amendment I shall answer the three questions that the noble Lord, Lord Walston, asked me. The first is that the regulations which would be made on aerial spraying under this Bill would be subject to discussion between the Health and Safety Executive and the CAA. However, when the regulations come to be made they will be made by my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, but that will have to be in concert with another Minister, and it would be for consideration whether it would be the Minister of Transport in this case. The second—
Lord Walston: May I ask the noble Lord to clarify this? He says that the consultations would be between the Health and Safety Executive and the CAA. The noble Lord did not mention the Ministry of Agriculture. Does he take it for granted that the Ministry of Agriculture will be included in those consultations, or will it be left solely to the two bodies he mentioned?
Lord Belstead: I thought that it would be implicit that the Ministry of Agriculture is in touch, as I know, indeed, we are in touch, with the Department of Transport. So of course we are in touch with the CAA and, indeed, with the Health and Safety Executive. I think that goes without saying. The point is that when it comes to the moment when the regulations are made, I think that the noble Lord can be assured that the HSE, the CAA and the Department of Transport will have had plenty of opportunity to say what they feel. Indeed, my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport, who is responsible for transport, could well be a party to the making of the regulations, because regulations always have to be made by two members of the Government.
The noble Lord asked me about notification to neighbouring householders and inhabitants of the area. Strengthened notification requirements were announced, as I think the noble Lord is well aware, by my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Transport at the end of July. They are
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fully enforceable, and indeed the CAA is in the process of bringing a prosecution for failure to notify as required.
Finally, the noble Lord asked me whether or not the proximity to buildings is statutory. Again, that is under the Air Navigation Order, although the distances which I mentioned last Thursday are not quite the same as the distances which the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, has put into his amendment.
6.30 p.m.
The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, is right. I must not go over all the ground again, because I endeavoured to do so last Thursday. Basically, my reply needs to be this. This is an amendment about licensing and I think there is a difficulty when one comes to look at the amendment itself; because in some senses with an amendment of this kind one falls into the trap of being too specific. The prohibition on spraying within 100 metres of buildings is just the sort of thing that we should be able to alter or improve over time without having to have recourse to going back to primary legislation. And the flat prohibition of any spraying over footpaths, bridleways or common land might well prove in practice to be unnecessarily restrictive in, for instance, the forestry areas which have been specifically mentioned in the debate this evening.
On the other hand, what appears to be a comprehensive amendment, in practice leaves out many of the elements of control which we might wish to see given statutory force under Clause 15: the limitation to less toxic products, the types of application devices.—I was interested in what my noble friend Lord Stanley said about the aerial spraying people being very much in the forefront of development here—the training of operators in pesticide use, and so on. Indeed, if I may say so to the noble Lord, in an amendment which is appearing to be covering not only the safe use of pesticides under this Bill but also the air safety implications, there is no mention of consultation on spraying near designated areas—that comes under the Air Navigation Order—or of having to give warning to hospitals or schools or other institutions, which, again, is a feature of the Air Navigation Order.
I think there is a difficulty (and I am not suggesting that it cannot be overcome) about becoming too specific in the way that the noble Lord would wish us to be in Amendment No. 100. That leaves me with a final question which I have to answer. It is the question which the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, has put to me. It is this. Do the Government believe that we should go towards a licensing system as a matter of principle, despite the practical objections that I have just given to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie; do the Government believe that there ought to be some form of ban; or do the Government believe that the basis we have at the moment is the right one? I have to say quite openly to the Committee that I believe that the basis that we have at the moment is a basis which is right; because the CAA are bound to be interested in, and expert on, the air navigation side of this particular practice and the Ministry of Agriculture, in proper consultation with those who are concerned, has a duty, a moral duty and a work duty, to be concerned with

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making regulations which will properly complement the Air Navigation Order restrictions.
It is open to both the CAA and the Ministry of Agriculture to see that the restrictions, on the one hand, are made tighter—and that, in fact, is what the CAA is doing at the moment—and it is for the Ministry of Agriculture, on the other hand, to see that the rules we make in the regulations in the light of what is said in both Houses of Parliament are really firm and effective but capable of change as the years go by. I therefore feel that the method by which it is done at the present time is the one which the Government find desirable.
Lord John-Mackie: Before we finish this short debate I should like to say that there is a slight suggestion from most noble Lords that there was criticism of the pilots. I certainly did not want to make any criticism at all of the pilots. I was simply criticising the margin of error that there is in using a plane, particularly a fixed-wing place, in spraying. I had some experience when with the Forestry Commission of spraying large areas of woodland in the North West of Scotland. A New Zealand pilot did it with a fixed-wing plane and I had nothing but admiration for the way he handled that plane and the accuracy with which he carried it out. But he was operating over a large area and a very sparsely populated area. Also, on my own farm I have seen pilots with helicopters operating among the trees and their skill was quite extraordinary. But, whatever you say, there is a very large margin of error. Anyone who has seen the errors that we make with tractors travelling at five to six miles an hour, opening up too quickly and blotting things out with double spray and so on, can imagine what could happen with a fixed-wing plane, irrespective of how skilful the pilot was. I thought I should like to make that point.
Lord Melchett: May I make a brief point? I was grateful to the noble Lord for giving me a straight answer to the question that I asked, although I must say that I find it bitterly disappointing, particularly as a farmer. I suspect that many of those involved in the manufacture and distribution of pesticides, and those involved on a commercial basis as contractors not using aircraft, will be bitterly disappointed as well. I cannot help asking when, oh! when, will the Ministry of Agriculture think about making concessions to widespread, deeply felt public concern about some aspect of modern agriculture before they are absolutely forced to do so and when no benefit is brought to the agricultural industry when the concession is made? Straw burning has been a good example and the Ministry, if they had introduced their new by-laws a couple of years earlier than they did, might well have made a dramatic difference to the way that the farming industry is seen by the public. If they had made some greater concessions to conservation interests when the Wildlife and Countryside Bill was being debated in this House and in another place, we should not now, two or three years later, be contemplating an amendment Bill. Surely, sooner or later the Ministry of Agriculture and the Government are going to have to recognise that they cannot
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continue to treat public opinion about agriculture with what seems to me to be contempt.
In this case we all recognise that there is deep-felt concern about aerial spraying and widespread support, at least in the Committee, for the idea that spraying from fixed-wing aircraft is not accurate and cannot be accurate enough. Surely, that is the sort of thing on which the Ministry ought to be giving a lead and saying, "Yes, we need to respond to this and not carry on as we are until we are forced to change and make the agricultural industry yet more unpopular with the general public".
Lord Belstead: I must say that I find that a most extraordinary intervention. What the noble Lord is saying to the Government is that, because he wants to have a ban and the Government do not want to have a ban, the Government must be wrong and the noble Lord must be right. I do not find that particularly self-evident. I should like to remind your Lordships that what the Government have been saying on this very important and deeply-felt area of aerial spraying is this: "Our intention is that the regulations to be made under Clause 15, if this Bill becomes law, would be to complement the controls exercised by the Civil Aviation Authority, who, in their turn, are very considerably tightening up on the Air Navigation Order. And we will do this by imposing controls on the environmental safety of aerial spraying".
I would remind the Committee, if I may, that under the PSPS currently we clear only the less toxic and less volatile pesticides for application from the air. This is a practice which undoubtedly would continue. Indeed, if I may just draw your Lordships' attention again to the Statement of Intention which I circulated, paragraphs 8 to paragraph 11 dealing with safety and efficacy, labelling and premises and training, would all apply to the regulations to be made on aerial spraying, including also, of course, the specific statement in paragraph 11 of the Statement of Intention that the range of possible controls and penalties on conviction for aerial spraying are going to be widened and not narrowed by the passing of this Bill.
I really think that my addition of that reply to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, shows that, although we may not agree on the end which the noble Lord wishes to achieve, the noble Lord has made no secret of the fact that he simply wishes to ban this practice.
Lord Melchett: I—
Lord Belstead: Well, I am sorry; but the noble Lord made it sound as if that is what he wished to do. Perhaps the noble Lord will be putting down an amendment to show us what it is that he wishes to do. I hope that I have made clear that although that is not what we wish to do, we are as concerned as the noble Lord and we are prepared to do something about it.
Lord Melchett: May I just reply to the noble Lord because he asked me specifically what my view was? I was supporting the amendment which has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, and which has been supported by noble Lords on various sides of the Chamber. That is what my view was on this. I feel we ought to have a licensing system.
The Earl of Onslow: I support my noble friend on this. We had a very long debate on it on Thursday. My noble friend was quite categorical that he was going to tighten up the regulations very much. Those of us who take a pretty suspicious view of aerial spraying—and I certainly include myself among those—were very pleased to hear what he said, because he seemed to be going at least 95 per cent. of the way to meet the worries and concerns some of us feel over agricultural spraying; and, as somebody who has been quite critical on occasions, it might be just reasonable to say that I am actually on his side.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: If I may intervene in this debate, I think the Minister has obviously got the sense of what the Chamber feels with regard to aerial spraying. I should like to say that of course in our amendment we did not mention every eventuality—I hate to think what he would have said to me if we had done so. But one of the purposes, of course, was to probe the Government's attitude, and I must say I am somewhat encouraged because I think it is absolutely necessary for any future development of aerial spraying that the Government tighten up the regulations and rules and do away with the resentment—the very real and proper resentment—felt by the public.
I have had literature from various sources saying that only 154 complaints have been received by the CAA, and that sort of thing; but in fact when I was aerial spraying I found I got a kick-back, which did not come into official complaints, all round the place because people wondered what on earth was happening when aircraft spray was obviously seen to drift, sometimes well away from the crop sprayed. So if we are going to have new developments and if we are going to use aerial spraying at all, it needs to be enormously carefully regulated. I think there is an argument for saying that if you ban it or reduce it severely you will not have the aircraft available for the necessary work when you want to use this method.
I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, that I was grateful for his support. But the one thing an aircraft can do is to fly quite quickly from the South-East to the North, if you want to shift it about the country to spray different crops. I must say also to my noble neighbour that the question of spraying blight on potatoes, tall crops and so on, has been largely solved by the new width of booms. The one thing you cannot do, if you have to spray in an emergency, is to call up an aircraft out of the blue. You need to have an arrangement with the people involved.
So I do not think that there is a strong case for the necessity of aerial spraying at present over a great number of crops, but I see that the future may well require aerial spraying and it may well turn out to be a safer form of spraying. In order for that to be tolerated I think the Minister needs to develop the attitude he has shown and to take great care that the regulations are tightened and practices giving the offence they have given are stopped. With those remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Earl Peel Earl Peel moved Amendment No. 69:
Page 14, line 8, at end insert—
("(1A) Regulations shall include a provision that all pesticides which at the date of the passing of this Act have not been approved under the Agricultural Chemicals Approval Scheme (or any modifications thereof) shall be submitted for such approval within two years of the date of the passing of this Act.").
The noble Earl said: In moving this amendment I am referring to the 3,700 or so pesticides which have been cleared under the Pesticides Safety Precautions Scheme but have not as yet been approved under the Agricultural Chemicals Approval Scheme (the ACAS scheme) for efficacy. I am quite satisfied that the efficacy testing of new products is covered under the proposed regulations. However, it is those products which are currently being used that really concern me, and those which have not been tested under the ACAS scheme. Obviously the sooner these pesticides are cleared for efficacy the better it is going to be for everyone, including of course the farmers themselves and ADAS who advise them.
6.45 p.m.
As your Lordships are obviously aware, there is a gross over-use of pesticides in the countryside at the moment, and I am always concerned by the idea of a representative of a company going round to farmers and saying, "You try this one and see how you get on". That is a somewhat unacceptable situation to be in and of course it is precisely the knowledge that the farmers themselves learn from this efficacy testing which leads them to use less chemicals. That, of course, is to everyone's benefit.
My noble friend the Minister said at Second Reading that it is the Government's intention to cover all products; and I appreciate that. However, he went on to say that it is not practicable to cover immediately all existing cleared pesticides. Of course, no one would expect them to be covered immediately, but I do not think it is unreasonable to ask my noble friend whether there could be some specific time limit on this. It is really a question of asking what is a practicable period. I would say to the noble Lord, two years, which is the amount of time I have put down in this amendment. I beg to move.
The Earl of Onslow: I think it is just worth commenting that this particular amendment, or something very like it, would be supported by the British Agrochemicals Association and also by the CLA, who I think actually drafted it, if the truth be known; and so they support it. Few, if any, of the products currently marketed actually do not work, in spite of what the Friends of the Earth say; but it would seem a good idea and I beg leave to support the amendment.
Lord Melchett: I support the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, will remember that I raised this matter on Second Reading, in particular because the Ministry's press release on the Bill, which was put out on 9th November, said that for the first time all pesticides would be screened for efficacy as well as safety. The noble Lord, in replying to the debate on Second Reading, made it clear that it would not apply to all products immediately; it would apply to all new products immediately but for others there would have to be a period of time during which products would

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"come up" for efficacy—and the noble Lord actually said, "as their clearances are reviewed".
The first question I should like to ask him is this. Is there any set time period after which clearances would have to be reviewed and, if so, what is it? There have been numerous reports in the farming press that the chemical industry has been told there will be a five-year period, during which, so far as I can see from the report, all existing products will have to be cleared for efficacy. I do not know where that has come from, but it has been repeated more than once in farming papers and so I assume it has its origins in the noble Lord's department. It would be helpful if he could comment on whether that is accurate or not and, if it is, whether all products will be cleared in that period.
The Government have made quite a lot of the fact that for the first time under this legislation products will be cleared for efficacy as well as for safety and that this is the major step forward which the legislation allows for. I hope the noble Lord would accept that, if that is to be the case and if it is going to be a claim the Government can justly make, there needs to be a time period under which the existing products are cleared for efficacy. If there is not such a time period, the claim that the Bill advances safety by including this test will be difficult to sustain. I would hope that it could be done within the sort of time period proposed in the amendment.
Lord Belstead: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Peel for moving very succinctly this important amendment. Just for the record, may I say something that I know your Lordships are aware of. Paragraph 4 of the statement of intent which we circulated makes it clear—and I now put it on the record in this Committee—that we would only consider granting full approval to products which have commercial clearance under the PSPS and have passed an efficacy criterion such as that provided by the Agricultural Chemicals Approval Scheme. Products which have only provisional or full commercial clearance under the PSPS would only be provisionally approved under the statutory scheme, pending review of their efficacy.
My noble friend and other noble Lords asked the question: how long will that take? Without doubt, it would be highly desirable to specify a period, but I will add to the statistics my noble friend presented in moving this amendment. Approximately 700 products are currently approved under the Agricultural Chemicals Approval Scheme, but under the PSPS (but without any other approval) there are around 4,000 products and a variety of areas of use of those products, including crop protection, rodenticides, chemicals for use in bulk food stores, home and garden products and wood preservatives. That figure is perhaps rather higher than my noble friend Lord Peel appreciated.
Arising from that, there are two problems in introducing an efficacy screening system for all pesticides. The first is that although efficacy testing systems have been established under the Agricultural Chemicals Approval Scheme for crop protection products, no such system exists for the other kinds of pesticides. Before we can require applicants to demonstrate that their product is efficacious, we have
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to decide exactly what data can be regarded as being sufficient evidence of efficacy. We are already working on this issue, and I have given an undertaking that in this, as in other areas, there will be consultations. But there are many classes of pesticides involved, and each class will probably require a somewhat different class of efficacy test. That is the first problem.
The second problem of timing is that if one subtracts 700 from 4,400 one is left with 3,600 products to be submitted for efficacy approval within two years, if this amendment were to be passed. That is 1,800 products per year, or 34 products per week. To do that in any sort of proper way would be asking us to rubber-stamp old products. The Ministry of Agriculture would certainly be able to undertake that task, and could probably complete it faster than two years; but we believe that this is something which your Lordships would deeply deplore.
What we are proposing is to review each product thoroughly in order to satisfy Parliament, ourselves and society at large that a product is demonstrated to be effective for the purposes for which it was designed and is used. Surely it is more satisfactory to do so at a reasonable pace than to rush through a paper exercise that would produce no real benefit. I say to my noble friend Lord Peel that it is surely reasonable, when the issue is one of environmental safety, and when our record to date is a good one, to embark on a deliberate and painstaking application of the new rules, so that each chemical will be considered on its true merits and classified accordingly.
We would not have introduced this Bill, and I would not be standing here speaking to this Bill, if we did not intend to complete that task as quickly as we can. But my parting words at the moment are that 3,600 products, quite apart from new applications, will have to be assessed. I promise my noble friend and other noble Lords who have spoken on this amendment that we shall do that as quickly as possible. But if a limit of two years were to be written into the Bill—and your Lordships will of course decide what you believe is right—then it really would come down to being almost just a paper exercise. I know that the Ministry in which I work would deplore that, and I believe that your Lordships, too, would deplore it.
The Earl of Onslow: Can my noble friend give some indication of the time span in which he considers that the task could be accomplished? That is the first part of my question. The second part is: how many of the 3,600 chemicals he mentioned will actually fall off the end and be replaced by new chemicals? I realise that is a difficult question to answer.
Lord Melchett: While the Minister is considering that question, may I ask him to reply also to the point I made concerning the five-year period which the farming press has reported manufacturers have been told is the period within which the remaining number of products will be cleared for efficacy? I have read two reports appearing in different papers in the middle of November which stated quite explicitly that manufacturers have been told there will be a five-year period to re-screen all the present, approved pesticides for efficacy. It would be helpful to know if that is the time period the Ministry has in mind.
Baroness Nicol: Can the Minister give some idea of the priorities he will be observing—not simply the total length of time involved, but to which particular types of pesticide priority will be given? What criteria will be used in that respect?
Lord Walston: I have one further question. As I understand this amendment, it says very clearly that products may be submitted for approval within a period of two years. That does not mean to say that the Ministry must grant approval, or otherwise, within a period of two years but that the manufacturer must submit the product within that time—and then it is up to the Ministry to deal with the matter as quickly as it reasonably can.
Lord Belstead: That is true. When I first read the amendment I thought for one moment that it was as though we would be required to agree to clear all applications within a period of two years. The noble Lord, Lord Walston, is quite right as far as that is concerned.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, we are thinking at the moment in terms of a five-year period so far as reviews are concerned. It must be subject to consultation, as to whether that provision, if the Bill becomes law, should be the subject of a regulation in that way. The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, asked which pesticides we would deal with first in changing what is clearance only, but not approval under the Agricultural Chemicals Approval Scheme, into statutory clearance under the scheme. I believe I would be safe in saying we would try to go for the most toxic products first.
Earl Peel: I thank my noble friend for his reply, but I must confess that I am perhaps a little disappointed—although I realise the difficulties involved. My noble friend mentioned the Ministry's good record, and nobody could disagree with that. My noble friend is aware of the strong feeling in this Committee and has given his word that he intends to complete the task as quickly as possible. In the circumstances, that is probably all I can expect. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 70 not moved.]
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol moved Amendment No. 71:
Page 14, line 8, at end insert—
("( ) The regulations shall provide for the repeal of the Animals (Cruel Poisons) Regulation 1963 and the Grey Squirrels (Warfarin) Order 1973.").
The noble Baroness said: This is simply a probing amendment. The status of some existing legislation is not clear in relation to the proposed new Bill, and we simply want to find out—using this as a specimen—which existing legislation will be replaced in this particular case and what other existing legislation of this kind will be replaced by the Bill. I beg to move.
The Earl of Swinton: This amendment would require the removal of very specific and clear controls on the use of cruel poisons such as strychnine and on the use of warfarin to control a recognised agricultural
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pest. They have worked well for many years and have played an important part in protecting non-target species, particularly red squirrels, from the effects of the use of these poisons. I would hesitate to agree to the removal of such important controls until the implications have been fully considered in the light of any future pesticides approval scheme.
I now come to the part of my reply for which the noble Baroness is probably waiting. Once the new scheme is under way, it is our intention to review the operation of any other parallel controls. But clearly it would be premature to require their revocation in the way proposed.
Baroness Nicol: I am grateful for that reply and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7 p.m.
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol moved Amendment No. 72:
[Printed earlier: col. 1504]
The noble Baroness said: I spoke to this amendment and Amendment No. 136 at our previous Committee sitting. In his reply to the debate on Amendment No. 47 the Minister said—and this gives me hope that he will accept these two amendments—that,
"there is not the slightest reason why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment also should not make the regulations under this particular part of the Bill."—[Official Report, 6/12/84; col. 1507.]
I hope that the amendment will, therefore, be accepted together with, in due course, Amendment No. 136. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: There will be consultation with others in order to make the regulations. Therefore, I do not think it is appropriate just to put in that consultation should be with the Secretary of State for the Environment.
Baroness Nicol: I do not propose to press the amendment at this stage. We must look again at the whole question of the involvement of the Department of the Environment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of Radnor The Earl of Radnor moved Amendment No. 73:
Page 14, line 8, at end insert—
(" ( ) In exercising their powers under subsection (1) above the Ministers shall specify the maximum rates at which pesticides may be applied by reference to the maximum quantities of pesticides which may be applied to each unit of area or to each animal as the case may be.").
The noble Earl said: This amendment is of considerable importance. It takes us back to Amendment No. 62 where the noble Lord, Lord Walston, highlighted the difficulties for farmers under Clause 15(1)(g) in judging the residues which they might leave in their crops and for which, if they left the wrong residue, they could he held responsible. It seems to me that they should at least have some proper help from the Minister in this respect. If they do not, as far as I can see, they would have to rely on instructions from manufacturers and suppliers, which may or may

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not be correct, but which probably would be correct, and their own good judgment.
To complicate the issue, I would think that residues (the residual stuff, or whatever it is) left in, say, a cauliflower would possibly be influenced by soil conditions, the climatic conditions, and so on. The amendment suggests that the Minister should decree certain maximums, which I believe would be entirely to the Government's advantage. It would take some of the responsibility from the farmer. The Government, after all, have at their fingertips much scientific advice and will, of course, be careful because the whole of the Bill is directed towards protecting the environment. It seems quite proper that the Government should help the farmer in this way and not leave him in such a vulnerable position.
In the amendment "maximum" is specified. We have already debated the question of minimum applications and I shall not bore the Committee by repeating what I said previously. This is an important matter and I hope that the Government will take some serious note of it. I beg to move.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I should like to take a slightly different attitude towards this amendment which has also been tabled to encourage lower rates of pesticide. I therefore ask my noble friend to explain why paragraph 9 and paragraph 2(c) of his regulation intentions (if I may call them that) mention minimum rates, which have also been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson. Presumably my noble friend worries about the small, concentrated particles wandering around, but I worry—and this is why we have tabled the amendment—that the regulation might stifle new techniques. We all know that in the past chemicals have been recommended at much higher rates than we now use. Grammoxone is a perfect example which came on the market at two-and-a-quarter pints in 20 gallons; we are now possibly using only half or three-quarters. I do not want this minimum quantity to be stopped.
CDA and electrostatic sprayers may well be suited to very low concentrated usage; for example, as I have previously mentioned, if sprayed in oil. Here I come back again to the noble Baroness, Lady Robson—I am sorry she is not present—who said that such low dosage might create resistance. I am sure it would create resistance when using antibiotics, but I am not so sure that that would be the case with herbicides. I know that my noble friend has given an undertaking to encourage low rates of chemical. Indeed, my honourable friend Mrs. Fenner also commented on this before the Bill was introduced. But there is a great temptation for manufacturers to specify higher than necessary rates, if only to protect themselves. Therefore, we come again to the thorny problem arising from the word "efficacy". I am sorry to come back to this, but it is a difficult subject.
The amendment would give the farmer a guide, and a defence, as my noble friend Lord Radnor said, on how much chemical to use and would enable him to make a case should the residue in his crop be too high. I ask my noble friend, again, a question on efficacy. The amendment may cause problems on the efficacy front—that is, if higher rates than necessary are put
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in—with the chemical manufacturers. For instance, it is probably possible to make most herbicides kill anything if one quadruples the rate. Therefore, if the rate is controlled, the efficacy may be reduced. We therefore come to another problem to add to my noble friend's problem and the large list he gave when replying to Amendment No. 69. My noble friend said on Second Reading, as reported at column 701 of Hansard, that,
"of all products evidence"
must be given,
"not simply of safety but of efficacy as well."
Therefore, my question is: How can efficacy be stated when so much is dependent on soil type and on different chemicals and formulations responding differently to different soil types?
The Earl of Swinton: Perhaps I may answer first the two explicit questions from my noble friend Lord Stanley. The minimum dilution rate states that X amount of product must be dissolved or mixed in at least Y litres of water. Such a minimum dilution rate is set to ensure that the spray issuing from a machine is not dangerous to the spray operator or bystanders.
Obviously, when my noble friend referred to his noble friend and column 701 he was referring to my noble friend Lord Belstead and what he said. I hope I can give the explanation of "efficacy" such as my noble friend would give it. By "efficacy" We mean the ability of a product to do the job claimed for it on the label. Our technical experts in MAFF and the Health and Safety Executive are discussing the details of a definition of "efficacy" and the minimum standards which we shall require pesticide manufacturers to meet. Eventually we shall discuss our proposals with the industry and all others involved.
But I think there is a much shorter and simpler explanation why I cannot accept the amendment. I do not believe it to be appropriate to make such a detailed provision in an enabling Bill, for the reason that pesticides vary greatly in formulation and use. While we could, and would, accept maximum application rates as described in this amendment for almost all, if not all, agricultural pesticides, it would not be helpful to be obliged to set maximum application rates for all pesticides. For example, it would not be appropriate to set a rate for rodenticides which specified how many rat holes one could treat within one barn, or precisely how much powder one was permitted to put down each hole. I hope, therefore, that my noble friends will agree that the amendment is unnecessary and that such detailed provisions are best left to regulations. Rats!
The Earl of Onslow: It is obviously joke time on the Front Bench! The Germans have regulations on the maximum amount of stuff that can be put on the ground. I think that certainly that should be brought into the regulations. I think it should be there unless there is a reason why it should not be there. That might be a good way of doing it. Secondly, if we are going to go towards a Community-wide system of regulations, which I think we all agree we should, the more we concur with our neighbours, the better.
The Earl of Swinton: I am grateful to my noble friend for saying that. Unfortunately, I do not know

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the German for, "Rats!" To be serious, my noble friend has kindly given us a copy of what the Germans are doing. We shall have a look at that. But for the reasons I have given concerning rats and rodenticides, we cannot accept the amendment as it is now worded.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: Does that mean that the Minister will accept the amendment in a different form?
The Earl of Swinton: Not necessarily.
Lord Melchett: I have been listening to this, and I am not entirely clear. If the amendment had "may" instead of "shall", so that it did not oblige the noble Lord to produce regulations on rodenticides and would remove rats from his mind for a moment, if that is possible, and allow him to concentrate simply on the other things, where he said that regulations might be desirable, would he be able to accept the amendment?
The Earl of Swinton: I think I shall have to keep the noble Lord in a state of extreme suspense over Christmas to see what my reaction would be should such an amendment be put down.
The Earl of Radnor: I have listened to my noble friend's answer. I am not sure who will be kept in suspense over Christmas. After all, we can always bring back another amendment if we wish.
I think my noble friend said that on the whole—I am paraphrasing—it would be quite possible to have some arrangement such as this, where maximums were outlined by the Government, and he then produced a rather way-out (if one likes) instance where it would not be appropriate. It seems to me that perhaps in his heart of hearts he is slightly on my side over this amendment. If it were rephrased, with exceptions put in, and worded in a different way, it might be acceptable. It still seems to me that it is a matter of great importance. I feel worried by the fact that farmers have to make these decisions. They are either going to get into trouble, I think on occasions not through their own fault, or they are going to do the job improperly because they will leave such a wide safety margin.
Although I am prepared to withdraw the amendment, I shall certainly go away and see whether it can be reframed for a later stage of the Bill to suit my noble friends on the Front Bench. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 74:
Page 14, line 8, at end insert—
("( ) In exercising their powers under subsection (1) above the Ministers shall make such arrangements as may be appropriate to ensure that all applications for the use of safe pesticides imported to the United Kingdom are cleared within seven working days of receipt, free of charge to the applicant.").
The noble Lord said: In 1981 British farmers woke up to the fact that they could obtain on the continent for a fraction of the cost chemicals similar to those
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used in the United Kingdom. The result was that farmers' vans visited France and returned not with champagne but Dicuraine. Needless to say, there was an outcry from British manufacturers, who alleged that what was being purchased abroad was different from and/or inferior to the British product. It may be that some of the charges were correct; some certainly were not. But the proof of the pudding was in the eating. Many British chemicals fell drastically in price, and for once, I might say, we had a smile on our faces.
Some of those imported chemicals, although similar to British approved ones, were, of course, not approved by PSPS. That did not matter because, as we all know, the scheme was, and indeed is, voluntary. But now, under this Bill, approval will be needed by law, so we have a problem: how to allow free inter-Community trade, which is required by the Treaty of Rome—and, indeed, my noble friend Lord Belstead made a point of that on Second Reading—and, on the other side, make sure that imported chemicals are safe and get rapid legal approval, as required by the Bill? I know that my noble friend Lord Belstead is aware of the problem. On Second Reading (at column 736) he assured your Lordships' House that the Government would give rapid clearance to similar chemicals free of any fees next year.
I therefore have to ask him whether it will be possible for a farmer, as in 1981, to drive to collect those similar chemicals. How will he get clearance under the Bill if he wants to do such a thing? What is an identical product? Is it the active ingredient of the chemical, is it the formulation, or is it both? What will be the position if the chemical is identical but less (and I come back to that horrible word) efficacious? Will it he cleared rapidly? Must the label necessarily be in English? I should like my noble friend to assure me that the Government will make available sufficient resources to deal with those problems.
To help him along that path, I hope he will accept the amendment, which would ensure clearance of these similar chemicals within seven working days free of any clearance charge—I would call it not a clearance charge, but an import charge. Without this amendment, I fear that British farmers will be disadvantaged compared to their European counterparts—I know that I have said that before—and we shall return to the pre-1981 situation, with no cool breeze of competition. I beg to move.
Lord Northbourne: I think that the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, has amply covered the subject. I added my name to the amendment because I believed that he ought to nudge the Minister towards committing himself to a time limit. Whether the one that we have put down is the right one I do not know, but I should be glad of an assurance that a time limit will be set for the clearance of chemicals under these circumstances.
Lord Monk Bretton: I also wish to support my noble friend the mover of the amendment. I should not wish again to see licensing cause a barrier under which United Kingdom agro-chemicals start to cost more than they do in the EEC. The price discrepancy arose under the present scheme. I think that if it had not arisen, a potent cause for this legislation would not have arisen. It certainly helped to precipitate this Bill.

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My noble friend Lord Stanley has spoken very adequately on it. I know the amendment is opposed in certain quarters. Nevertheless, I hope my noble friend the Minister does not give way on this and that rapid approval for similar imported chemicals may be obtained.
Lord Melchett: It is important to note, however, that there is a conflict between the importance of farmers in this country having access to chemicals which are cheaper on the continent, if they are exactly the same as chemicals cleared in this country, and safety if the products are not identical. The amendment to some extent goes round this question by simply leaving it in the amendment unanswered, by saying that a chemical which is safe may be imported in seven days. The question is: how do you determine whether it is safe? How do you know it is safe? If it is an identical product in every respect, there is no problem.
I speak as a farmer looking with some anxiety at the costs of growing cereals next year and at the likely returns. I hope the Government will do all they can to make sure that cheaper products are available but not at the expense of the safety which they will now be imposing by law. May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, that I think those who are concerned about safety and the environmental consequences of pesticide use in this country would be less worried if we already had strict rules about pesticide use as have countries like West Germany. Our farmers are in an extremely favourable position at the moment compared with at least some in the Common Market. If we had strict regulations such as in West Germany, free imports from them would be no problem. But they have banned 20 chemicals which we commonly use in agriculture. It is not good enough to say that we must not have any restrictions which do not apply in the rest of Europe, and at the same time say that we must not have any of the restrictions which apply in the rest of Europe placed on ourselves.
Lord Belstead: I have a great deal of sympathy with the aim of this amendment. I hope what I can say in reply comes very near to it, although it does not fully meet it. Our intentions are to have a rapid clearance system for imports. I hope that it is going to be truly rapid. The important point is that there should be genuine competition between identical products and we most certainly intend to provide for that. I should like to take the opportunity, in replying to my noble friend's amendment, to assure the Committee that the envisaged arrangements for the quick clearance of imported products identical to those already available in the United Kingdom will be as straightforward as is possible within the confines of our responsibility to ensure that all products are safe for use.
Incidentally, I am saying this after dicussions which have been held between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Community. For the purposes of these quick clearance arrangements one product would be considered to be identical to another if the active ingredients in both products are the same and are produced by the same company. The formulations of both products should also be the same within the variations agreed as tolerable by the United Kingdom approving authority in approving the original product.
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In order to demonstrate that two products are identical we will have to require the importer to provide certain basic information such as a copy of the label of the imported product together with its batch number, brief details of the product already cleared in this country and a copy of the instructions in English that will be attached to the imported product before its use in this country. As I say, the procedure has been discussed with the Community and with the British Agrochemicals Association. It has also been discussed with the National Farmers Union. I think it is fair to claim that all have agreed that in principle this is a way forward and we would put it into practice as soon as possible.
So far as those last words are concerned, I must make it absolutely clear to my noble friend Lord Stanley that what we feel we have to do is to start a non-statutory system from 1st January of next year, free of charge. I trust that was the undertaking I gave on Second Reading. When we start the statutory system there would subsequently have to be a fee charged. I would not at this stage wish to be committed to any preferential system of charging for any one group of applicants for approval but the assurance I can give is that the fee to be charged on an individual farmer's imports would I believe be very reasonable.
My noble friend asked me some specific questions of which, as he has with others, he very kindly gave me notice. My noble friend asked, "Will it be possible for a farmer to collect chemicals, as was done previously?" A farmer will be able to do that and then submit them for the quick clearance procedure. "Is a chemical identical if it is less efficacious?" my noble friend asked. The answer to that of course is no, because that means it would be in a different formulation and therefore not identical.
May I just add one last remark. This amendment would wish all this to be done within seven days. To be perfectly honest with the Committee, I think that nine times out of ten we can do it in seven days. But to be tied down to that is not just a Government department saying that they do not want that restriction to be put on them but it would not be for the convenience of the farming community. You might find in particular cases that something happens which makes the seven days not quite possible to meet. I therefore give an undertaking to the Committee that we would do our very best to see that it is kept down to only a matter of days.
I should remind the Committee that this would be a very beneficial method of clearing products. It would not be done in the ports. It might be done when the product is still on the continent of Europe. It might be done, I am advised, after a product has come in but before it has been used. I believe that whole matter would be dealt with in a reasonably straight-forward and easy way. It would nonetheless ensure that imported chemicals, unless they are absolutely indentical in the way that I have described, would have then to be cleared just the same as any other chemicals being manufactured in this country. I believe that is fair. I believe that this system will work well. I hope that my noble friend will not press me on the exact seven day period.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I was interested in the procedure. I wonder whether the Minister could say if

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any analysis would be carried out at any time. As I understood his reply, the clearance would be done on the information supplied by the manufacturer. Is he satisfied that that is enough and that the regulations on the continent—if that is where we are getting it from—are strict enough to proceed on information supplied in that manner?
Lord Belstead: Yes, we are. It is true that it will be a paper exercise but it is a paper exercise which will be based on some details which I outlined when I was speaking. Certainly the Community for their part believe that this will work properly, that this is a proper basis for saying that one product is identical to another. As I understand it, the British Agrochemicals Association believe that this is a sensible way forward, and my advice is that the National Farmers Union are at the moment feeling the same way from their point of view and that this would be a sensible and a safe way to proceed.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I have found this a very interesting debate. I shall have to come back to it at Report. Perhaps the first point of interest to me was the noble Lord, Lord Melchett's remark that most chemicals on the continent are more strictly looked at than they are here. If that is the case, it seems to me that we have not a problem with safety when we are importing. So far as the remarks of my noble friend Lord Belstead are concerned, I thought he was going to be more helpful in what he said than he was. Relating to ingredients, he first of all said yes they would be the same if it was the same company. I am not so sure what happens if it is a different company. It seems to me that very often the company will be different but the ingredients the same. Maybe, I misheard my noble friend. I shall read his remarks very carefully. My noble friend also did not say anything about a different formulation. It sounds to me, in respect of these two cases—if it was a different formulation and it was a different company even though the same ingredient—we would not get rapid clearance. I feel that we want to look at this.
7.30 p.m.
Then there is the question of charges. As I understand it, my noble friend said that there would be what I call an import charge on these identical chemicals for rapid clearance after the year. I shall again read what he had to say. I think that I would ask for more than one year even though I fully accept that at Second Reading he only promised one year.
Lastly, we come back to this horrible word "efficacious". He said that if they were not so efficacious as a similar chemical, they could not get rapid clearance. I am worried about that. If they were less efficacious, because they were weaker or something, I cannot see why they should not get rapid clearance. I shall not go on about this, because I must read my noble friend's very helpful remarks, or, rather, I do not know how helpful they were, but certainly explanatory remarks, between now and Christmas and make up my mind whether I want to ask more questions after Christmas. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 74A not moved.]
The Earl of Swinton: I think that this may be a convenient time to adjourn the Committee for dinner. May I suggest that we do not return to this Committee before 8.30 p.m.? I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers' Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 1984
7.32 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Lucas of Chilworth) rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 15th November be approved. [2nd Report from the Joint Committee.]
The noble Lord said: My Lords, these regulations will increase by 4 per cent. the amounts of compensation paid under the Act to those first satisfying all the conditions of entitlement on or after 1st January 1985. They are made under the Pneumoconiosis (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979 which was debated in your Lordships' House early in 1979. While the Act does not provide for any review of the size of these payments, the Government nevertheless increased them by 40 per cent. for those first qualifying from 1st January 1983, by 5 per cent. from 1st January 1984 and now propose this increase of 4 per cent. from the beginning of next year. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State intends to review these amounts each year.
The Act covers the industrially contracted diseases of pneumoconiosis, which includes silicosis, asbestosis and kaolinosis, byssinosis and diffuse mesothelioma. Those suffering from these diseases, and the dependants of sufferers who have died from the disease, are entitled to seek compensation under civil law where they can show that the disease was caused through negligence, or breach of a statutory duty, on the part of an employer. In practice, however, it might prove difficult to pursue a claim where the employment giving rise to the disease ocurred a long time ago. In addition, the time lapse between exposure to the cause and diagnosis increases the possibility that the employer in question may have gone out of business before the sufferer becomes aware that he has a claim against that employer.
For these reasons, the Pneumoconiosis Etc. (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979 was introduced to provide a measure of lump sum compensation for those who are unable to claim compensation in the courts because there is no employer remaining in business against whom they would have a viable claim for damages. Those who apply under the Act do not have to demonstrate that their employers have been in breach of either a statutory or common law duty.
It has never been the purpose of the Act to provide an alternative to pursuing claims through the courts in cases where there is an employer available to sue. However, the Government have done all they can to assist those who have a previous employer still in

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business but where it could not be considered that they have a viable claim against that employer. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has been as generous as the Act will allow him to be.
During the past 12 months we received 100 applications in addition to 26 applications outstanding at the beginning of that period. Of these, 81 applications were approved at a total cost of over £400,000. Thirty-one applications were rejected, mainly because there was still a relevant employer still in business. Fourteen applications are at present outstanding. The total of payments made under the Act since it came into force is nearly £27 million. From this I think your Lordships will understand that the large numbers of eligible people suffering from these diseases who awaited the coming into operation of these provisions have received their compensation. We are now mainly dealing with applications from people who have been recently diagnosed. That is a brief résumé of the regulations before the House.
Your Lordships will readily understand the importance of uprating the amounts of compensation the Government pay to those sadly disabled by these diseases. I commend the regulations to the House.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 15th November be approved [2nd Report from the Joint Committee.]—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
7.36 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, let me say first that I am grateful to the Minister for the sympathetic manner in which he has introduced the regulations. I am also grateful, of course, for the increased amounts contained within them. These are very acceptable. I fulfilled this role about the same time last year. It may be that there will be a repeat performance by myself or someone else next year. I know that the Minister, because of his thoroughness and assiduity, will have taken the trouble to read the proceedings of the Statutory Instruments Committee that dealt with this subject on behalf of, and in, another place.
Noble Lords present will bear with me if I digress for a moment to refer to two or three of the Members who spoke during those proceedings and who obviously have a keen interest in particular matters covered by this Act. I know, as the Minister has said, that the Government have been generous and are continually keeping the situation under review. The noble Viscount, Lord Long, sitting alongside the Minister gave the undertaking last year. It is difficult to know where one could conclude this type of activity with any real conviction that one had reached the end of the road.
I refer first to Mr. James Lamond, the Member for Oldham Central and Royton in another place, who, over a number of years, has followed with great thoroughness and keenness the case of textile workers some of whom benefit from under the regulations we are discussing and some, unfortunately, who do not. I would ask the Minister to take note of the fact that there are still, as I believe—and certainly this is the case if one reads Mr. Lamond's observations—a substantial number of people in the textile industry,
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mainly women, who are outside any benefits from the past private employer and the present private employer. Although, as the Minister said, there is the right of recourse to litigation, they are frightened of the thought of going to court and the financial implications of doing so and therefore look to someone else to care for them.
One of the sad facts is that most of the women or ladies concerned are in their twilight years. While we may not be talking in terms of large sums of money when discussing some of the individual benefits under the Act, it is right to say that for those people they would be viewed as substantial amounts indeed.
I want to refer to the dedication that Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse has shown. He is an MP for a mining area who has on three occasions attempted to introduce a Bill in another place that would bring within the ambit of these provisions the terrible disease of emphysema. As most noble Lords will know, that is a terribly regressive disease. People can retire from work possibly visibly unaffected and then the disease starts to develop and take its toll. I wish Mr. Lofthouse every success in the future. I hope and believe that when the time comes Mr. Lofthouse and people who sympathise with him will be pushing at an open door in their approaches to a Government who have shown I think great sympathy.
I have to refer also to Mr. Peter Hardy, who is the Member for Wentworth, another mining area. Over a number of years he has persistently taken an interest in this type of thing and he spoke very forcefully in the debate in another place on this matter. I think it is as well that we place on record sometimes some of this rather unsung and unpublicised work that MPs of all parties do. It never reaches the press, or the media; it is not designed to be newsworthy. But it is one of the most caring things that Members of Parliament undertake; and, as I say, I do not make any special plea for my party. It is done by members of various parties in both Houses. I think it was because of the persistence of people from all parties that Governments, irrespective of their political colour, were persuaded that society as a whole owed a debt to such people and was prepared to shoulder that burden.
I am only too delighted, of course, that the Minister has indicated that the Government will keep an open mind on this, and if they err in any way in the future, I would hope and expect that it will be on the side of generosity.
If I appear to cavil a little, it is because of what I have read in the Hansard report of what the Minister said in another place when dealing with statutory instruments. It may be that what he said was said in a different tone than appears in Hansard. That could very well be the case. For the Minister's benefit, I point out that I am talking about the third paragraph of the report—which starts, "I do not wish". I do not want to quote, other than to say that the Minister said in that paragraph:
"We all know that the Act was right, but that getting it passed was part of a deal to keep the Labour Government going for a little longer.".
If one just accepts that as it reads, it appears as though a shabby deal was done. But I can assure noble Lords—and I think the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, who was involved in particular dealings at

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that time might agree—it was not quite like that. We knew that a Labour Government could not survive indefinitely. This particular Bill, as it was then, had a priority on the stocks. The question was, when would the General Election be? When would the Government be defeated? The Government of the day did not want to trigger off a Bill that would fall because that Parliament itself was coming to an end. What happened was that approaches were made to three Members of Parliament of one of the minority parties. They thought they were getting something more than the actual Bill. They were the ones who actually threatened the passage of the Bill unless certain things were done. The Conservative Party—the Opposition at that time—to their credit did not oppose the Bill. So that really had nothing to do with what I believe the Minister has been referring to. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, would concur with the facts that I have described but I think that they give the true picture.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: That is my recollection, my Lords.
Lord Dean of Beswick: It was not the Bill that was opposed; we were talking about three votes on something else which eventually did not matter anyway because the Government fell. I hope I have put the record right. It seems a little garbled, but that is what actually took place. I think the Bill had almost total support itself in another place at the time.
I believe that the last speech that was made in another place by the present Leader of the Opposition in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, was made on this very Bill. He made a very forceful speech, which I think convinced quite a few of the waverers that the Bill was justified and was necessary. Of course he was taken note of. Obviously the speech was made in the full knowledge that there were a lot of people in North Wales, working in the slate quarries and that type of industry, to whom the Bill related and who would benefit by it.
Having said that, I have great pleasure in saying that the 4 per cent. increase is very welcome. I have made the point that I know the Government and the Minister have given an undertaking to review this on an annual basis. I would hope that, as surely the economy starts to improve and perhaps more money is available for this type of thing, not only may the annual increase be slightly more than the current rate of inflation—to which this figure is about equal—but that we may also be able to look at the widening of the parameters relating to people who can be brought into this benefit, bearing in mind, as I have said, that most of the people involved will, I am sure, be in their twilight years. We are a caring nation and I believe that Members of all parties in another place and in this place will welcome such a development with open arms. I am grateful to the Minister for the way he moved the regulations and I close my remarks on that basis.
7.45 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, we on these Benches should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for introducing these regulations. This is indeed, as has
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already been said, an annual event, and I think a very worthy one. It is a good scheme; it is a scheme which we all applaud.
I have one small question and one slighly larger question that I should like to ask. The small one is this. Although reference has been made to the generosity of the scheme and to the generosity of the Government, can the noble Lord tell me, if this is a regular uprating, why it has been decided to uprate by 4 per cent. rather that 4½ per cent. or 5 per cent., which I think are the expected increases in inflation? If we are going to have a regular uprating it would seem sensible to uprate by the forecast for inflation. It is only a small point but, on the other hand, if you took an award, let us say, of £10,000, an increase of 4 per cent. is £400, whereas an increase of 5 per cent. is £500; so it can make a difference.
My second point is a rather more general one. As the noble Lord will be aware, much more valuable research has been commissioned into diseases of the lungs and respiratory tract by the Medical Research Council. Would he not agree that properly funded medical research might go a long way to reducing these problems in the future and also, in fact, to reducing the requirements to draw on this fund? Will he therefore ask his right honourable friend to make sure that the Secretary of State for Education and Science keeps this in mind when assessing the Science Vote?
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dean, and the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, for their reception of these regulations which I have just laid before the House. May I touch on one or two points? Yes, I do so agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dean, that there are many Members in another place who, unsung, pursue the interests of those less fortunate than ourselves, and that, of course, is absolutely creditable. It does not really matter what party they belong to, since the 1979 Act had the serious and intended support of all parties.
In regard to the difference between the spoken word and the written word, it is perhaps easy for those who were in another place in 1979, or, indeed in your Lordships' House at that time, when we first debated the Act, to remember what was really meant and intended; and so, although the noble Lord, Lord Dean, made a small quotation, I do not think he really expects me to pick that one up.
When one is talking about the efforts of Members of another place, and, indeed, others, I should like to remind your Lordships that the Act was originally introduced to provide lump-sum payments to those suffering from these certain dust-induced diseases, which are all characterised by so long a period. When a suitable opportunity arises, we hope to amend the Act so that additions may be made by regulations to the list of diseases. While the Government will consider seriously any requests for an extension to the list of diseases in the Act, the immediate purpose of this action is to maintain the original intention of Parliament by extending the Act to cover the two asbestos-related diseases which formed the subject of an announcement by the Secretary of State for Social Services on 16th March.
In regard to the extension, I understand that the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council has undertaken

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to study and report on chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Of course, neither the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, nor the noble Lord, Lord Dean, would expect me to comment upon that until the council reports to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, spoke about the figure of 4 per cent. I am sure he will recall that these amounts are calculated during September. Movement in the retail price index between January and August was 3.7 per cent. From January to 16th October, it was 4.4 per cent. It might well reach 5 per cent. by the end of the year. But it is necessary to start preparing the statutory instrument in September if it is to be laid in draft early in November so that it may become effective in January of the year following. It is for those reasons that the figure of 4 per cent. was reached. I think this looks right for this current year's review, which will be paid on 1st January. As I have said—I now confirm—the amounts of these payments will be reviewed during 1985.
I will of course give an assurance to the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, that I will pass on to my right honourable friend his comments with regard to medical research. I do not think he would ask me to do any more than that. Finally, I should like to thank both noble Lords for their acceptance of this Motion and for the sincerity with which they have spoken on this matter.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Viscount Long: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.30 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.54 until 8.30 p.m.]

Food and Environment Protection Bill [H.L.]
House again in Committee on Clause 15.
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 75:
Page 14, line 14, at end insert—
(" ( ) In contemplating any regulations made under this section for the approval of pesticides, the Ministers shall have regard to the desirability of maximizing—

(a) the scope for users of pesticides to improve the cost-effectiveness, timeliness, and flexibility of pest control operations; and

(b) the scope for the development and adoption of new technologies, including pesticide application techniques, together with integrated pest management.")

The noble Lord said: This amendment is an attempt to ensure that the Bill will take a positive, progressive attitude to both new technology and new pesticides instead of being like Nanny and continually saying; "No". The first half of the amendment would ensure that the Minister through, I suppose, ACP—or maybe Lord John-Mackie's quango, suggested in his Amendment No. 120—would encourage new pesticides and formulations by stating on the label the
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range of the timing, the application methods and what I call the "wetters" that should be applied.
I am particularly worried about tank mixes. The problem here is that company 'A' will be inclined to recommend tank mixing only for their own product when it may be perfectly possible, or even better, to tank mix products belonging to company 'B'. This amendment would make it necessary for the Minister to state on the label "cross company" tank mixes. Perhaps I could give an example of the problem. The wetter, Frigate, which is produced by Farm Protection, mixed with Round-up, which is produced by Monsanto, cuts down the Round-up rate very, very considerably, Frankly, I cannot see Monsanto recommending such a tank mix. Yet it is to the farmers' benefit, and indeed to the benefit of environmentalists.
On the other side of the story I have to say—and this is what I put to my noble friend Lord Belstead—that there is a danger sometimes of some wetters making a perfectly harmless pesticide somewhat dangerous to those who handle the product when it is mixed. Under this amendment the label could also state whether chemical 'A' is more efficacious than chemical 'B'. I see an important role here for my noble friend in asking ADAS, NIAE, and indeed NIAB, about this particular problem.
The second half of the amendment will have a similar influence on the application devices—sprayers. We have discussed CDA and electrostatic sprayers and the problem of this Bill stifling further advances in more efficient application. I believe that at present there are only 20 products that are approved for CDA use although the farmer may at his own risk use other products. But after the passing of this Bill he would be breaking the law in so doing. I am asking who will buy a new-type sprayer—and I just cite CDA as an example—when he can only use 20 products? If that were to happen it would stifle innovation. I hope that this amendment will certainly help. It certainly allows me to raise the problem with my noble friend. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: Let me reassure my noble friend that the Government are conscious of the need of users to have as much flexibility as possible in their application of pesticides and our intention is that they should retain that flexibility. We are taking powers to control the use of pesticides and we shall impose conditions on use which are essential for the safety of users, other people, creatures and the environment. Our Statement of Intention at paragraph 11 gives an indication of our ideas on this.
There will be a general requirement on users to act safely. At the moment our ideas on what is safe use are conveyed through the labels on the pesticide products. If I may say so, my noble friend made an important point when he pointed out that so few products at the moment are said to be suitable for controlled droplet application. It would be fair for me to say on behalf of the Government that labels at the moment very often place too many restrictions and it is necessary to try to see that there are wider ways of application of products so that we may push the boundaries of technology forwards in order to improve safety and, indeed, to improve the operations of the farmer.

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Over a transitional period we shall be reviewing labels to ensure that unnecessary restrictions are removed. We shall also be giving guidance on safe use through advisory booklets and codes of practice, on which of course we shall consult the industry. We hope that we can deal with new application techniques in this way.
Coming to another very important aspect of this amendment, we are also considering how to ensure that pesticides which are approved for only major crops can be approved for minor crops also. There are several options as to how this could be done and when we feel that we have hit on the right one we shall certainly be consulting the industry about it, and we shall certainly be receptive to any suggestions made to us.
The noble Lord asked me a direct question about mixing on the farm. From the outset of this legislation farmers will be required to act safely and they could be prosecuted for a blatantly dangerous mix. They must, therefore, act with care in their interests and in those of everyone else. Over time we shall evolve codes of practice and other illustrative material which will supplement product labels and express more clearly the established view of what is and what is not safe.
I welcome the objectives of my noble friend in this amendment. I hope that he will not mind my saying that I think that the terms of the amendment really are a bit too specific to be binding over the long term for legislation of this sort. Moreover, there are one or two expressions in the amendment which are probably not suitable for legislation. I would like in spirit to accept all that is said in the amendment, but I must confess that I would prefer not to write it into the Bill.
Lord Melchett: With a view to speeding matters up and as both noble Lords have touched on the availability of pesticides for minor crops, I should like to say a few words about my Amendment No. 108A, and then I shall not need to delay the Committee when we reach it in the Marshalled List.
Amendment No. 108A:
After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:
Testing of pesticides.
(". Ministers or the Advisory Committee on Pesticides may, for the purposes of determining whether to approve any pesticide, request such tests to be carried out by or on behalf of any person seeking such approval as appear necessary to ensure sufficient pesticides are available for use on minor crops.")
I listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said about the availability of pesticides for minor crops. I just want to put to him—and this is what Amendment No. 108A seeks to achieve—that the only sensible way in which to ensure that sufficient pesticides are available for minor crops will be to insist that the manufacturers do the necessary testing when they apply for clearance. I would not expect the noble Lord to give an answer to that point tonight. He has said that he will look at the best way in which to ensure the availability of pesticides. For myself, I cannot see any alternative other than to require manufacturers to submit the necessary test data as decided on by the advisory committee or by Ministers. I hope that the noble Lord will take that on board when looking at this point and I shall not then move Amendment No. 108A when we reach it.
Lord Belstead: I do take that point on board. This is a most important aspect of the Bill and one which, in the interests of horticulture, we must take with the very greatest seriousness. I should like to look carefully at what the noble Lord has said as well as at what my noble friend has been saying on this particular amendment.
Lord Northbourne: It seems that we are also dealing with Amendment No. 76, and it may perhaps be convenient to take that amendment now.
Amendment No. 76: Page 14, line 14, at end insert—
(" ( ) In contemplating any regulations made under this section for the approval of pesticides, the Ministers shall have regard to the desirability of

(a) maximising the range of crops and pests for which pesticides are approved; and

(b) ensuring that approval is extended without delay to substantially similar uses.")

Minor crops divide themselves into two categories. There is the category of minor crops which has a great similarity to an existing crop which has approval. To give an example, we grow green broccoli or calabrese. I believe that certain chemicals have not been approved for those vegetables, though the same chemicals have been approved for brussels sprouts and ordinary cauliflower. In that case it would seem that something similar to the rapid approval scheme, which is being used for imported chemicals, might be appropriate. There are other crops which are perhaps more recherché which have no equivalents in the major crop approval list, and those are the cases where perhaps the manufacturers might have to be required to go to the expense of making special provision.
Lord Monk Bretton: Both Amendments Nos. 75 and 76 deal with a very difficult subject. I support in principle my noble friend Lord Stanley's amendment, Amendment No. 75, and Amendment No. 76 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. My noble friend the Minister has also expressed an excellent earnest of good intention about the whole matter. There is anxiety among many people that possibly something more might be included in the Bill to try to define matters a little further, which is a difficult thing to do. The fear is that the users will be too rigidly tied to equally rigid instructions on the can and, the wish is that instructions should be more in the nature of statements setting out limits within which pesticides may be used in order to keep flexibility. Again, that is easier said than done.
So long as safety is not placed at risk, farmers should be given the maximum scope to improve cost-effectiveness, timeliness and flexibility; the manufacturer's instructions should feature as part of a statement setting out the limits within which a pesticide may be used, the label specifying the complete range of timing, application methods, tank mixes, proprietary adjuvants, etc. Without flexibility of this kind the very important innovative role played by farmers could be lost. The test required of manufacturers should be broadened to produce results which enable new technology or practices to be immediately assessed to ensure that labels take full account of new developments such as integrated pest management, which may reduce dependency on pesticides.

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For instance, who will say that this or that spraying machine should or should not come on to the market; or, particularly, who will have the duty to give effect to the Minister's willingness to encourage new technology? I believe it is most important that someone should be specifically in charge of this. I wonder what proposals the Minister may have as to who this will be.
Lord Belstead: Perhaps I may answer the specific question which my noble friend has put to me. It is a fact that we have been assuring the industry that we are conscious of the need to make allowances for the continued development of pesticides which are to be used by farmers and growers on minor crops, and we are considering various ways of implementing that assurance. The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, in an amendment (Amendment No. 108A) which he has very helpfully taken with this one, has put forward one option, which is compulsion. Another would be in some way to provide farmers and growers with direct access to the approval process; in other words, so that growers could make direct representations to those who are responsible for giving approval, perhaps through the good offices of ADAS. Those are two suggestions as to how one might go about this.
However, what is certain is that we must try to ensure what my noble friend Lord Stanley said in moving his amendment: we must try to do away with the restrictions on products for the good of farmers and growers and indeed use in general.
8.45 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: Would the noble Lord the Minister make clear to me what he means by that? Does he mean that before a farmer can innovate anything it must be on the label and approved and tested by the company or the commercial concern that produced it? That seems to me to be sensible. However, if that is the case, it rather does away with innovation.
Lord Melchett: As the noble Lord the Minister referred to me, perhaps I may make this point. The difference between what the noble Lord said about farmers and growers themselves having access and what my amendment suggests, which is that manufacturers should be obliged to do it, is not so much the difference between a voluntary scheme and a compulsory scheme, but the difference between farmers and growers paying the costs of obtaining the clearance, and under my amendment the manufacturers paying the costs. Surely that is the distinction that we need to bear in mind.
Lord Belstead: It may be; I think that we must see how we go. There are certainly two options and the noble Lord has put them very clearly. My answer off-the-cuff to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, is that he has put his finger on the problem in the sense that, as my noble friend Lord Stanley said, there are products where there is a restriction where perhaps there does not need to be a restriction. The obvious example is that a particular product may be said to be suitable only for use by controlled droplet application but it could also be suitable for use by
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hydraulic process, or the other way round. Here we must try to see whether we cannot extend the freedom and remove the restrictions wherever possible.
Perhaps I may return to the point which the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, made. As to how we do it is for further consideration. We have spoken about two options this evening. Perhaps the answers lie there; perhaps they lie elsewhere. I freely confess that the Government have not yet made up their mind; they are still listening. This is an important area.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I am very grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and also for the fact that we have dealt with two more amendments: Amendment No. 108A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, and Amendment No. 76, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, dealing with minor crops. I was particularly pleased to hear my noble friend Lord Belstead saying that there might be a case for farmers making a direct approach, say, to ADAS to clear certain chemicals.
I have in mind one other small problem that perhaps my noble friend could take away. It concerns old chemicals which nobody is particularly interested in having re-approved. I fear that these may go out of production and they may still be very useful in minor crops; yet if the charge is too high—and perhaps this is the point that my noble friend would take away—and the amount used is very small, no one will bother to register these chemicals. Perhaps my noble friend would consider that point along with the others.
I was particularly pleased to have my noble friend's reaction to this amendment. It was very helpful. I like the idea of wider recommendations on labels. This will be most important. I liked his remark—and I hope that no one will shout at me—that the purpose will be to limit blatantly dangerous mixes. Of course we all agree on that. It is the innocent mix which we want to continue to make. I now understand why my noble friend is proceeding through regulations. He spoke about a continuing dialogue with the industry. The further I go through the Bill the more I understand why he is having to do this. He has been most helpful. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 76 not moved.]
Lord Mackie of Benshie Lord Mackie of Benshie moved Amendment No. 77:
Page 14, line 15, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
("(4) Where it appears to Ministers that substances approved for application under section 15(1)(g) above may affect the health or safety of persons at work they may require that such applications be made only by or under the supervision of licensed operators after a preparatory period of five years.").
The noble Lord said: The Minister's remarks in reply to the last amendment illustrates the need for a great deal of training and for some form of licensing of the operator. Every tractor driver must have a licence to drive his tractor, and that is not nearly such a dangerous occupation as spraying. We should progress towards definite training courses and towards a system of licensing the operator within five years, or some such period.
It seems illogical to have the discussion we have had here today and to say that anyone, untrained and

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unlicensed, may apply these chemicals which we are taking such care to discuss and to legislate on. It must come. It is probably the most dangerous operation on the farm. We have all admitted the difficulties. It appears to me logical that ultimately—and not in the far future, but within a number of years—we should have a training and licensing course for people who are operating with these dangerous chemicals. I beg to move.
Lord John-Mackie: Our Amendment No. 88 is on very much the same lines as my noble kinsman's amendment.
Amendment No. 88: Page 14, line 27, at end insert—
("( ) After a period of 4 years from the passing of this Act all spraying on areas over 0·5 of a hectare must be done by an operator trained and in possession of a certificate of his competence. It will be the duty of the Minister to see that training facilities are available.").
We spell it out and say:
"After a period of 4 years from the passing of this Act all spraying on areas over 0·5 of a hectare must be done by an operator trained and in possession of a certificate of his competence."
That is essential. Then we add:
"It will be the duty of the Minister to see that training facilities are available."
Spraying is probably the most skilled operation on the farm in many ways, as well as being a dangerous one if not done properly. I do not think that any farmer could object to sending his tractor driver, or drivers, to be properly trained, so that this operation, which is important to us all and requires great skill, should be carried out by someone with that skill and a certificate for it.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Airedale): I should have reminded the Committee that if either this amendment or the next is agreed I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 79 or Amendment No. 80.
The Earl of Onslow: It is worth pointing out that tractor drivers do not have to have a licence to drive a tractor except when on the highway. I think there is an age limit on children not being allowed on tractors, but in fact one does not have to have a licence to drive perhaps a caterpillar tractor towing a six-wheel, six furrow plough accross Leicestershire, when one may just fall asleep at a hedgerow and just trundle, trundle on, as happened to an acquaintance of mine.
It is important that there should be a high level of skill in the operative. Perhaps only craftsmen on a craftsman's scale of pay should be allowed to use machinery such as this. This might cover it without the necessity of going into a separate licensing and training scheme. That is just an idea which I float.
Lord Melchett: As I understand it, there is such a licensing scheme and training of operators in the United States and Canada which works well. This was one of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, which, while recognising the high standard of operator efficiency on farms in the United Kingdom, recommended that a training and licensing system should be introduced to ensure that those high
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standards continue. I would certainly support this amendment.
I understand from looking at the Notes on Clauses that there is already power in the Bill to introduce such a training requirement. I am not clear whether the powers in the Bill would allow the Government to introduce a training and licensing requirement so that an operator, as the amendment suggests, had to be licensed presumably by the Government or some body acting on their behalf. I am not clear from what has been said so far whether the Government intend to introduce such a requirement. I understand the power is there at least to require training. Is the power there to require licensing of operators as well as training, and do the Government intend to do this, clearly after consultation with all concerned?
Lord Northbourne: I support the suggestion that there should be training and some form of licensing, but I should like to draw attention to the fact that on the smaller farming unit this might produce almost intractable practical problems. If you have two or perhaps three tractor drivers on the farm and one of them is licensed but happens to fall ill, does this mean that you cannot spray anything on your farm until he gets better again? It may be that the solution is somewhere on the lines of a licensed manager, rather in the way that you have to have a manager for heavy transport of goods, rather than simply a licensed operator.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: We cover that by saying:
"or under the supervision of licensed operators".
Earl Ferrers: Just for fear that one may be in a minority of one, may I say that I hope my noble friend will not accept this amendment. It is reasonable to want a high degree of skill; it is reasonable that people should be trained. But when you have to license individual farm workers for doing special jobs of work, that is carrying bureaucracy and interference to a degree which would be unacceptable and impractical, not least for the reasons which the last speaker mentioned.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I would support my noble friend Lord Ferrers on this and add: what about the unfortunate small farmer who does not have time to do all these things? There are probably 100,000 people spraying each day. It could be a fair bureaucratic madness. Having said that, I go along with the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie: they certainly should be trained, but paper qualifications, I doubt.
Lord Belstead: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Ferrers and to the noble Lords, Lord Stanley and Lord Northbourne, for their words of caution about making training and licensing mandatory. Although the answer to Lord Melchett's question is that the power is in the Bill for licensing, in their reply to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, the Seventh Report, the Government said that we did not propose to introduce official licensing arrangements. However, I join with all your Lordships in believing that training is important even though, again, we would not wish to make it mandatory. The Agricultural Training Board, which is of course considerably

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supported by Government funds, last year trained some 2,648 trainees attending 371 ATB courses covering a whole variety of aspects such as legislation, records, handling of pesticides, storage and disposal, protective clothing, pesticides appropriate to horticultural crops, and so on, and including the problems of drift. Your Lordships will know as well as I do that there is the requirement for craft certificates for spraying courses.
Having said that, may I make one plea on this amendment? For goodness sake do not lose subsection (4), which the amendment would strike out! It is helpful to have the requirement to consult the Health and Safety Commission on the Bill because of the closeness of the Commission's involvement in our present work and the major role of the Health and Safety Executive in the enforcement of Part III. I hope I have said enough to show that we are trying to pull in exactly the same direction as the noble Lords who have moved this amendment, even though I must admit I have not accepted it.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: The noble Lord has not even encouraged it. It is all very well to say that some 3,000 people have been trained to a degree, but there are many more farm workers and small farmers and large farmers who do not know nearly enough about the dangers of mixing, spraying, quantities, and everything else. As for the argument of the noble Earl that by all means let us train them but do not let us give them any certificates, I suppose he would like to go back in time and not even license commercial air pilots. If you followed the noble Earl's argument to its logical conclusion, you would not license anyone: you would simply say that if they are trained, that is all right.
In fact, a time must come quite soon when we have to license as well as train people. It is all very well to train them, but if the man is an absolute idiot does one say that because he has gone through the course and failed it completely he should then proceed to use these dangerous sprays? I think that the answer is not up to the usual standard of foresight of the Minister. Although I shall withdraw the amendment, I do not say that we will not bring it forward at a later stage.
9 p.m.
Lord John-Mackie: Before my noble kinsman withdraws this amendment, I should like to say that it seems quite ridiculous that all through this Bill there has run the thread of the great dangers of spraying; through every amendment that has been brought forward has been about the controls we must have and the dangers against which we have to do everything possible; but when it comes to the crunch, the man who has to put on that spray, oh no. You can train him if you like, but as my noble kinsman says he could be a complete idiot and fail the training; nevertheless, he may go home and work a spray. I do not think that the Government are being rational about this at all.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: If I may just take up a remark made by the noble Lord, it is not just the spray operator but the boss—he who tells the operator what to do. It is he who has to be trained, not the operator; the can falls on the farmer. If he is uneducated or poor he is poor, but not the operator.
Lord Collison: May I make one comment? It is a long time since I was chairman of the Agriculture Apprenticeship Council, and a long time since I had any close relationship with the Agricultural Training Board, but is this not the situation: if the Agricultural Training Board takes this as one of the items of training given to its candidates, they would receive a certificate at the end of the training indicating that they had been trained in this direction, would they not?
Lord Belstead: The certificate is, of course, for the craftsman's certificate. The noble Lord, Lord Collison, is correct. In addition to that there are the ATB courses. When I said that a number in excess of 2,600 had been trained last year, that is in one year. The training goes on year by year.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I am pleased to say that in about 40 years everyone will have been trained, but that might be a little too long. I still consider that the reply is rather unsatisfactory, but in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment by leave withdrawn.
Lord John-Mackie Lord John-Mackie moved Amendment No. 78:
Page 14, line 15, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
(" (4) If any Regulations the Ministers contemplate making will, or are likely to, affect the health or safety of persons at work it shall be the duty of the Ministers to consult with and obtain the agreement of the Health and Safety Commission, the Advisory Committee on Toxic Substances Sub-Committee of the Health and Safety Executive and the Chemicals in Agriculture Sub-Committee of the Agriculture Industry Advisory Committee.").
The noble Lord said: I will not detain the Committee long on this amendment. It is simply an amendment to safeguard further the health and safety of people in relation to spray by extending the consultation and obtaining the agreement of the three bodies mentioned in the amendment. It is essential to obtain agreement. It is all very well to consult, but agreement should be obtained and the Advisory Committee on Toxic Substances Sub-Committee of the Health and Safety Executive and the Chemicals in Agriculture Sub-Committee should be consulted as well. I beg to move.
Lord Collison: I shall not detain your Lordships very long at this late hour, but I want to say a word about this amendment, which I strongly support. Perhaps I am the only one in your Lordships House who has worked as an agricultural worker, but it is certainly true that for many years I was general secretary of the National Union of Agricultural Workers—which is now the Agricultural and Allied Workers' National Trade Group of the Transport and General Workers' Union.
For many years the union has campaigned for a radical and far-reaching reappraisal of the current system to ensure the safety of those using pesticides and, in particular, of agricultural workers—especially necessary if one takes into account the huge increase in the numbers and the uses of pesticides, some involving, as we all know, toxic substances, both taken in through the skin and through breathing the air.
Your Lordships will agree that the union is a legitimate body to take up these issues in the interests

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of the health of agricultural workers. One of its major campaigns has been to get the use of the weedkiller 2.4.5-T banned. The Trades Union Congress overwhelmingly passed a resolution to that effect. It also called for the Health and Safety Commission to take over the responsibility of decisions on the safety and control of pesticides.
To date nothing has come of that, unfortunately, and nothing has been done about the use of 2.4.5-T, despite the evidence brought forward by the union and despite the fact, as I understand it, that its use has been banned in a number of other countries including Italy, Holland, the United States of America and Sweden.
The union contends and has brought to notice some evidence that 2.4.5-T has been known to cause cancer, birth deformities, liver damage and other ill effects. I should like to see what the amendment asks for, that is decisions taken under the umbrella of the Health and Safety Commission. Therefore, I strongly endorse the wording of the amendment which calls for,
"Ministers to consult with and obtain the agreement of the Health and Safety Commission"—
and the other bodies mentioned in the amendment in making regulations. I believe and I hope that your Lordships will agree that the legitimate representatives of the interested groups should be consulted, and not least the Agricultural and Allied Trade Group of the Transport and General Workers' Union.
I promised not to take up your Lordships' time. I could make a long speech on this subject, but it is quite clear to us all, and I think accepted by us all, that health is a precious commodity and must not be jeopardised. Those involved in the use of these pesticides, the workers as well as the farmers and others, should have protection. In so far as these new regulations will give protection, I welcome them. For those brief reasons I fully support the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord John-Mackie.
The Earl of Onslow: It appears to me that not only the amendment but the clause itself has something rather odd about it:
"If it appears to the Ministers that any regulations which they contemplate making are likely to affect the health or safety of persons at work … ".
This means to me that they will make a regulation which will make people sick or be unsafe. That is what it means to me in plain simple English. They should not be making regulations like that at all. Could my noble friend explain?
Lord Melchett: I have two amendments down on the same point—Amendments Nos. 79 and 80. Needless to say, my noble friend Lord John-Mackie and my noble friend Lady Nicol have a better amendment so I shall not be moving my two amendments when we get to them. I strongly support their amendment. The answer to the noble Earl is that if the Government were taking a much more stringent look at pesticides, for which some of us have been arguing throughout the course of this Bill so far, they may not need to make use of this. But they are going to be approving a number of things which will be very dangerous. They will be dangerous if people happen to be standing under an aeroplane which is spraying them and they will be dangerous for the operators.
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There will be rules requiring the operators to wear rubber gloves, to wear overalls, to wear rubber boots, eye goggles, respirators, and so on. On our farms, as I am sure the noble Earl is well aware, we use a number of substances which are extremely dangerous and extremely toxic. That, unfortunately, will have to continue. I accept that at least some of that will have to continue although, I think that a good deal less needs to continue than the Government currently contemplate. But in those circumstances, they need to consult with those concerned about the health and safety of people at work. I believe that we still have large gaps in our knowledge about the effects of these sorts of substances on people who handle them frequently. There is the long-running campaign about 245T, the fact that it has actually been banned in a number of other developed countries, though not in this.
I accept that scientists of reasonable goodwill have looked at this question but they have come to different conclusions in different industrialised countries about the same chemical on the basis of very much the same—if not identical—data. We are therefore not dealing with certainties but with a great deal of uncertainty, uncertainty which affects people's future health, their children's health and the health of the general public. In those circumstances, the wider the consultation and the wider the measure of agreement about dangerous chemicals, the better. I hope for that reason that the Government will, at long last see fit to accept at least one amendment on this part of the Bill.
Lord Belstead: I do not think that there is any mystery about subsection (4) so far as the question asked by my noble friend Lord Onslow; that is, that if you are dealing with (as Lord Melchett says) products which are toxic, then under subsection (4) it will very frequently be the case that the Health and Safety Executive will need to be consulted. As that subsection is drafted in the way it is, there will be a duty therefore to consult the Health and Safety Commission. That would not prevent the Commission from itself consulting its own subcommittees or indeed anyone else.
Therefore, if I may say so, I do not see the need to list the other various bodies here. I would go further than that and point out that if these amendments were to be made they would give the Commission greater powers under this Bill than they enjoy under the Health and Safety at Work Act itself. Particularly in view of the fact that we have subsection (4) firmly in the Bill, I think that the balance so far as consulting the Health and Safety Commission is about right.
If your Lordships will forgive me, I shall not embark on 245T this evening although I have listened carefully to what the noble Lords, Lord Collison, and Lord Melchett, have said and even though I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Collison, on this because the Advisory Committee on Pesticides has looked on more than one occasion at 245T and has not reached the same conclusion as the union. Nonetheless, it is a pleasure to have the noble Lord taking part in our debates. The noble Lord's experience is probably greater than that of anybody else in the Committee. I wish that I was not speaking at variance with him on this particular amendment.
Lord John-Mackie: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 79 and 80 not moved.]
Lord John-Mackie Lord John-Mackie moved Amendment No. 81:
Page 14, line 18, at end insert—
("( ) The regulations shall provide for the prohibition of non-agricultural uses of pesticide preparations formulated for use in agriculture.").
The noble Lord said: We have been approached by various people that pesticides, in the full use of the word, are rather too available to anybody who cares to use them. I must confess to doing something which this amendment would prevent me doing. The noble Earl in the middle of summer asked me if I knew how to get rid of couch in his garden. I went home and filled a bottle of Round-up, put a label on it and gave him a list of instructions. Then I realised that I had given him enough to do all the gardens in the town in which he lives. I am not sure that this amendment would apply to me but there is something to be said for some regulation that prevents anybody from buying pesticides without giving a good reason for it. I beg to move.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: One thing that has worried me far more than the use in agriculture, although our methods are improving, is the totally unrestricted use which may be made of pesticides in gardens all over the country. They are much more likely to be over-used there by people who get sore backs from weeding than they are in agriculture. I do not know the answer to how this is going to be controlled. Certainly, one can insist (and indeed there are regulations) that everything is labelled and all the dangers are pointed out. The Minister's thoughts on this will be extremely interesting and I have no doubt that his accumulated wisdom will provide an answer to what I regard as this highly dangerous situation of the unrestricted use in gardens.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Belstead: I make no secret of the fact that the Government take the point that both noble Lords have made so far as safety is concerned. This amendment clearly touches very closely upon the possible dangers of breaking down large packs of agricultural pesticides and putting them into containers or bags so that sometimes users have little idea as to how strong the pesticides are or even sometimes what they are and how they should be used. There is a difficulty—and I think that in a way the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, in moving the amendment, indicated it—in that sometimes there are genuine reasons why one wants to include the non-agricultural use of pesticide preparations. Perhaps I may go on from the noble Lord's particular situation to say that there are the institutional but non-domestic users of pesticides, like local authorities, transport undertakings and indeed forestry concerns and so on. They would be affected by this amendment. So, with respect, I do not think that the amendment, as drafted at the moment, really will do. If the noble Lord wishes to give further thought to the very important aspect of safety, perhaps we can return to it at another stage.
Lord John-Mackie: In view of the Minister's reply, I think we should return to it at the next stage of the Bill. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord John-Mackie Lord John-Mackie moved Amendment No. 82:
Page 14, line 18., at end insert—
("( ) The Minister shall consult with the manufacturers of pesticides and the manufacturers of spray equipment on any aspect of the regulations that may affect them.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment says that,
"The Minister shall consult with the manufacturers of pesticides and the manufacturers of spray equipment on any aspect of the regulations that may affect them."
We put down the amendment because the manufacturers of spray equipment make the very real point that you can have all the sprays you like, but if you do not have suitable machinery for putting it on, the sprays are not worth a lot. They were slightly miffed that they were not consulted during the consultations undertaken before this Bill was drafted. The main point I want to make is that the manfacturers of spray equipment must be consulted along with the manufacturers of the actual pesticides. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: If I may say so, if we have in any way slipped up with the manufacturers of spray equipment in particular, the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, has certainly made sure that we put that right by ensuring that the consultations which I keep saying we are going to hold—I thought it was for the second time round—will most certainly be held. I think, with respect, there is a difficulty about this amendment, because it is not just the manufacturers of spray equipment who are involved. There are many other people who we are genuinely consulting and if we were to include them, we would need an enormously long list. I except from that, of course, the Health and Safety Commission, which we have already been talking about. They are in an important position with regard to this Bill, both on grounds of safety and because the commission officers are going to be responsible for the enforcement powers in Part III. But, with that exception, if we then start to pick out particular private interests, we get into difficulties.
Lord John-Mackie: I thank the Minister for his reply and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Northbourne Lord Northbourne moved Amendment No. 83:
Page 14, line 18, at end insert—
("( ) In any regulations that the Ministers contemplate making under subsection (1) above they shall ensure that, subject to their approval in each case, any person engaged in research and development relating to pesticides shall be exempt from any prohibitions on the import, sale, supply and use of pesticides so far as may be necessary for those purposes.").
The noble said: The wording of this amendment is, I think, fairly self-evident. It is obvious that research establishments would have some sort of exclusion under the Bill, and the purpose of this amendment is to make it clear that, subject to the approval of the Minister, others who are legitimately involved in creative research on pesticides and their application should also, through some formula, have similar exemption. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for expanding this amendment and I assure him that, in drafting the Bill, we bore in mind the position of research workers. I believe that Clause 15(1)(a),(b) and (c) together already enable us to cover this issue. I believe it is fair to say that since Amendment No. 83 was tabled, we circulated our statement of intention on the regulations which explains, in paragraph 2(c), how we propose to deal with this factor.
In the first instance, it is our intention—subject to what your Lordships and another place have to say on this Bill—that persons testing substances for possible pesticide activity on their own premises will not be required to seek approval for those tests, provided the materials are handled by their own staff only. Secondly, it would be our intention that persons who have discovered a possible new pesticide or new uses for an old pesticide and who wish to try out their ideas on a larger scale will be required to seek approval for the use that they propose. Persons in those circumstances would normally be granted a trials permit which will specify how much of the pesticide they could use on how much land, and what safety precautions must be taken. Additional conditions—such as the burning of any plants treated with the material—would be imposed where appropriate.
This amendment has I hope provided an opportunity for the Government to lay out in rather more detail what it is that we intend here. I hope the Committee do not mind me saying what it is that we intend because at the same time of course we are endeavouring to listen to what is being said to us.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: Before the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, replies, if my noble friend Lord Belstead is referring to paragraph 2(c) of the intended regulations—which I believe he was to some extent—then, from what he has just said, it seems to me that that regulation will be too narrow. Perhaps my noble friend will reconsider that particular part of the regulations to see if it should not be made a little wider.
Lord Northbourne: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for his assurances and, subject to the point which the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, has just made, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Earl Cathcart): In calling Amendment No. 84, I should advise your Lordships that if it is agreed I cannot call Amendment No. 85 or 86.
Lord John-Mackie Lord John-Mackie had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 84:
Page 14, leave out lines 19 to 21 and insert—
(" (5) Either the Ministers, the Accepting Departments or persons or organisations having an interest in or involvement with pesticides may require to be made available information by importers, exporters, many acturers, distributors or users—").
The noble Lord said: I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, wished to deal with Amendments Nos. 84, 86, 105 and 112 together. However, before I received the Minister's note, we on this side had
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decided not to move Amendment No. 84 because we were happy with the amendment of my noble kinsman and the noble Baroness, Lady Robson; that is, Amendment No. 86.
[Amendment No. 84 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 85 not moved.]
Lord Mackie of Benshie Lord Mackie of Benshie moved Amendment No. 86:
Page 14, line 19, leave out ("provision") and insert ("publication").
The noble Lord said: We regard this as being an important amendment because subsection (5) is very important in itself. Quite simply, we do not see why only Ministers should require the provision of information. We believe that such information should be widely available to responsible and irresponsible bodies if they want to check on the safety of any product.
There seems to be no reason for restricting that information, outside a commercial reason. Yet surely all these processes must be protected by patent. They take a long time to formulate; the tests go on for years. They are mostly protected, I would have thought, and at any rate a firm in opposition can, once a successful product comes on to the market, discover by analysis and other means exactly how it is formulated. I therefore see no objection to publication of the information required.
I see no reason why other bodies should not be able to check on the safety of products as well as official bodies. It surely must be right that we have freedom of information in a matter that vitally affects everyone in this country. Far more information is available in the United States on tests and formulations. In fact, information can be obtained in the United States which is restricted in this country. I look forward with great interest to hearing the Minister's reply as to why the word "provision" should not be left out and the word "publication" inserted. I beg to move.
Lord Melchett: I believe it is the intention to take my Amendment No. 105 with this amendment, according to the note which the noble Lord the Minister sent round. If so, I am happy to agree and it might be for the convenience of your Lordships if I speak to it now.
Amendment No. 105: After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:
("Disclosure of pesticide test data.
.—(1) Ministers shall disclose on request, any data and information supplied for the purposes of securing or retaining approval of a pesticide, where—

(i) it concerns the objectives, methodology, results, or significance of any test, experiment or survey conducted for the purposes of determining the efficacy of any pesticide or the effects of any pesticide or of any ingredient, impurity or product of the degradation of any pesticide, upon health, flora or fauna or the environment, including information relating to the persistence, metabolism and fate of the pesticide in the environment; and

(ii) it is supplied to a department or authority for the purpose of obtaining or retaining any safety clearance or registration, required by or under any enactment or otherwise, permitting the sale or use of any pesticide, or for the purpose of obtaining or retaining any official approval or certification of efficacy given by a department or authority, whether or not required by or under any enactment or otherwise.

(2) Any department or authority responsible for the granting of any clearance, registration, approval or certification referred to in subsection (1)(ii) above shall not grant any such clearance, registration, approval or certification based on information of the kind described in subsection (1)(ii) above, unless—

(i) the information is the product of tests or experiments conducted by or on behalf of or at the expense of the person making the application; or

(ii) the person making the application has obtained the consent to use the information of the person by or on whose behalf or at whose expense such tests or experiments were conducted; or

(iii) the information has previously been made publicly available without restrictions of any kind, other than information supplied as described in subsection (1)(ii) above and disclosed under the provisions of this Act.").

With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, I think that my Amendment No. 105, while aimed at exactly the same objective, makes a serious attempt to safeguard the information which would be of commercial importance to manufacturers. Amendment No. 105 does that in subsection (2), which makes clear that anyone who attempts to pirate information which has been disclosed under the provisions of subsection (1) would not be able to use it to gain any commercial advantage; in other words, such information, if it was gleaned by a competitor, could not be submitted to the authorities to gain clearance for a rival product.
That is an important point because it should be stressed—and the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, said this himself—that all of those who support greater access to information on this subject accept the need for commercial interests to be safeguarded. I do not think any of us want to see those interests damaged. Certainly no farmers do, because all that that would be likely to do is put up the cost of pesticides or dry up the provision of new products, many of which promise to be safer and of more benefit to the environment than are existing pesticides.
The purpose of my amendment in particular is to allow for the controlled disclosure of the data submitted by manufacturers to the Government in order to obtain approval for their pesticide product. It would have the effect of providing the public and independent scientists outside the Government machinery with the information they require to form a view about the safety and efficacy of a pesticide. It would place a duty on the Government to disclose such information on request. However, as I have said, it would safeguard genuine commercial interests.
I accept, as the statement of intention from the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, says, that there are powers in the Bill as it stands, described in paragraphs 4 and 14 of the statement of intention, to make available to the public information obtained by them. The Government say that the degree of disclosure would be a matter for consultation with all the interests involved. It is fair to say that that has been the story of the Bill so far, but this is too important a matter to be left to those outside Parliament. Disclosure of information to the public about dangerous and toxic substances is not, with respect to the noble Lord, something which can be left to consultations with the industry, agricultural interests, environmentalists, and so on, outside Parliament. It is surely a matter of such public concern and importance that Parliament
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should be allowed to make a decision on it, and the degree of disclosure. Indeed, the threat to commercial interests is such that Parliament should be given an opportunity to ensure that those are safeguarded on the face of the Bill.
The need for statutory provision seems to be two-fold. First of all—the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, and I had a brief exchange on this, and the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, supported what I had to say—many pesticides are extremely dangerous and toxic, and will continue to be so. Many substances are subject to considerable public controversy, and 245T has already been mentioned in that respect. Many of the substances are a subject of disagreement between different national governments; for example, between West Germany and ourselves, and between ourselves and the United States. Different decisions are taken about the same substances, about the good sense of using them in the environment and about the likely effects on the health of human beings today and in generations to come.
9.30 p.m.
In those circumstances it seems to me vital that as much information as possible is made available to the public so that they can make a decision. It is, after all, an extremely closed system. Manufacturers submit data to a small group of scientists, albeit independent of the Ministry but serviced by Ministry officials, who then make decisions on these matters.
The second argument in favour of such a proposal as I have suggested in Amendment No. 105 is that a good deal of that information is slowly but surely becoming available from the United States, because there there is such a provision. So far as I know, it mirrors more or less exactly what I am putting in Amendment No. 105. It is possible for interested individuals or organisations in this country to apply to the United States and to obtain that data, some of it on chemicals which are used in this country and some of it, indeed, data which have been used to gain clearance of chemicals used in this ountry. In those circumstances it seems to me to be vital for Parliament to say that that should happen here, and on what basis it should happen. That is what Amendment No. 105 would do. I hope that an amendment along those lines will prove acceptable to the Government.
Earl Peel: I should very much like to support what the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, has just said. In doing so, I am technically speaking, I suppose, to Amendment No. 112 to which I have put my name.
Amendment No. 112: after Clause 16, insert the following new clause:
("Register.
(1) The Ministers shall require such organisation as they consider appropriate to maintain (in accordance with regulations) a register containing prescribed particulars of any—

(a) application for approval made under section 15(1)(b);

(b) notice of such approval and the conditions to which the approval is subject;

(c) notice of review, revocation or suspension of any such approval;

(d) details of the findings of any review under paragraph (c) above;

(e) levels of pesticide or pesticides residue permitted in crops, food or feeding stuff under section 15(1)(g); and

(f) physical, biological and toxicological properties of any pesticide subject to testing for the purposes of determining whether or not to approve it or whether any conditions should be imposed in relation to it.

(2) The Ministers shall secure that—

(a) a register maintained in pursuance of the preceding subsection shall be open to inspection by the public free of charge at all reasonable hours; and

(b) members of the public may obtain, on payment of reasonable charges, copies of entries in the register,")

I see that there is one potential misunderstanding on that amendment. It says:
"The Ministers shall require such organisation as they consider appropriate …".
I suppose that it is always possible that they may not consider any organisation appropriate. In that case, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, certainly has an advantage over Amendment No. 112. But I think that at this stage we are not really discussing the merits of individual amendments but the whole principle and range of freedom of information, if I may call it such.
I think that it is far too important a point to be in the regulations and it must be in the Bill itself. The great thing is that that is strongly felt by everybody involved in countryside matters, right across the board. The CLA is in favour of something along those lines, as indeed are all environmental groups. They feel that the public should have access to the relevant data on the physical, biological and toxicological tests that have been carried out on pesticides. As the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, said—and again I think perhaps his amendment is stronger on this point than the one to which I have put my name—no one is attempting to obtain disclosure of the basic manufacturers' formulations. We simply want to be able to find out what a particular product has been tested against and what the results of the tests reveal.
As matters stand at the moment any organisation or individual wishing to find out information about safety test data on a particular pesticide is in the hands of the manufacturing company. If that company does not wish to disclose the information, it does not have to do so. I am sure that that secrecy breeds a fear and mistrust which we must try to overcome. The establishment of a register would, I think, help to allay such fears. It would also result—I think that this is a very important point—in companies competing more aggressively to produce products which are less environmentally damaging.
Very little research has been carried out by Government agencies. That means that the chemical companies themselves have virtually all the relevant data. That information would be of enormous benefit not only to farmers but to all the statutory and non-statutory bodies involved in the countryside.
On Second Reading the Game Conservancy was mentioned by several noble Lords. I should like to draw to your Lordships' attention the fact that under the cereals and game birds project, which is being conducted by the Game Conservancy, a particular pesticide (an organo-phosphorous product) which currently has been cleared for use in this country by PSPS has been used for controlling mildew in barley and been shown to have exceptional insecticidal properties in addition to the properties that would be expected from a pesticide being sold as a fungicide. If this information had been available, everyone would have known what its capabilities were and a great deal
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of duplicated research could have been avoided. Equally—and perhaps even more important—advice could have been given to the farmers by the advisory bodies. The farmer would then be in a position to choose more readily which pesticide he felt that he would like to use.
I have already said that there is wide range support for this freedom of information but I should like to finish by quoting from the British Agrochemicals Association who recently stated:
"The public's right to know the basis on which safety assessments are made by the Advisory Committee on Pesticides is appreciated and we believe that more detailed information on this would be in the public interest."
That speaks for itself. I would go so far as to say that from a political point of view I would have thought that the Government really cannot ignore this extremely important point. I hope that my noble friend will consider what I think is very wide support for our basic freedom of information clause in this Bill.
The Earl of Onslow: I should like very much to support what my noble friend Earl Peel and what the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, have said on this matter. It is essential that there is some form of register which is open to the public and tells us test data, toxicological data, etc. It might be worthwhile to read to the Committee what the American Act says. I have given my noble friend a copy of this. It is absolutely right. I have obtained it through the help of the United States Agricultural Attaché. It says:
"All information concerning the objectives, methodology, results or significance of any test or experiment performed on or with a registered or previously registered pesticide or its separate ingredients, impurities, or degradation products, and any information concerning the effects of such pesticide or any organism or the behaviour of such pesticide in the environment, including, but not limited to, data on safety to fish and wildlife, humans and other mammals, plants, animals, and soil",
incidentally,
"and studies on persistence, translocation and fate in the environment, and metabolism, shall be available for disclosure to the public: provided, that the use of such data for any registration purpose shall be governed by Section 3 of this Act."
One cannot go much wider than that. It seems that if one can be bothered to fly to the United States, one can look up the information on numbers of chemicals that are sold in this country. This seems to me rather a waste of time. Would it not be much wiser to have a similar clause in our regulations? I should like to see it actually written into the Bill in some form or another.
I absolutely understand the point of the worry about the protection of patents. If somebody has spent £10 million, £15 million, £20 million, or whatever it costs to develop a new and special chemical which will be of great use to mankind, one does not want that data to go via Brazil to a backyard still in South Korea and be produced immediately afterwards by somebody copying it. That does not necessarily mean that it is going to come into this country, because it probably will not; but it will go to some other country and the fruits of somebody else's research and hard work will be lost through totally unscrupulous means. There are pages of the American legislation. I do not think that it is reasonable to go on reading it because I find it quite hard to understand, anyway, but it goes on to put in lots of limitations for the protection of patents. If it

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exists in the United States, and the Germans have not quite the same system, but a system whereby you can go and ask for the information, it is there somewhere in the world. Surely, we should have it here as well.
Lord Walston: I would certainly support anything that moves towards freedom of information. That is a valuable step to take. I should like to take up the final point of the noble Earl, Lord Onslow. It is something that we must look at carefully. Our own manufacturers are guarded by patent law in this country and in many other countries, but not in all countries throughout the world. While this informa
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tion should be made available for those who are seriously interested in the matter, which means a wide range of people, it should not be of a kind that enables a backyard still in South Korea or even in North Korea to profit from the years of research work done by European firms.
If the noble Lord the Minister can assure us that by some means, possibly similar to the German laws or the United States laws, we can make this information available without running that risk, I am wholeheartedly behind such a move whether by means of the present amendment, Amendment No. 105, or Amendment No. 112, to which I have put my name. I do not know which is the better of those.
Lord Belstead: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, for those words of caution. I am also grateful to your Lordships for agreeing to take together these amendments which all have one common theme; namely, disclosure of information that is received in the process of scrutinising applications for the clearance or approval of pesticides for safety. Although the amendments have that common theme, they are all a bit different. Amendment No. 86, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, appears simply to require publication, despite the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, wisely said that we had, of course, to be very careful about commercial confidentiality.
Amendment No. 105, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, is a more complete affair involving, as it does, the insertion of a new clause after Clause 15, but granting the same right of access to safety data on request and without restriction. It is a more complete amendment because, as the noble Lord explained, it addresses itself to the concern that has always inhibited the Government in this area; namely, commercial confidentiality. I have to point out to the Committee that it is also a campaigning amendment. It appears in identical form, word for word, in a draft Bill, the Environmental Pollution Information Bill, being circulated now by the 1984 Campaign for Freedom of Information.
Amendment No. 112, in the names of my noble friends Lord Onslow and Lord Peel and the noble Lord, Lord Walston, and the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, would create the register. My noble friend Lord Peel has spoken to it. Again, the difficulty here is, surprisingly, that, although my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Walston, have spoken firmly and wisely about the need for commercial confidentiality, Amendment No. 112 seems to make no provision at all for the defence of commercial confidentiality.
Having said that, the Government cannot fail to be impressed by the generality and the quality of the concern expressed on this subject in the last 10 minutes; nor, I accept, can the Government ignore that there are arrangements made in other parts of the world. In particular, there is the case of the United States where test data on pesticides registered with the Environment Protection Agency are now made available to inquirers who, however, have to sign certain quite stern undertakings. All your Lordships are, I think, aware of the American precedent, although you have not perhaps read it word for word. There are dangers in comparisons. There is, as yet, virtually no experience of the day-to-day working of that system, of its costs, or of its environmental or commercial implications. I cannot help but notice that none of your Lordships has included in amendments a comparison with the American system. Your Lordships have not attempted to borrow from it, perhaps (if I may say so) wisely.
9.45 p.m.
Perhaps I may be a little more constructive. In another place a little while ago my honourable friend the Parliamentary Secretary in the Department of the
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Environment, Mr. William Waldegrave, said for the Government that the presumption must be in favour of openness in environmental matters. Indeed, the British Agrochemicals Association, speaking earlier this year for Britain's manufacturers, said that in this matter the public does have the right to know about data upon which an agrochemical registration is granted. It must be clear from what I am saying that the Government are prepared to take very seriously the issue of disclosure in this and similar sectors.
From the point of view of the main environmental concerns, we are already publishing regular surveys of pesticide usage and pesticide residues, and we plan to make these more timely and, particularly in the case of usage surveys, more topical. The powers to require information in Clause 15(5) of the Bill will, if necessary, be prayed in aid for this purpose, and we plan that the Advisory Committee for Pesticides will, from now on, publish annual reports of its work. The year 1984 will be the first of its activity so reported. The aim in doing this is two-fold. The first is to create a wider understanding of a task which we have grown accustomed to see performed with diligence and judgment but which has so far been performed almost entirely in private. I accept that. Secondly, we shall be asking the committee to describe as a matter of public record the decisions it has taken each year in relation to the principal chemicals approved, and to publish the characteristics of those products and the results of the safety and efficacy testing to which they have been submitted.
That is what we have been doing. I must tell your Lordships that despite the impression that your Lordships' speeches have made on the Government—and it is inevitable that when all noble Lords get up and speak in the same vein there is an impression created; I accept that absolutely—there really are practical problems with each of these amendments.
I have not yet spoken about commercial confidentiality, and perhaps I may do so very briefly. If it is no longer to be a reflex action on the Government's part to cite the commercial interest as a ground for withholding, there will still surely be cases where a manufacturing process must genuinely be protected if a valuable development is to be fully exploited. Nor are all such cases suitably protected by patent law. Moreover, safety data themselves have a commercial value, and conditions must be laid down which prevent competitors from seeking clearances on the basis of work which they have neither done nor paid for. This, it seems to the Government, is the fatal flaw, if I may be forgiven for saying so, in the otherwise very elegant design of Amendment No. 86. I am bound to say, as I have already said, that I do not see that it is catered for in the scheme for the register in Amendment No. 112.
I quoted from the BAA on the subject a few moments ago, and it is only fair also to record that they said at the same time that it is the financial value of the data that industry wishes to protect, not the information it contains.
If I may say just a word about the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, my concern is rather

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different. It is that the amendment is, in my view, for this type of legislation and for the current state of development of our policy on disclosure, really too specific and too clear. I know I have spoken on many occasions during the discussions on this Bill of the second round of consultations which the Government will be conducting with a full range of interested groups before the implementing regulations are presented.
Like other details of the forthcoming regulations, any detailed arrangements on disclosure must heed the outcome of those consultations and need to be based on the broader provisions of this Bill. If I may take as an example the difficulty which one gets into if one goes into really fine detail on this, of all subjects—I am drawing attention to the provisions of the second part of the proposal by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, which seeks to protect the manufacturers' interests after disclosure—there we find provisions which are in some respects a good deal less liberal than those currently being operated in the United States.
I do not know why. Was it intended? If so, on what grounds, and what do the various environmental and industrial groups think of that particular thrust of the noble Lord's amendment? I do not know, and I cannot—and I do not think I should—try to divine, during the process of broad, enabling legislation, what exactly is the balance here because I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, is genuinely trying to seek a compromise where it is very difficult indeed to get a compromise if we start going into the fine detail of legislation.
Your Lordships may say to me, "This is all very well, but what do the Government intend actually to do?" May I say two things? First of all, we are getting on with what I endeavoured to set out before your Lordships in regard to the reporting systems of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, and also the activities which we have in looking into pesticide usage and pesticide residues. In addition to that, we are very shortly going to be replying to the tenth report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and will be making our proposals for progress in that area.
But to the promoters of these amendments I should like this evening to offer three firm undertakings. The first is that it is the Government's firm intention that there will be provisions in the regulations on disclosure of information gathered under Clause 15(5). My second undertaking is that those provisions will take into account the outcome of a most detailed consultation with all concerned, if this legislation reaches the statute book. Thirdly, it is our intention that in the meantime the Government will develop further their reporting on residues and on usage and on work of the advisory committee. If I may say so, I believe that this work will be done better if these amendments are not pressed. I hope that perhaps we may all be able to read what has been said in what I admit has been a rather longer debate than I had intended. I apologise for speaking at some length; but these amendments are important.
The Earl of Onslow: I am slightly disappointed by
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that reply, not because of what the Minister says he is going to do, not because of his emphasis—and justified emphasis—on the commercial property and commercial secrecy—because obviously there is a very serious problem there—but because he does not want to see it written into the Bill. I happen to think that this is one of the most important aspects of this Bill that we are discussing. I should like to see a broadly drafted amendment. I quite concede that our amendment has things wrong with it; the amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, has things wrong with it, as the amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, has things wrong with it. But surely it is not beyond the wit of man, or, above all, beyond the wit of the drafting officials in the Ministry of Agriculture, to put in an amendment which says that information shall be made as public as possible in the regulations, subject to commercial secrecy; or something like that. I am not a draftsman, but I should like to see something in the Bill before it leaves this House.
Lord Melchett: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for taking such trouble to respond to my amendment in particular and needless to say to the debate as a whole. However, having listened to his comments on my Amendment No. 60 which dealt with footpaths in a very general way, and having heard him say that it was not nearly clear or specific enough, and having now heard him say that this amendment is too clear and too specific, the noble Lord will excuse me for feeling slightly confused about the Government's line in dealing with amendments to this Bill. I am even more confused when we bear in mind that the noble Lord suggested that my amendment was not liberal enough because it did not go so far as the United States legislation. I was trying, as the noble Lord rightly said, to be realistic. When it comes to disclosing information, I do not think that this Government are going to be as liberal as the United States Government. It would be foolish for any of us to pretend that they will be. Therefore it seemed sensible to pitch an amendment rather below the highest standards being set by the United States Government.
I should like to make one point to the noble Lord in response to what he has suggested about the United States experience. He said that enough was not yet known about how it will work. There have been some outstanding examples of the type of dangers which environmentalists and other people concerned about the safety of pesticides feel will be covered up if we do not have adequate access to the detailed data upon which clearances are based. That is what we are after. I accept the usefulness and the utility of all the other points that the noble Lord mentioned about annual reports and statistics on use which are very helpful. But all these amendments are designed to get at data which has been submitted to get clearance. That is the information that people are after.
It was the case in the United States that the Environmental Protection Agency found, for example, that one particular laboratory, the Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories—IBT—had been carrying out tests which were faked, and a large number of chemicals, including the most widely used herbicide in the United States, were found to be carcinogenic and had to be

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withdrawn. They had been cleared on the basis of faked tests. I think that the noble Lord's department admitted earlier this summer that at least one pesticide in use in the United Kingdom was cleared on the basis of test data from that particular laboratory—from IBT. So the noble Lord will understand if I say that I think that there are a great many people who would feel that the American experience of disclosure has already proved valuable.
A number of people would be interested to know how many pesticides in this country have been cleared as a result of data provided by IBT, which has now been discredited: how many of those pesticides have had to have new data submitted; whether that has been done, and how long it took. So a number of serious questions arise when secrecy is maintained.
I still think from a personal point of view that it is necessary to have a provision in the Bill which ensures that access to test data, with safeguards for commercial companies, is available. If we have to do it on a less liberal basis than the United States to get all party agreement in this House on it, then so be it; but we should still do it.
Earl Peel: I am grateful to the noble Lord for having answered the many questions that were put to him; but I must confess that I am extremely disappointed by his response. It is getting late and one does not want to analyse the situation any further. However, I must say that surely it is possible to distinguish between the testing data on pesticides without revealing the detailed compound breakdown of a particular chemical. I simply cannot understand why this cannot be done. The noble Lord has given us assurances that the Government will be asking further questions—or at least that they will be in a position to ask further questions—and therefore that more comprehensive answers will be available to the Government. But my response to that is: will they be available to the general public? I fear that from what the noble Lord has said the answer is no.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: This has been a very good debate and I have listened to the arguments put forward for the other excellent amendments that have been tabled. However, I must say that I come back to the view that our very simple amendment on publication is eventually the one which must be adopted. Several noble Lords cited commercial pirates in various parts of the world and indeed in specific parts of the world. But if a nation or a company is sophisticated enough to produce the pesticides and the chemicals about which we are talking, then as soon as a successfully tested pesticide gets clearance, if there is any information available at all, they will surely be in a position very soon to manufacture that pesticide.
10 p.m.
This is a highly technical question and I shall consult again about it. But if information is available in the United States, which is probably as commercial a country and as keen to protect its manufacturers as anyone, I do not see why we should not have that
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information available here. I think that the simpler it is, the better. If we have simply a publication and a clause inserted about commercial protection, we might be going a long way towards reaching an agreed insertion in the Bill, which would please noble Lords who have expressed such tremendous concern.
I have, of course, formally to withdraw my amendment, at the same time giving notice that we shall certainly be consulting to obtain a more satisfactory response from the Government. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Northbourne Lord Northbourne moved Amendment No. 87:
Page 14, line 27, at end insert—
("(5A)(a) In deciding whether or not to grant exclusion of approval under section 15(1) of this Act the Minister shall have regard to tests of a type to be specified in the regulations designed to assess—

(i) the effectiveness of the pesticide for the purpose for which exclusion or approval is being sought;

(ii) effective application rates and methods of application in relation to a range of soil and climate conditions;

(iii) the effect of the pesticide upon the environment including man, animals, plants and soil ecosystems;

(iv) the economic or other justifications for the use of the pesticide by comparison with other pesticides available for the same purpose which may involve less risk to the environment;

(b) When exclusion or approval is granted in respect of any pesticide the Minister shall procure that information in respect of that pesticide in relation to all the matters set out in paragraph (a) shall be made available in a simple clear format accessible to the general public and also in detail for the specialist.").
The noble Lord said: I think that almost the last word has been said on information, but I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to two aspects of Amendment No. 87, in my name, which are marginally different from those raised in the discussion which has taken place so far. First, the amendment requires the Minister to disclose the generalised information rather than the detailed clearance information, which some speakers in the previous debate suggested is what is really needed by the public, although the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, did not agree.
I very much incline to and admire the views put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Peel. I believe that what is needed is greater disclosure of information, not so much to the public but to the farmers. There is a terrible dearth of information; there is a lack of resources for research to produce the information that farmers need in the decisions that they have to make about the application of pesticides. Yet a great deal of this information is available in the hands of manufacturers. Surely somehow it could be passed from A to B.
The second point I wish to make on this amendment, which is an important one, is that the parameters of the tests should be laid down by the Minister and not merely be left to the manufacturers. I am told that the Pesticides Safety Precaution Scheme often clears for safety only those recommendations that the manufacturers of the pesticide chooses to specify. If that is true, clearly it does not secure that every pesticide is thoroughly and adequately tested, or ensure that the information is secured at the time the tests are being carried out, so that both the farmers and the general public know what the pesticide is all about. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: Our intention would be to publish under the regulations a document which would set out the type and standard of tests and experiments to be carried out. The document would be continually updated, so that we might take advantage of any scientific developments in the fields of toxicology and environmental biology, risk assessment and other areas without delay. To enshrine the tests in regulations could impede that progress. I do not think it is possible to establish a definitive list of tests which all pesticides must go through. Some tests would be appropriate only to one type of pesticide and not to another. In some cases the need for a particular test may come to light only after we have seen the results of other experiments. So that is why I would not want to see them enshrined in the regulations. But I have seized the opportunity to try to indicate our intention, and I think that it is very similar to the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne.
Lord Melchett: My name is down to this amendment, and I think that the Minister has given us a very helpful reply. I want to ask him one question, because I may have missed what he said. He intends to publish guidance notes under the regulations, setting out the tests that would be appropriate. What would be the status of that guidance note, document or whatever it will be? Would it be the case that in practice people submitting pesticides for clearance would have had to have taken them through the tests set out in the document?
Lord Belstead: I think that the status would be that which those who were responsible for the clearance procedure would be expecting. If those who were submitting the applications had not complied with that guidance, then the chances of getting a clearance would be that much less.
Lord Northbourne: On the basis of the assurance that the Minister has given, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 88 not moved.]
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol moved Amendment No. 89:
Page 14, line 27, at end insert—
("( ) Either of the Ministers shall ensure that labels for pesticides for export be submitted for statutory approval and that they are written in the most common language of the country of destination, whether that pesticide is approved for the use in the United Kingdon or not.")
The noble Baroness said: We discussed the content of labelling earlier. This amendment refers primarily to the kind of labelling, the description of the label itself. The labels are of prime importance in any country, even more so where back-up advisory services may not be available, and they must be in language that is understood in that country.
I recently had the pleasure of a visit to Reckitt and Colman's factory, where they produce mustard for 54 countries in the world. I saw their export department, where they had tins of mustard in something between 30 and 40 different languages, including dialects. If it can be done for mustard, how much more important it is that it should be done for lethal products of the
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kind we are talking about. There is a call for symbols to be used as well as the language of the importing country, and that seems entirely sensible. I should like to hear the Minister's views on that.
The rationale for using regulations instead of writing intentions into the Bill is that regulations can be updated more easily. But surely we would not wish to change this particular piece of legislation often, and it seems more important that it should be on the face of the Bill. The intentions of the amendment would surely not change, and we feel they are sufficiently important to be in the primary legislation. I beg to move.
Lord Rea: I have been a fascinated observer of, rather than a participant in the several debates we have had in the Committee so far. Sadly, unlike most noble Lords present, I am not a farmer. I am, however, a former lepidopterist and anisopterist. If any noble Lord does not know what that means, I used to be very interested in dragonflies. I am also a partaker of, and I take a great deal of pleasure in, the enjoyment of our special countryside. More particularly, as a doctor I am interested in the health and welfare of people who live there. Therefore, I wholeheartedly support this amendment.
I have an example here of how terribly wrong things can go if the precautions outlined in the amendment are not taken. I quote from a book called. A Growing Problem, Pesticides and the Third World Poor, which was written by David Bull. It is an Oxfam publication. It concerns the import into Iraq in the 1970s of seed which was already treated with fungicide. It says:
"The use of treated seed for food led to one of the worst epidemics of pesticide poisoning. This occurred in Iraq in 1971/72. Wheat and barley seed was imported which had been treated with a methyl mercury fungicide. Warnings issued to farmers not to eat the grain were insufficient or went unheeded. Warnings on some sacks appeared in English and Spanish only [in an Arabic speaking country] and in some cases, the seed arrived too late for planting. Many farmers' families ate the treated grain or fed it to their animals".
Edward Hughes, who is a journalist, visited Iraq in 1973, and his investigations and discussions with experts led him to estimate the true scale of the catastrophe at 100,000 injured and 6,000 dead, which is something like two to three times as great as the recent Bhopal disaster in India. Therefore, it is small wonder that I support this amendment wholeheartedly. This is not the only example of where things have gone wrong because the population concerned could not read the instructions. It is very important that the pitcograms—which is the proper name for the symbols that are being suggested—should also be put on the containers of the dangerous chemicals concerned.
Lord Belstead: I think there may be some misunderstanding on the part of the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, a misunderstanding which I shared before I had advice on this. A high proportion of pesticides are exported either as concentrates or in bulk for formulation in the country where they are to be used. Scrutiny of the labels with which they are to be shipped would do little to influence the labels on the packs finally getting to the people who will use them. I think that one has to take that into account in formulating an amendment.

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The second point is that in scrutinising labels officials in government departments in London really are not equipped to appraise pesticides in relation to crops, climates and conditions of use overseas. Thirdly, the language of a label needs to be what the target user will understand. The official language of the country, which is the way in which the amendment has chosen to make the requirement, may not be the language of the ultimate user. This again is an issue which cannot easily be adjudicated from here. I think, with respect, that this is one of the many topics that are best addressed through a code of conduct such as that which is being developed by FAO. I hope that the noble Baroness will accept my assurance that our own officials will be bearing in mind very much the intentions behind her amendment in the part that we are playing in the FAO negotiations.
Baroness Nicol: I am grateful for the reply and I note paragraph 9 in the Statement of Intention with regard to the regulations, which to a certain extent covers what the Minister has said. But I still feel we are being a little feeble in the sense that the Government surely have a responsibility to see that the next stage on, even if it is a bulk delivery, is clearly labelled in the language of the country to which it is going. The Government need to discharge their responsibilities at least up to the receiving port, wherever that may be.
I do not go along with the suggestion that it would be beyond our officials to deal with it. Surely we have enough expertise available, or we could make it available, when a matter as important as this is dealt with. I am not satisfied with the answer on that count. This is something I should like to pursue a little further, but not tonight. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Rea: Before my noble friend withdraws the amendment I should like to bring up something which the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, mentioned on several occasions on the previous night when the Committee sat. This concerned his statement that we in this country do not know what is required in the other countries; it is for them to say. I submit that in this country there is a greater concentration of expertise in tropical agriculture than exists anywhere else in the world, with the possible exception of the acre or so that contains the FAO headquarters in Rome.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol moved Amendment No. 90:
Page 14, line 27, at end insert—
("( ) Either of the Ministers shall ensure that packaging standards for pesticides for use within the United Kingdom apply equally to pesticides for export.").
The noble Baroness said: The same arguments apply to this as to the previous amendment; that is that we have a responsibility to see that the packaging of pesticides for use in countries other than the United Kingdom, as well as within our own boundaries, is suitable for the conditions in those countries. This amendment was drawn up before the Statement of Intention, which I see covers this point. I am glad to see there that label conditions could include storage and handling requirements, which would be a step
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forward. I still think that we should see that the actual packaging in which pesticides leave this country is adequate for the job at the port of arrival, and also that this requirement should be written into the Bill itself because it is something we would not wish to see changed by regulations in the future. It is far too important for that. I beg to move.
10. 15 p.m.
Lord Belstead: A rather different argument applies here. The effect of the noble Baroness's amendment is that packaging standards for sending pesticides overseas shall be the same as packaging standards within the United Kingdom. I am advised that the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code of the International Maritime Organisation, which would deal with sea transport, and the International Civil Aviation Organisation's technical instructions which deal with air travel impose, broadly speaking, packaging requirements in accordance with the class of substance—in other words, toxic substances—and the degree of risk which would be more stringent than those which would be expected for the home trade.
The PS clearance of a product includes clearance of its container. The standards expected for clearance here may have no relation to the demands on packaging found in overseas markets. It is rather a different argument and I am advised that one finds that the standards for sending pesticides abroad are probably more stringent than they would be for the home trade which, I think, is not what the noble Baroness is after. Yet again, I would say that this is a topic appropriate for a code of conduct and I understand that the industry is taking this matter very seriously in this respect.
Baroness Nicol: I accept what the Minister has said. The wording of the amendment does not carry the intention, which was that the packaging for more stringent conditions would be equally as good as the standards we apply in this country. I shall have to find other wording. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 91:
Page 14, line 29, leave out ("or fails to comply").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 91 and to speak also to Amendments Nos. 92, 93, 94, 95 and 97.
Amendment No. 92: Page 14, line 31, leave out ("or fail to comply").

Amendment No. 93:

line 32, leave out ("with")

Amendment No. 94:

line 33, leave out ("with")

Amendment No. 95:

line 35, leave out ("with")

Amendment No. 97: Page 15, line 3, at end insert—
("( ) In subsection (6) above "contravenes" includes "fails to comply with" and "contravene" has a corresponding meaning.").
These are drafting amendments.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendments Nos. 92, 93, 94 and 95
[Printed above.]
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord Mackie of Benshie Lord Mackie of Benshie had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 96:
Page 14, line 38, after ("subsection") insert ("(1)(hh) and")
The noble Lord said: I cannot remember what this amendment is consequential on. I had better not move it.
[Amendment No. 96 not moved.]
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 97:
[Printed above.]
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Walston Lord Walston moved Amendment No. 98:
Page 15, line 20, at end insert ("or animals")
The noble Lord said: In order to give Lord Mackie of Benshie's memory a rest so that he may recover it, I should like to speak to this amendment. It is not of enormous significance, but it seems to us that this part of the Bill should apply not only to the various purposes that are mentioned here, but also certainly with regard to regulating growth to animals as well as to plants. Your Lordships well know that there are certain growth-promoting products which are used in intensive animal rearing—and not only in intensive animal rearing. They surely should come under the same regulations as all those we have been discussing. I therefore beg to move that "or animals" be inserted on page 15 at the end of line 20.
Lord John-Mackie: This is rather an important amendment because there is a tremendous lot of implantation of animals and there is also quite a lot of dressing of animals, for instance, for warble fly and so on. I think it is essential that animals should be included, and we support this amendment.
Lord Belstead: I agree with the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie, that this is an important amendment. As I understand it it is one on which there is quite a lot of pressure of public, and indeed of professional, opinion. No doubt that is what has prompted the noble Lord, Lord Walston, to put down this amendment. However, I am worried as to whether this is the right way to proceed on this Bill. What is needed on the whole issue of animal medicines is a comprehensive approach, dealing with all veterinary medicines and addressing itself to the issue in full knowledge of the powers already available under the Medicines Act and with a clear view of the remedies which are needed. I think there are difficulties with these amendments which, in a sense, are saying "Me too" for certain veterinary products, to provisions specifically designed for pesticides. I wonder quite what the effect would be.
May I just go on from that to say that perhaps there is a misconception here about the meaning of Clause 15(8), which may have contributed to this amendment and indeed to the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord John-Mackie. It is true that we refer here to preparations which protect animals against ectoparasites as falling within this definition. In fact, our intention is that any substance which is administered directly to an animal, whether to an animal's interior by means of a syringe or dosing-gun, or to an animal's exterior, like
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sheep dips or pour-on insecticides, should continue to be treated as veterinary medicines.
The reference to ectoparasites in Clause 15(8) is related to pesticides which kill ectoparasites but are not applied to the animal host. An example of what I am trying to explain would be an insecticide which is painted on the structure of a livestock building in order to kill flies. Your Lordships will see that it was our intention that only a very small range of ectoparasiticides should be covered by this definition, and following the convention already established by existing arrangements.
I wonder whether I might ask the noble Lord to look in the record at what I have said. I am not trying to be deliberately obstructive at all, but there is a genuine concern here that we may, with the best of intentions, be getting into territory which is in fact Medicines Act territory. I think that is really all I can say on the subject this evening.
Lord Walston: I am quite sure that the noble Lord is not trying to be obstructive; indeed he is being most helpful. If, as he suggests, these matters are covered already by other legislation dealing with veterinary practices, then I would agree with him that there is no reason for this amendment. But if on further examination it appears that this is not the case, it will always be possible to come back. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Mackie of Benshie Lord Mackie of Benshie had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 99:
Page 15, line 26, at end insert ("or endoparasites").
The noble Lord said: I am very grateful to the Minister for explaining the clause dealing with ectoparasites. It was a very necessary explanation because it could have referred purely to medicines applied to the animal for dealing with lice, as against dealing with worms. That is why we put down the amendment. But, as he has explained, it deals with the treating of wood to keep down pests and so on. We appreciate the explanation, and I will not move the amendment.
[Amendment No. 99 not moved.]
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 99A:
Page 15, line 26, at end insert:—
("( ) In contemplating any regulations to be made under this section for the approval of pesticides, the Ministers shall consult the Advisory Committee on Pesticides.")
The noble Lord said: In the note on Clause 15 in the Notes on Clauses it states that the Government rely for their advice on the Advisory Committee on Pesticides. Unfortunately, when the Bill becomes law, these Notes on Clauses will carry no weight, and so this amendment makes it a duty of the Minister to consult the Advisory Committee on Pesticides. I suspect my noble friend will say that of course the Government will consult and therefore my amendment is unnecessary.
I cannot agree, for two main reasons. First, the purpose of this Bill is to make what was a voluntary code under PSPS a statutory one. Therefore, while the

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scheme was voluntary, it was entirely correct for advice to be taken voluntarily. But now that it is a statutory scheme, the advice should be statutory. Therefore, I say that the Government should abide by the rules they are making for us, and abide by their own rules, and should take advice.
Secondly, my noble friend has told your Lordships more than once that the regulations will be subject to affirmative order in Parliament. He has made quite an issue of that; and so we shall have a chance of looking at these regulations. I say to him that when the Government bring those regulations before your Lordships for approval they will carry more weight if the Minister is known to have consulted a body so responsible and so respected as the Advisory Committee on Pesticides. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: To my mind, it is unthinkable that the Advisory Committee on Pesticides should not be consulted. Also, if we write into the Bill that it shall be consulted, one wonders what the legal sanction would be. With deep respect to my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley, for whom I have great sympathy in this matter. I doubt whether it is right that we should legislate in order to compel consultation in circumstances in which it is bound to take place and in which it cannot be enforceable.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I accept the logic of the first argument but not of the second. The noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, put the case in a way which makes it almost impossible for the Minister to refuse.
Lord Belstead: The Advisory Committee on Pesticides is indeed a body of exceptional importance, which has given expert and independent advice to successive Governments for many years. The present Government have full confidence in that committee. We will most certainly consult the committee in preparing the regulations. My noble friend Lord Stanley is right in saying that I feel, therefore, that his amendment is not wholly necessary.
Nonetheless, my noble friend has made a very persuasive case this evening. I should like to offer to consult my noble friend with a view to accepting his amendment, but it is necessary to have consultation in order to ensure, from a statutory point of view, that we are not doing anything which, from a statutory point of view, would be inadvisable. I say that because of the intervention of my noble friend Lord Renton, which I take seriously. If my noble friend Lord Stanley will accept my offer, it is that, in principle, the Government would like to do what he is suggesting but we need to consult with him to see whether it would be right to do it in the statute. If it is right, we will do it.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I must say that in what he said there was a lovely sentence from my noble friend on the Front Bench. However, I am very grateful for his remarks. I will study them in the cool light of day, and meanwhile I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 15 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Melchett: I have given the noble Lord notice of two matters which I should like to raise briefly. Both have been raised during the course of debates on amendments to Clause 15, but in none of those cases have we been able to spend any time on the specific points I have in mind. First, I will deal with the question of research. In a number of amendments, noble Lords have stressed the importance of research into future alternatives to current pesticides, of research which aims to reduce the level of pesticides and reduce dependence on pesticides, and so on.
The Committee will know that a Select Committee of your Lordships' House examined the question, at least as far as it was affected by the overlap between environmental and agricultural research, earlier this year. In the course of that Select Committee's investigation, in which I participated together with a number of other noble Lords in this Committee, considerable concern was expressed about cuts which were contemplated or which were actually taking place in the Agricultural and Food Research Council's budget and the resulting cuts in agricultural research organisations such as the Reed Research Organisation.
Since that period I have been told that further cuts are taking place at the Plant Breeding Institute. In particular, they are cuts which will affect the development of resistant strains of wheats. I am told that work at the University of East Anglia, which is based on experimental observation of Plant Breeding Institute wheats and computer simulations, suggests that varietal resistance could reduce growing aphid infestations on wheat by 75 per cent. Some very useful work has been done at the Plant Breeding Institute. However, I understand that that work is now being brought to an end due to the redundancy of the scientists involved. In addition, cuts announced last month at the Plant Breeding Institute include work on breeding for disease resistance on potatoes and beans.
10.30 p.m.
It has been pointed out to me that even if we manage to keep current pesticide levels and the effectiveness of pesticides, we are in great danger of resistant diseases of fungus and other organisms developing and that the only sure way in the long run of reducing the level of pesticide use and overcoming many of the problems which we have discussed throughout the amendments on Clause 15 will be to ensure that research continues at a high level. I think that members of the Select Committee who visited, for example, the research station at Rothamsted were impressed by the standard of research being done by agricultural scientists and their commitment, in the forward-looking work that they are doing, to move to a situation where we are much less dependent on pesticides than we are now.
Another matter on the research side which gives me great concern is the future of the soil survey. A number of noble Lords referred to that work when we discussed earlier amendments on soil, but we did not raise with the Government the question of the future of the soil survey. I understand that the noble Lord recently visited the survey and that the Government are considering its future. It seems to me to be vital that if we are to continue to safeguard the long-term health of the agricultural industry, that sort of work should be continued. Whatever we do in the Bill may

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well prove to be rather insignificant if that long-term research is not continued. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to tell us something more positive than we have so far been given by the Government about the future of the soil survey.
I now turn to a separate point—the continued use of DDT. The noble Lord said on Second Reading that DDT and Dieldrin were to be withdrawn from 1st October this year. I take that point. However, my understanding is that DDT was still being advertised; for example, in the Crop Chemicals Guide, which is up-dated annually. Although it was published in August this year, which was just before the announcement of the withdrawal of DDT was made, there had been widespread consultations leading up to its withdrawal. It is undesirable that the product should continue to be listed as available in that guide, with its price and other matters given in full, with no mention of the fact that it has been withdrawn.
The International Pesticide Directory, published in September and October 1984, advertises a DDT product at about the date when DDT, according to the Government, was withdrawn. I hope that it will be possible under the regulations which are drawn up under Clause 15 to stop the advertising of withdrawn products after they have been withdrawn. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could give me advice on that point, too.
Lord Belstead: The noble Lord raises points about research on Clause 15 stand part, which is the clause which has occupied us for the whole of today. The noble Lord asks particularly about the priority we are giving to the development of integrated pest control systems. I am most grateful to the noble Lord for letting me know in advance the questions he intended to ask. Here we are following a programme of research and development. We hope that it will contribute to reducing pesticide use to the minimum level consistent with efficient food production, as recommended by the Seventh Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.
On the other hand, the work of the Plant Breeding Institute, which was started more than 10 years ago and aimed at producing varieties with greater resistance to pests and diseases, has had to be ended so far as the resistance of cereals to aphids is concerned. It had become evident that it would not be possible to obtain complete resistance, and therefore insecticides would still need to be applied. Against that background, the work could not be afforded high priority, and we felt that it was necessary to terminate it.
The noble Lord asked me about the soil survey, which I visited only about a fortnight ago. It is a survey which is the responsibility of the Agricultural and Food Research Council, with the Ministry of Agriculture paying for the work entirely, at just under £2 million last year. We are indeed currently reviewing our future funding levels. In making a decision the Government will be taking into account the views of the AFRC, of the Priorities Board for Research and Development in Agriculture and Food and of other bodies.
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On that I do not think that I can say more, except finally to answer the question which the noble Lord asked me about the advertising of DDT. I would only repeat that the uses of DDT are no longer allowed under the PSPS. If it is being either supplied or used in this country, that underlines the necessity for this Bill.
Clause 15 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 100 not moved.]
Lord Melchett Lord Melchett moved Amendment No. 101:
After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:
("Control of advertising.
.—(1) A person who broadcasts or publishes or otherwise disseminates or causes or permits to be published or broadcast any form of advertisement or supporting statement or information, or who provides any such information to another person, which—

(a)(i) is false in material particular; or

(ii) makes or contains a statement or claim which contravenes or misrepresents or fails to comply with any provision of the regulations or any condition of approval; or

(iii) fails to meet any requirement imposed by virtue of this Act;

(b) is calculated or likely to cause or permit any other person to contravene or fail to comply—

(i) with any provision of the regulations;

(ii) with any condition of approval of a pesticide; or

(iii) with any requirement imposed by virtue of this Act;

(c) advertises a pesticide or provides information regarding a pesticide, which causes or permits any other person to apply or use amounts of pesticide in excess of limits to be specified in the regulations,

shall be guilty of an offence.
(2) Ministers shall require any person causing or permitting any advertisement for a pesticide to be published, broadcast or otherwise disseminated, to ensure that a statement of the pesticides' known and likely effects on health, safety and the environment of human beings, livestock, crops, flora and fauna, is included in that advertisement in accordance with a manner specified in the regulations.")
The noble Lord said: I am afraid that we now come on to rather a long list of new clauses to be moved by me. I shall try to take them as quickly as I possibly can in view of the time of night at which they have been reached.
Amendment No. 101 deals with advertisements. It would enable Ministers to tackle the growing problems of pesticide advertising. It is certainly not aimed at restricting the more responsible advertisements. Paragraphs (a) and (b) would extend the power to make regulations to cover the content of advertisements and the supporting information, such as graphs and tables, with which pesticide firms frequently bombard users and which, I have to say, are partial and sometimes actually misleading.
Paragraph (c) would give the Government a capability to prevent the overuse of pesticides—for example, by applying limits to the number of times a crop may be sprayed—and prevent agricultural chemical companies encouraging overuse by selling products over-enthusiastically and exploiting fears of pest problems, which I am afraid occasionally happens. For example, the use of insurance spraying is now widely regarded as something which should not have happened in the agricultural industry but undoubtedly did and still does on occasions.
Lastly, the amendment would require an advertisement to include a statement of the risks of the pesticide, much as advertisements for cigarettes carry a health warning—including, for example, whether the

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substance is likely to be poisonous or carcinogenic, and so on.
There has been in recent years considerable criticism in the farming press of advertisements for chemicals and suggestions that those are doing nothing to enhance the image of agriculture; indeed, quite the reverse. The sort of names that are applied to pesticides, with the connotations that they carry, have led to considerable criticism.
Most recently the pesticide Missile, which has provisional commercial clearance under the PSPS as a fungicide, has attracted a good deal of criticism. In particular, as the noble Lord mentioned on an earlier amendment, although it has provisional clearance as a fungicide, it is almost 100 per cent. effective as an insecticide. As I understand it, it is more effective as an insecticide than it is as a fungicide. Successive issues of Farmers Weekly in the Spring, in April this year, carried an advertisement for Missile which gave no indication that it had only limited clearance under the PSPS at this stage.
For example, it gave no indication that only 50,000 hectares could be sprayed with Missile, as I understand was the case under the limited clearance which had been granted. It was only in subsequent advertisements for Missile later in the summer, in June, that in very small print it was acknowledged that only limited clearance had been granted. Needless to say, none of the advertisements for Missile made the point that as an insecticide the product was more effective than or as effective as many insecticides available on the market. My understanding is that it was not granted safety clearance for use as an insecticide and subsequently was granted provisional clearance as a fungicide.
That sort of advertising cannot do anything but harm the image of the agricultural industry and lead to severe environmental and other problems. It is for that kind of reason that I hope this new clause will find some favour with the Government. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: As I am sure the noble Lord will be aware, there are various controls on advertising in this country, all of which apply to the advertising of pesticides. There is the British Code of Advertising Practice, which is administered by the Advertising Standards Authority. There are a number of provisions also in common law and in statutes which can determine the formal content of an advertisement, and—possibly of most general application—there is the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 which prohibits, among other things, misleading statements about goods and services made in advertisements.
I repeat that all those controls relate to advertisements on pesticides. I shall certainly look with care at what the noble Lord has said. That is no mere form of words because I do have it in mind that Ministers might make it a condition of approval that a supplier should ensure that any advertising carried a statement of certain restrictions which Ministers had imposed on the product's use. There is a serious point there. But I believe that the powers to set conditions, taken together with the general controls over advertising already in existence, are enough to ensure that advertisements are informative and do not lie or mislead.
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If the noble Lord will forgive my saying so, I think the final part of the amendment, requiring an advertisement to state all the known and likely effects on health, safety and the environment, is totally impractical, unless the advertisement is to go on for ever. I do not feel very attracted to that recommendation.
Lord Melchett: I am grateful to the noble Lord for going at least some way with part of the amendment. In particular, I very strongly support his view that there is something to be said for restrictions on the use of a pesticide, once it is cleared, being made clear in the advertisement. It does seem to me extremely undesirable in this field that advertisements should appear with general injunctions to wipe out and kill everything without any mention being made, of restrictions—particularly when they become statutory—placed on the pesticide's use.
The noble Lord has kindly said he will look at that point. It does not go nearly so far as I should like but it goes some way. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Melchett Lord Melchett moved Amendment No. 102:
After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:
(". Objectives—
In drawing up regulations to ensure the safe and effective use of pesticides under this Act, Ministers shall ensure—

(i) the progressive reduction of pesticide pollution of all kinds;

(ii) the conservation of flora, fauna and semi-natural ecosystems;

(iii) the health and safety of consumers, and people living and working in or visiting town or country;

(iv) the health and safety of livestock and domestic animals;

(v) the health and integrity of the soil ecosystem, its flora and fauna;

(vi) the elimination of practices leading to excess use and over use;

(vii) the elimination of practices leading to increased pest resistance, with or between species of pest;

(viii) the progressive reduction in pesticide use;

(ix) the availability of an adequate number of appropriate pesticides for agricultural and other use;

(x) the furtherance of alternative methods of controlling pests, other than through the use of chemical agents.")

The noble Lord said: I tried to have this amendment discussed with Amendment No. 46. I dare say there are some noble Lords who wish I had succeeded. However, the noble Lord on the Government Front Bench suggested that it should be taken seperately. We discussed Amendment No. 46 some considerable time ago. The noble Lord will remember that he was in a sunnier frame of mind in those days and he kindly said to the noble Lord who moved that amendment that he agreed that some general statement of objectives should be included in the Bill.
10.45 p.m.
I move this amendment only because I think it would be very helpful to those who believe strongly that a general statement of objectives is needed if the noble Lord could indicate whether he finds any of the general objectives I have included in Amendment No. 102 thoroughly unacceptable. That might give us some guidance, first, about how the Government are thinking on a general objectives clause, and, secondly, if any of us want to come back with another

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amendment of Report, in what direction we should aim to try and secure Government satisfaction with our efforts. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: This is a little more than just a matter of style, but our preference is for a brief and pointed statement if we are to have a statement of objectives. We also have to consider whether any benefit derives from the addition of a very long statement of the kind that we have here. It is, of course, one thing for my right honourable friend to aim to achieve the elimination of over-use, pest resistance, and so forth, but quite another for him to ensure such an effect by regulations. That is one absolutely concrete reason why I find difficulty with this amendment.
When the noble Lord asks what attracts the Government to a statement of objectives, the answer is Amendment No. 46, which was in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Walston and Lord Mackie of Benshie, and which we took last week. What particularly attracted us was that the noble Lords had taken the preamble to the pesticides safety precaution scheme. We felt that it may well have been that those who drafted the introduction to that scheme some years ago had the same thoughts in mind as those that I endeavoured to put forward a moment ago; namely, that our preference is for a brief and pointed statement. At any rate, that is how Amendment No. 46 appeared to us. That is what attracted us to it, and that is why, on that occasion, I said that we accepted that amendment in principle although we wanted to discuss the detailed wording with the noble Lords who had sponsored it.
Lord Melchett: I am grateful for that response. I agree with the noble Lord that the words used in the PSPS as the general objectives have considerable attractions. Whether they cover all the points is something that it would be useful to examine between now and Report stage. I hope that the Government may be able to give us some advance warning, as Report stage is some way away, about their intentions and whether they plan to produce an amendment on objectives. But I am still very pleased to hear that the noble Lord is in favour of this. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Melchett Lord Melchett moved Amendment No. 103:
After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:
("Labels.
.—(1) The Ministers may require manufacturers, distributors and retailers of pesticides to ensure that information in written and pictogram form is included on container labels, such that known or suspected health, safety and environmental hazards are specified in a manner to be stated in the regulations.
(2) The Ministers may require manufacturers, distributors and retailers of foods or foodstuffs to ensure that, in cases specified in the regulations, and wherever there is under any Act a legal requirement to declare food additives, colourants, or preservatives on food labels, the label shall include notice of pesticide residues, in a manner to be specified in the regulations.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment deals with a rather different aspect of labelling compared to amendments moved a little time ago by my noble
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friend Lady Nicol when she was trying to persuade the Government, rightly, that pesticides for export should be labelled adequately.
This amendment aims to enable Ministers to require manufacturers to inform the public and users about pesticides which are known or suspected agents of cancer, birth defects, mutations or whatever. There are a number of those, some recently discovered as a result of the freedom of information on pesticide-testing in the United States, I should emphasise again. The amendment suggests that this information should be available in both written and pictogram form, mentioned by my noble friend beside me when we were talking about labels for export. It is important, even in this country, that the labelling should be both written and pictorial. I hope that the noble Lord and his officials will not see the same difficulty in securing that labels on products for use in this country are clear and accurate, written, as they will be, in English.
The second aspect of the amendment is to enable those consumers who wish to purchase pesticide-free or organically grown food to exercise that freedom of choice by introducing a system of labelling of food according to the actual or likely pesticide residue levels. We already have an extensive system of labelling of food that many people find useful. The "E" numbers which are listed on a number of food products illustrate if additives or colourants have been used. But we do not have any procedures in our current legislation which ensure, if pesticide residues are likely to be left in food products, that the consumer is made aware of that.
I am not suggesting that we should try to get rid of all pesticide residues from food. I think there are bound to be some as a result of some operations, but surely it must be right that the consumer should be informed if that is the case and have the freedom of choice to buy food which will not have pesticide residues in it.
I think a number of us would feel that it might help some farmers who are going to find it increasingly difficult to make a living out of, say, milk production or intensive cereal production, to move into a field knowing that consumers will be able to exercise choice in favour of organically grown food or food grown without the use of pesticides. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: I think the noble Lord is absolutely right in the first part of his amendment; and, if he will forgive me for saying so, not right in the second part. I think there is an unarguable need in the first part of his amendment to provide this type of information on product labels, and I can assure the noble Lord that these powers are already available under Clause 15(1)(c).
But when we come to the second part of the noble Lord's amendment, I really do think it would be impractical. After all, pesticide residues are not additives introduced by manufacturers of food in known quantities and analysis of all raw materials would be extremely costly and time consuming. Nor would food label information on pesticide residues be all that useful to consumers. Some foods are already advertised as residue free and legislation exists to deal with any falsity in making such claims. But, for the

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rest, this Bill continues the work of ensuring consumer safety, and in view of what I have said about our surveillance of pesticide residues in food I hope that the Committee will agree that this second half of the amendment would be unnecessary and, I must say, also enormously difficult to impose.
Lord Melchett: I am not sure from the farmers' point of view that it is tremendously desirable that all food which is not marked pesticide free should be assumed by consumers to have pesticide residues in it; and to some extent that seems to me the effect of what the noble Lord has said. I would like to consider that again before the next stage of the Bill. But I am grateful to him for his assurance on the first part of my Amendment No. 103, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Melchett Lord Melchett moved Amendment No. 104:
After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:
(" Company Representatives and Salesmen.
Ministers shall require any person to obtain, before visiting any farm or household or other place or type of place specified in the regulations, for the purposes of selling or advertising or making available for sale any pesticide or of providing supporting information, the consent of the owner or occupier, in a manner to be specified in the regulations.").
The noble Lord said: I hope I do not need to say that this is a probing amendment. I move it with two purposes in mind: first of all, to see whether the noble Lord agrees that the practice of company salesmen calling on farmers has become really quite a problem. It is, of course, fairly frequent now in the countryside to see notices at the entrance to farms saying that no representatives are to call without an appointment. How effective notices of that sort are on representatives, I have no personal experience. But, more seriously, I hope that the Government will be able to give me an assurance that independent advice on the use of pesticides will continue to be available to farmers so that they are not wholly reliant on salesmen and representatives of chemical companies.
I should say straight away that, as a farmer, my own experience of the representatives of the chemical firms with which we deal has been extremely good. But there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that on occasions the representatives of the manufacturerers and retailers of pesticides will not be giving absolutely impartial advice and I suspect that that problem is likely to increase as the cost price squeeze on agriculture increases in coming years, and the sales of pesticides inevitably come under pressure, and salesmen come under equal pressure to maintain their level of sales.
Noble Lords may have seen in recent days reference to the incentives given to agricultural machinery salesmen to achieve sales against the very difficult outlook which they face, given the Government's changes in taxation provisions. I hope the noble Lord will be able to assure us that ADAS will continue to give independent advice without charging large sums of money, which would inevitably affect the smallest and poorest farmers, so that there is source of independent advice on the sensible use of pesticides and their safety and efficacy. I beg to move.
Lord Rea: I should like to say that there is a very close parallel here in the promotion of drugs by pharmaceutical firm representatives to doctors. Many of us appreciate the visits by these ladies and gentlemen, who are always charming and often offer lunches and dinners, with alcohol, to help persuade us maybe to go down their line of thinking. I think the Department of Health and Social Security is to be congratulated on keeping us supplied with a continuous flow of information of an independent kind. This is just what my noble friend Lord Melchett has been trying to persuade MAFF to do for farmers.
Lord John-Mackie: This is a rather interesting amendment, and I feel we want to look at it very carefully. Farmers are not altogether fools and I think that they should judge for themselves whether or not a representative of a spray firm should be allowed about the place. Personally, I find them, on the whole, very helpful. You can always check their advice with ADAS. I should be loath to support my noble friend on this amendment.
Lord Belstead: If I may say so, I think those are wise words of caution. Apart from a rather strange situation where, as a nation of shopkeepers, we are deterring our salesmen, I think, if I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, that the amendment would have a rather odd effect, because whereas it would have the purpose of requiring pesticide salesmen to have to ask permission before coming and selling on the doorstep, it would mean that, in order to ask that permission, the pesticide salesmen must come on to the doorstep, anyway. It does not seem to me, therefore, that one would get very far. The householder who would prefer, as I understand the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, would prefer, not to have a whole series of salesmen coming to see him would still find that a whole series of salesmen would come to see him to ask permission to come to see him, if I am making myself clear. If I am making myself clear, I am not in favour of the amendment.
Lord Melchett: The only area where the noble Lord did not make himself clear was on the likely future of ADAS, and I am afraid that is something which is going to continue to hang over the agricultural industry for a while. Is it, or is it not, going to be another candidate for a British Telecom type of sell-off? That raises in my mind another point which I would put to the noble Lord. Most farms were already on the telephone before British Telecom was in private hands and it was possible for somebody to ring up and make an appointment. The noble Lord may know something about rural phone services which the rest of us do not, and it may be that in future the only way of contacting most people in the countryside will be by going to see them, as those sorts of phone services disappear. But I take the noble Lord's general stricture that this is not a particularly desirable amendment, and I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 105 not moved.]
Lord Melchett Lord Melchett moved Amendment No. 106:
After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:
("Misused pesticides
. No pesticide shall be approved where it appears to either of the Ministers, or to the Nature Conservancy Council, the Health and Safety Executive, the Department of Health and Social Security, or the Department of the Environment, that it is being, is likely to be, or has been persistently, misused, whether wilfully or accidentally.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment deals with a much more serious point; namely, that there should be a power in the Bill to ensure that Ministers can remove from use pesticides which, even if in their approved use do not give rise to environmental dangers, are nevertheless being consistently misused in a way which causes very serious problems.
Over the years there have been a number of chemicals which have been misused—for example, and in particular, to poison protected birds. In the period between 1979 and 1984, two chemicals—alpha-chloralose and mevinphos—were involved respectively in 141 and 123 incidents where they were used illegally in attempts (successful, unfortunately) to poison, on the whole, rare birds of prey. Alpha-choralose in those years, for example, was used in incidents which involved 43 buzzards, five red kites, 10 golden eagles, two peregrines, and so on. Mevinphos involved 34 buzzards, three golden eagles, a sea eagle—and incidentally the sea eagle is the subject of an extremely expensive and long-running reintroduction programme funded by the Government through the Nature Conservancy Council—one red kite, three marsh harriers and one human being who was accidentally poisoned by bait put out to kill a rare bird. There are a number of other chemicals. Strychnine is the other major example. It is available legally only to poison moles, but in fact in those five years it was involved in incidents which killed seven buzzards and 18 dogs.
11 p.m.
So there are examples over the years—and I have figures going back over the previous five-year period and again mevinphos and strychnine feature high on the list—where chemicals have, unfortunately, been persistently misused in ways which are illegal, and where the law has not been adequate to prevent that misuse.
One of the arguments up to this moment, until we had a statutory scheme, against banning particular chemicals of this type, is that people would simply turn to another one and use some alternative chemical. But it seems to me that if we had a statutory scheme and a provision such as that which would be provided by this amendment, it would be possible at last to place some check on these deplorable and consistently occurring illegal poisoning incidents.
Of course it is not just rare birds of prey and people's dogs that might be affected. There are, for example, chemicals which are used persistently by human beings when attempting to kill themselves. If that arose as a serious problem it seems to me all the more important that the Government should have some power to prevent such a chemical being used in future even if, as I say, its legitimate use gave rise to no grounds for complaint. If a chemical is persistently misused to cause widespread environmental damage,
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death to human beings or whatever, there should be a power to enable the Government to control and regulate its use. That is what this amendment would provide. I beg to move.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I must say that if a chemical is being persistently misused something ought to be done about it. But I do not think that it should be dealt with by the single action of "either the Ministers, or" for it appears to me that it would require consultation. I feel that the amendment is too widely drawn because too many people can act without the approval of others.
Lord Belstead: I must say that I would be very reluctant to go along with this amendment in the sense that it refers not only to misuse, but to the potential for misuse. Secondly, I am mystified that the noble Lord in talking about persistent misuse does not mention the existing law—the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Protection of Animals Act 1911, which are both relevant in this particular respect. I do not think that this is necessary.
Lord Melchett: I am very sorry, but I do not think that that is an adequate reply to what seems to me to be a very serious and continuing problem. I entirely accept what the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, has said about the need to change the amendment so that the individual organisations listed here could not act individually, and that there should be some such phrase as "Ministers after consultation".
But the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, relying on existing law, would be satisfactory if the existing law had shown any ability whatever to reduce the incidence of these poisonings. But that is not the case. In fact in recent years there has been increasing concern abut the number of children at risk. Not long ago there was the case where a child picked up some eggs on a hillside and took them home and cooked them. It was only by luck that the family's pet dog ate part of one of the eggs before the child ate the cooked eggs. The dog fell dead immediately. The eggs had been illegally poisoned with alpha-chloralose or strychnine in an attempt to kill a bird of prey on a hill.
There have been some very close shaves by human beings who have very nearly lost their lives. In those circumstances, it does not seem to me to be enough to say that the existing law covers this. In particular, it does not seem enough to say that when the incidence of such poisoning appears to be, if anything, on the increase, and certainly not on the decrease.
I hope that the noble Lord the Minister will address his mind more seriously to this point. It is one of major concern. As far as I can see—and it would be helpful if the Minister could at least confirm this—there are no powers in the Bill as it is currently drafted to allow for the withdrawal of a product on this basis; in other words, where its authorised use causes no problems but it is being persistently misused. If the noble Lord could simply answer that question, it would at least allow me to make a judgment about whether I need to return to this point on Report.
In the meantime, I hope that the noble Lord will look at this matter again, because I think that there is

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a serious problem here. We have not found a way in legilation of tackling it yet; and it seems to me that if a chemical is being used for very minor uses and is misused on a grand scale, causing widespread damage, the Government should have power to get that chemical withdrawn.
Lord Belstead: I have referred to other legislation first and foremost because the noble Lord persistently will not refer to it. The fact of the matter is that there is other legislation. I have mentioned the 1981 Act and the 1911 Act. If the noble Lord would look at those two pieces of legislation, that would help us.
There are also, of course, the restrictions on getting hold of poisons through the poisons legislation, which I should have thought would have had some reference to the very last and tragic example which the noble Lord gave to the Committee. I think that we are in an area where we are talking about enforcement of the law and not necessarily making new law, and not, in particular, making law which is drawn quite as widely as this amendment is, where we are talking about the potential for misuse.
The Bill will, of course, make misuse an offence, and heavy penalties are provided. The efforts of the new enforcement officers authorised by Ministers and the continuing action taken by organisations, such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, would help to make a major contribution in this area. So the Bill is not entirely inert on this subject. But what I do not like is the particular amendment which the noble Lord has produced, for the reasons that I have given.
Lord Melchett: Again, I will look at the question of potential for misuse. I think that the noble Lord may well have a good point there in saying that the amendment is drawn too widely. I am quite happy to refer to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 at great length if the noble Lord wants me to, and I am well aware that there are powers in that Act which make these incidents illegal. I said right from the start that this was the illegal use of particular chemicals. I do not think that the Committee would like a long dissertation on the efficacy of the Wildlife and Countryside Act at this time of night, and, with respect, the noble Lord should not tempt me onto that ground, because I am all too easily tempted.
There are parallels with human medicines. For example, it was the fact that barbiturates were widely abused by people, and in those cases doctors limited their availability. In one particular case in Ipswich doctors stopped prescribing them altogether. That reduced the incidence of suicide and dependence on barbiturates very dramatically. I am suggesting that exactly the same sort of step should be taken here. It was the case that the abuse of some of those drugs was against some other provision or had some other means of enforcement, but they did not work because the drugs were too easily available. I am afraid that that is the case here. Although putting poisoned eggs out on the hillside is illegal and is a criminal offence for which people can be arrested and prosecuted, the fact of the matter is that while the poisonous substances are readily available incidents of poisoning continue to occur.
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Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will look at that point. I shall certainly bear in mind the points that he has made about the drafting of the amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Mackie of Benshie Lord Mackie of Benshie moved Amendment No. 108:
After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:
(" Packaging and labelling.
. It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State for Trade to amend the Packaging and Labelling of Dangerous Substances Regulations 1978 so that—

(a) they apply to substances supplied for use as pesticide, and

(b) they apply to a pesticide supplied for export, and

(c) they require that pesticides that are to be exported from the United Kingdom are labelled in a manner and contain such information as to their hazards and the way in which they are to be applied as to be easily understood by those who will apply them in the country to which they are being exported, and

(d) the supplier of a pesticide for export shall certify its chemical composition.")

The noble Lord said: This amendment follows closely the reasoning of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, on a previous amendment, but it is rather different in that we specifically refer to pesticides supplied for export as pesticides. There are a lot of horrifying figures, some of which were given by the noble Lord behind me, as to the misuse of pesticides supplied overseas. We cannot shelter behind the fact that it is up to any country to make its own regulations and that all we have to do is to comply with them. Where we know so much about the troubles that can occur through the misuse of pesticides, we should let it be known.
If we are going to have regulations in this country about clear labelling, then we must follow the lead of the big firms. For example, Shell are doing a tremendous amount of work on producing good pictograms, and they are at the point of trying to agree with FAO that there should be a universal code. We in this country should give a lead and insist by regulation that all pesticides supplied abroad are labelled, whether by pictogram or in the language of the country, as clearly as they are labelled here.
There are too many examples of enormous harm being done in third world countries, by techniques which are unclearly understood, for us to try to dodge our responsibilities. I should like the Minister to give a rather more positive reply than to say that when a code of conduct is produced we shall comply with it. It is up to our Government here, with our vast experience from colonial and other days, to give a lead in this, and I cannot see what harm it would do for him to say that we shall in fact insist that exports of pesticides for use as pesticides shall be labelled quite clearly with the dangers explained in pictogram form or in the language of the country. I cannot see anything but credit devolving on this country for that. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: Although the Marshalled List does not say it, I think I should now say: Amendment proposed, to insert the new clause as printed on the Marshalled List.
Lord Belstead: The difficulty this amendment places me in is that the regulations which the amendment mentions, namely, the Packaging and Labelling of Dangerous Substances Regulations 1978, have been replaced by the Classification, Packaging and Labelling of Dangerous Substances Regulations 1984. The regulations the amendment mentions do not exist any longer. The new ones implement a series of European Community directives which are intended to apply identical safety rules in each member state. The purpose of this is to eliminate barriers to trade which would arise if each country went its own way. Pesticides are excluded precisely because we and other member states preferred to take our own decisions on labelling requirements so far as pesticides are concerned.
The noble Lord says to the Government that, if this is the case, we ought to give a lead. I know that the noble Lord does not wish me to say it, but I think that this is an area where the FAO code of conduct, which we are deeply involved in so far as negotiations are concerned, should be the vehicle we use in deciding on labelling or sending pesticides overseas. That is the stance of the Government at this time on this particular matter.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I shall speak severely to my advisers about the out-of-dateness of the matter of the regulations. In the spirit of the matter, I do not see what is to prevent the Government from saying that when the code of conduct comes in they will make a regulation applying the code of conduct. However, I am glad to hear that the Minister is keen on a code of conduct, is actively engaged in promoting it within FAO, and I look forward to its coming out. I shall consider his reply and see whether we should do something on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 108A not moved.]
Clause 16 [Fees]:
[Amendment No. 109 not moved.]
11.15 p.m.
Lord John-Mackie Lord John-Mackie moved Amendment No. 110:
110 Page 15, line 37, at end insert—
(" ( ) In order to prevent the expense of duplicating tests the Minister shall give consideration to providing an observer to check on commercial tests and give approval on this basis.")
The noble Lord said: With a view to saving the Government money and with a view to helping the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, which follows this (in which he is worried about the fees) we think that in many cases in which a commercial company is going through tests of a pesticide or, for that matter, any substance, it should be sufficient for a Government observer to be there to observe the tests and give approval on that basis. I know that there are probably difficulties about this and I am putting it forward as a probing amendment in order to see how the Government are to do their tests for approval. I beg to move.
The Earl of Swinton: I am grateful to the noble Lord for proposing this amendment which, on the face of it, would appear to save money. However, I do not think that the amendment is necessary, though the aim undoubtedly is. Clause 15 (5), which deals with the provision of information by manufacturers and others, is already broad enough to permit Ministers to require an applicant for approval to carry out tests under the observation of a Government representative, if Ministers felt that was necessary. The option which the noble Lord proposes as an economy measure is therefore already available to us under the Bill.
Moreover, the code of good laboratory practice, which the DHSS has recently announced is being extended into the pesticides areas, also provides for the regular inspection of research premises to ensure that they come up to scratch. The power provided in Clause 16 (2) is, in effect, a safety measure to ensure that, in the rare event of Ministers deciding that it was necessary for tests to be carried out by the Government, the costs can be recovered. I hope that with that assurance the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord John-Mackie: It is an assurance which says that a lot of things are available under the Bill. The noble Earl is right—many things are available under the Bill, but he is unwilling to write them into it. However, in view of what he said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Monk Bretton Lord Monk Bretton moved Amendment No. 111:
Page 15, line 37, at end insert—
(" ( ) In determining the level of any fees that either of the Ministers may require an applicant for the approval of a pesticide to pay, that Minister shall have regard to the level of any fees that an applicant for the approval of a pesticide may be required to pay in other member states of the European Economic Community.")
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the level of fees is such that agrochemical prices in the United Kingdom should not exceed, but should be broadly comparable with, those in the European Community. My hope is that my noble friend the Minister will see the virtues of this and possibly that he will see the desirability of writing something into the Bill, particularly if the fees will have a substantial impact. There is some concern about it within the farming industry.
If my noble friend the Minister can tell us about what happens with these fees in other EEC countries, it will be most helpful. The European Community's objection to our present voluntary regime was that it was restrictive of trade. As I see it, the European Commission have a desire to see fair competition within the EEC. British farmers also desire fair competition within the EEC and I know well that they wish to see much stress laid upon this.
The sparkling clear water of this concept tends to get muddied from time to time, we know only too well, and this proposal is something towards preventing that happening again. It is a principle that needs pretty constant defence.
There is one other thing that I should like to ask my noble friend the Minister, and that is whether he can give us some sort of estimate of the amount it is now

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costing the Government to approve agrochemicals. This would give a broad indication of how much the total of the fees is likely to be. It would be a helpful guide to know how significant an impact this is likely to have. I will say no more now but await the reactions of the Committee, and particularly of my noble friend. I beg to move.
Lord Melchett: I should like to support this amendment if only because I think it would establish an extremely desirable precedent, although I am not sure that it is one that the two noble Lords who put their names to the amendment really want to establish. As I said on an earlier amendment, it is a fact that in some European countries, and in particular West Germany and Denmark, there are much stricter controls on pesticides and far fewer products available to the farmer than there are in this country; in other words, we already enjoy, as farmers, considerable advantages over some of our European competitors.
Were this principle to be established in the Bill, I suppose it would only be a small step to go one further and say that we should not have available to us in this country pesticides which are banned in other countries of the Common Market; we should not be allowed to put pesticides on the land in circumstances in which farmers in other countries in the Common Market were prohibited from doing so. I do not know whether that is what the noble Lords, Lord Monk Bretton and Lord Stanley of Alderley, had in mind, but it is certainly a principle that I find quite attractive.
Lord Monk Bretton: I certainly did not ask for that. I merely wanted some clarification because I know that the industry in this country would be grateful for it. This is very much a probing amendment.
The Earl of Swinton: I am grateful to my noble friend for explaining this amendment. It is common to member states of the European Community to levy a fee for the registration of pesticides. In fact, with the exception of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, all other member states charge for this service, and it is my understanding that the Irish intend to change their system in due course. The charges raised by our European neighbours vary considerably, and so do the services provided by their pesticides approval schemes. I am sorry, but we do not have details of precise charges, just the general information that they vary widely from country to country as to the services which they are designed to pay for. However, I could endeavour to get the information and write to my noble friend if that would be helpful.
It would therefore be impossible to base our charges on theirs unless our procedures also mirrored theirs exactly. Our intention would be to levy fees on a system broadly similar to that employed under the Medicines Act for the control of human and veterinary medicines. The aim would be to generate sufficient income to meet the Government's costs of adminstration and the new arrangements—no more and no less. I understand that at present the costs of approving agrochemicals are roughly of the order of half a million pounds, but we suspect that when this new, enlarged scheme comes in the costs might be in the region of about one million pounds. Experience
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has shown that fees levied under the Medicines Act do not have an adverse effect on our trade since the fees themselves are insignificant when compared with the costs of developing a product. We will in any event certainly consult all interested organisations before we introduce any charging system.
Lord Monk Bretton: I should like to thank my noble friend on the Front Bench for that most informative reply. I think that in view of what he has said it is pretty unlikely that one would wish to proceed further at a later stage. I will await what he may write, nevertheless. May I thank him for offering to write. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 16 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I should like to ask one very simple question. I want to ask my noble friend: who are "the Ministers" referred to in line 28, I think it is, at the beginning of Clause 16(1), as opposed to "the Ministers" who are referred to on page 20, which mentions the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State? Previously we have been talking about nine Ministers. I wonder whether my noble friend could clarify this point?
The Earl of Swinton: I understand it is either the Minister of Agriculture or the Secretary of State.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: In both cases is that? Both on page 20, where it refers to "the Ministers" as meaning the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretary of State, and in this clause, it means either? Is that correct?
The Earl of Swinton: Yes.
Clause 16 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 112 not moved.]
Clause 17 [Enforcement powers]:
The Earl of Swinton The Earl of Swinton moved Amendment No. 113:
Page 16, line 1, at beginning insert—
("( ) Either of the Ministers may authorise any person, subject to such limitations as may be specified in the instrument authorising him to enforce this part of this Act; and the following provisions of this Act shall be construed, in reference to a person so authorised, as subject to any such limitations.")
The noble Earl said: With permission, I should like to take Amendment No. 113 and to speak to Amendments Nos. 114 and 119 at the same time.
Amendment No. 114: Page 16, line 2, leave out ("authorised by either of the Ministers") and insert ("so authorised").
Amendment No. 119: Page 17, line 7, leave out ("exercise the powers conferred by this section") and insert ("enforce this Part of this Act").
These amendments are very similar to the amendment tabled by my noble friend last Thursday, on Part II. They make clear that Ministers have powers to authorise officers to endorse Part III and will bring this part into line with the rest of the Bill. Amendment No. 113 is the main change, and the other two amendments are consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: In calling Amendment No. 114, I must say that if it is agreed I cannot call No. 115.
The Earl of Swinton The Earl of Swinton moved Amendment No. 114:
[Printed above.]
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 115 not moved.]
Lord Craigton Lord Craigton moved Amendment No. 116:
Page 16, line 4, after ("pesticide") insert ("or delivery device").
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee, with this amendment I should like to discuss also Amendment No. 117.
Amendment No. 117: Page 16, line 13, after ("pesticide") insert ("r delivery device").
This subsection refers to obtaining evidence of an offence, and, in obtaining evidence of an offence, a delivery device and its condition might be an essential part of the evidence. I believe that, as such, it is no wit different from a vehicle used for applying a pesticide under subsection (2)(a). If a vehicle for applying a pesticide requires special mention in order to be produced as evidence, then a delivery device should itself be specially mentioned. I beg to move.
The Earl of Swinton: I really do not think I have anything to add to what my noble friend said on Amendment No. 57, when the noble Lord moved a very similar amendment.
Lord Craigton: I am not at all happy about that reply. I was asked by the Minister to put all my amendments together. My amendments—all with the same words, "or delivery device"—were an attempt to get delivery devices mentioned in the Bill; and here it has nothing to do with previous replies. This is proposed so that a delivery device could be used as evidence in obtaining a prosecution. That has nothing to do with the previous replies I received, and I regret to say that I do not at all like the reply which has just been given. If the Minister has nothing to say, I shall leave it until the next time, and beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 117 not moved.]
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 118:
Page 17, line 5, at end insert—
(" ( ) Where any person has incurred loss or damage in consequence of the service of a notice under subsections (4) or (5) above, but is not subsequently convicted of an offence under section 15(6)(a), the Ministers shall be liable for the loss or damage.")
The noble Lord said: Clause 17 would allow a Minister to control, indeed to halt, agricultural activities if he suspects a breach of regulations. I am certainly not objecting to such a power, but I want to ask what will happen if it turns out that there was no breach of the regulations and that the farmer has, through this Bill, been put to unnecessary expense. This amendment would make it possible for the farmer to claim compensation for such an error. I beg to move.
11.30 p.m.
The Earl of Swinton: This amendment would severely inhibit enforcement officers in their first duty—to prevent and remedy dangers. It would also place undue emphasis on obtaining convictions. Furthermore, notices served under subsection (5) relate to the risk of the commission of an offence, so a conviction might be impossible.
Procedures for serving notices of this kind are already a well-established feature of arrangements under the Health and Safety at Work Act, and work perfectly satisfactorily without provision for compensation. However, in case my noble friend feels that a farmer or contractor has no means of redress against a prohibition or improvement notice which he feels is unreasonable, I would remind him that such a farmer would have the right to invoke the remedy of judicial review—which permits any person aggrieved by a decision of a public authority to have such a decision reviewed by the High Court.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I have listened to my noble friend but am not sure that I am happy with his answer. However, I will consider it and meanwhile beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 119:
[Printed earlier: col. 254.]
Lord Mackie of Benshie: It might be appropriate at this point to question why, if we have to enforce this part of the Act, it would not be suitable at times to appoint representatives from the local authority—who are in fact responsible for public health in many cases and who know the ground. I question why they would not perhaps be more suitable than representatives appointed by the Ministry, in certain cases. Perhaps the noble Lord the Minister would care to refer back to his reply to the previous amendment and tell us why this cannot be so, under this amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 17, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Mackie of Benshie: I shall try again. I want to know from the Minister why it is unsuitable for a representative of the local authority to be appointed. It appears to us that the local authority has a responsibility for public health and knows the ground. In many cases, it might be quite suitable for the local authority to authorise a person to enforce the Act.
Lord Belstead: With respect, it is not impossible and it is not necessarily inappropriate. Where it is appropriate, it is possible for local authority officers to be those who are authorised by Ministers to act under the Act.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: But it is not for the local authority to appoint them—they have to be authorised by the Minister.
Lord Belstead: Exactly.
Clause 17, as amended, agreed to.
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol moved Amendment No. 120:
After Clause 17, insert the following new clause:
(" Advisory body.
.—(1) The Ministers shall establish an advisory body consisting of such members as they may from time to time appoint, provided that these members shall include three nominees of the Secretary of State for the Environment.
(2) Subject to subsection (3) below, it shall be the duty of the advisory body to advise the Ministers on any question which they may refer to it or on which it considers it should offer its advice—

(a) in connection with the administration of this Part; or

(b) otherwise in connection with the control of pesticides.

(3) It shall be the duty of the Ministers to seek the advice of the advisory body before—

(a) giving approval under section 15(1)(b);

(b) providing for the imposition of any conditions under section 15(1)(c); or

(c) specifying under section 15(1)(g) how much pesticide or pesticides residue may be left in crops, food or feeding stuff.

(4) The advisory body may regulate its proceedings in such manner as it may itself determine, provided that it shall report annually to the Ministers on the performance of its duties under this section and cause such a report to be published.
(5) Before appointing a person to be a member of the advisory body the Ministers shall consult the Secretary of State for the Environment and such other persons or bodies as they see fit.
(6) The Ministers may, out of moneys provided by Parliament and to such an extent as may be approved by the Treasury, defray or contribute towards the expenses of the advisory body established under this section.")
The noble Baroness said: I shall be as brief as I can; but this was—and still is—a rather important amendment. We seek to place on a statutory basis the Advisory Committee on Pesticides. We have heard a lot this evening about how valuable that committee is, and we have heard with great pleasure from the Minister that, in future, an annual report will be published. However, we feel that it should be on a statutory basis. The Royal Commission for Environmental Protection recommends this in its Seventh Report, at paragraph 3.106. It states:
"We accordingly recommend that the appropriate Ministers should take general reserve powers which would enable them to make regulations for the control of pesticides"—
that is being done—
"and to appoint such advisory bodies for that purpose as they see fit. We see the latter provision as a form of statutory recognition of a body such as the ACP."
That seems an entirely sensible approach. The present composition of the ACP recognises the need for wide consultation and I have here the present composition of the ACP. I shall not read it in detail at this late hour but perhaps I should mention, for the benefit of those who do not know, the number of bodies who are represented on it. They are: the Agricultural and Food Research Council; the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland; the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland; the Department of Education and Science; the Department of the Environment; the Department of Health and Social Security; the Department for Trade and Industry; the Health and Safety Executive; the Laboratory of the Government Chemist; the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; and Medical
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Research Council; and the Natural Environment Research Council. They all attend meetings of the ACP. Therefore, it seems to me that the credentials of this body cannot be in doubt. Indeed, many noble Lords have said so this evening.
There is perhaps a question mark over whether the chairman and members who are appointed by the DES should continue. It might be more appropriate if the Minister of Agriculture or the Department of the Environment were to appoint them. That is a matter which can be discussed later.
We seek to ensure that advice is sought in those important areas outlined in Amendment No. 120: that the Department of the Environment input will be safeguarded—hence, the first subsection which asks for three members from the Department of the Environment—and that an annual report will be published, which the Minister has this evening told us will be the case. The statement of intention in relation to the regulations, paragraph 4, assumes consultation with the ACP. We wish to see that consultation made mandatory. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: The noble Baroness has explained the amendment but perhaps I may be permitted to say that it is not necessary. I agree that an advisory body giving expert advice to the Government on pesticide matters is essential. As the noble Baroness knows, such a body—the Advisory Committee on Pesticides—already exists and has done so in various guises since 1954. This independent and expert committee consists of members from a range of medical and scientific backgrounds. Like the noble Baroness, I shall not run through them except to say that of the various members the Department of the Environment is most certainly one.
Members are appointed by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, on which the noble Baroness had some doubts, but I believe it is right that my right honourable friend should make those appointments. It is very much in line with the Secretary of State for Education and Science making appointments to the research councils. There is consultation with other Government departments in the making of these appointments, and once again the Department of the Environment is one of the departments consulted.
We shall certainly continue to take advice from the ACP, and paragraph 4 of our statement of intention makes that absolutely clear. The terms of reference of the ACP on pesticides already commit it to keeping under review all risks that may arise from the use of pesticides, veterinary chemicals not directly administered to animals, and any other potentially toxic chemicals specifically referred to the committee, and to make recommendations to my right honourable friend. These duties have been carried out most successfully. I do not think that the record of successive Governments in relation to that suggests that there is any need to go further than we have gone before.
To come back to the beginning, the position of the Department of the Environment so far as the ACP is concerned is most certainly assured. Indeed, if I am able to respond in full to the amendment of my noble

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friend Lord Stanley of Alderley and put the Advisory Committee on Pesticides into legislation, then the Department of the Environment will be a member, as indeed the other members will be, of a statutory body. I would have thought that that would satisfy all of us.
Baroness Nicol: Will the Minister clarify this? Will he then have a statutory obligation to consult the ACP on everything?
Lord Belstead: That is the effect of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Stanley.
Baroness Nicol: In that case, I should like to know why there is resistance to making it a statutory body. What advantage is to be gained for the Minister in making it a statutory body?
Lord Belstead: It has worked extremely well since the 1950s in its present guise. I think that it makes it a more flexible body. If it is made a statutory body, presumably in statute the next step will be to start saying exactly who should be members and who should not. I think that we should do best to continue in the way that we are. So far as putting consultation with it on a statutory basis, we have already discussed that. It is something to which I think I am attracted, although I do not think that it is absolutely necessary. I am committed to discussing that with my noble friend Lord Stanley.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: As my amendment, Amendment No. 99A, has been mentioned, may I ask my noble friend, when he takes it away to consider it—and I am grateful to him for saying that he will do that—whether he will just consider the position of an engineer on this august body? I went through it, and could not see many engineers.
Lord Melchett: We are having a statutory scheme, which is going to be almost wholly reliant on an advisory committee, the ACP, which is going to carry out all the testing, issue the approvals, be the body which gives advice to the Government on the whole range of the way that these statutory procedures will work, and indeed now, possibly, as a result of the noble Lord's response to Amendment No. 99A, actually be referred to in the legislation as a body which there will be a duty on Ministers to consult. Surely it is pretty strange for that body not to be a statutory body.
The noble Lord says that the system has worked perfectly well for a long period of time. Some people feel that the voluntary system has worked well for a long time, but that, with respect, is not what we are legislating about. We are introducing new legislation. The whole system is being put on a statutory basis. I know that the Government have been anxious to pare down these clauses to the absolute minimum that they needed to put in the Bill. But it is quite without precedent, so far as I know, that a scheme which is going to rely on a particular body to carry it out is not mentioned in the statute and not set up by the statute. I would have thought that that really is wrong. It is irrelevant that the system has been on a voluntary basis for years. The whole thing has been on a
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voluntary basis for years, but we are now legislating and it is all going to be on a statutory basis. Surely the advisory committee should be a statutory body now.
Lord Belstead: We will consider it. I cannot honestly see what the advantage would be. I will consider it, but I have not yet discerned an advantage.
Baroness Nicol: This is about the third or fourth occasion on which I am left feeling puzzled by the reaction from the other side to what is apparently a reasonable amendment and appears to put into law what the Government wish to do. However, I accept what the Minister has said. I suggest that public confidence would be greatly enhanced by having the ACP as a statutory body. That might perhaps weigh a little in the noble Lord's deliberations. But at this point, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.45 p.m.
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol moved Amendment No. 121.
After Clause 17, insert the following new clause:
("Annual report.
. The Ministers shall after the end of every year prepare a report detailing the applications to and proceedings of Ministers under the foregoing provision of Part III during that year, and shall lay a copy of it before each House of Parliament and shall cause it to be published.")
The noble Baroness said: The workings of the ACP have been subject to the strictest confidentiality. Reports have been published, but very infrequently. They are now going to be published, we hope, with more regularity. We welcome the Government's statement of intent, which was repeated in Lord Belstead's comments on Second Reading at column 736. However, such a report must be the statutory duty of the ACP. As I understand it, this is the matter the Government are taking away in order to look at it. I therefore formally move this amendment in order to hear their reassurance on that. I beg to move.
Lord Belstead: I give the reassurance that the first report of the ACP covering 1984 will be published next year, and copies will be available in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament. Information on all applications considered by the advisory committee and all reviews carried out by it during the year will be included in the report.
Baroness Nicol: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord John-Mackie Lord John-Mackie moved Amendment No. 122:
After Clause 17, insert the following new clause:
("Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
. Nothing in this Part shall prejudice the provision of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 or of any regulations or approved codes of practice made under that Act.")
The noble Lord said: This is really a probing amendment. It is not clear to what extent there will be overlap between the provisions of the Bill, or, more particularly, the regulations, the Health and Safety at Work Act, or the Agriculture (Poisonous Substances) Act 1952 which it incorporates and which provides for

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protection of employees against the risk of poisoning, etc. I should be glad to know whether there is an overlap and how it affects the Health and Safety at Work Act.
Lord Belstead: It is certainly not our intention to do anything under Part III which would prejudice the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act. As safeguards to that assurance, the Committee should note that the Health and Safety Executive is jointly responsible, with the nine other departments, for the operation of the PSPS and will continue to fulfil that role in the new arrangements.
Secondly, the Bill already requires, in Clause 15(4), that Ministers should consult the Health and Safety Commission on any regulations which are likely to affect the health or safety of persons at work.
So I think that the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act are completely preserved so far as this Bill is concerned. The workings of that Act are in no way jeopardised by the provisions of this Bill as drafted.
Lord John-Mackie: I thank the Minister for that reply and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 2 [Officers and their powers]:
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 123:
Page 26, line 22, leave out ("exercise the powers conferred by section 11 or 17 above") and insert ("enforce Part II or III of this Act").
The noble Lord said: This is a drafting amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 123A:
Page 26, line 35, leave out ("the cargo of") and insert ("any substances or articles on board").
The noble Lord said: If I may move Amendment No. 123A and at the same time speak to Amendments Nos. 124, 125 and 126, these are all drafting amendments.
Amendment No. 124: Page 28, line 42, leave out ("and Northern Ireland").
Amendment No. 125: Page 29, line 2, leave out ("the issue of warrants to") and insert ("warrants for").
Amendment No. 126: Page 29, line 8, leave out ("to") and insert ("in").
I beg to move the amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendments Nos. 124 to 126:
[Printed above.]
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendment No. 127 not moved.]
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 18 [Crown land]:
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: In proposing Amendment No. 127A I must point out that the first word in subsection (4) shoud be "Subsection" and not "Subject".
The Earl of Swinton The Earl of Swinton moved Amendment No. 127A:
Leave out Clause 18 and insert:—
("Application to Crown etc.
.—(1) An emergency order operates in relation to land in the designated area in which there is a Crown interest or a Duchy interest.
(2) Subject to subsection (3) below, a person to whom this subsection applies may perform any functions under this Act in relation to land in which there is such an interest.
(3) Such a person shall not perform any functions—

(a) in relation to land in which there is no interest other than a Crown interest or a Duchy interest; or

(b) in relation to land which is exclusively in Crown occupation.

(4) Subsection (2) above applies—

(a) to an investigating officer;

(b) to an enforcement officer; and

(c) to a person authorised to enforce Part II or III of this Act.

(5) In this section—
"Crown interest" means any interest belonging to her Majesty in right of the Crown or belonging to a government department or held in trust for Her Majesty for the purposes of a government department;
"Crown occupation" means occupation by Her Majesty in right of the Crown or occupation by a government department; and
"Duchy interest" means an interest belonging to Her Majesty in right of the Duchy of Lancaster, or belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall.")
The noble Earl said: This is a technical amendment dealing with Crown land. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
New Clause 18 agreed to.
Clause 19 [Offences—penalties etc.]:
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 128:
Page 18, line 17, at end insert—
("( ) Proceedings in respect of any offence under section 15 of this Act shall not be instituted except by either of the Ministers or by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.")
The noble Lord said: I believe this to be an important amendment. It has many precedents and ensures that unnecessary and unjustified prosecutions and indeed harassment do not take place. We are today, in all walks of life, subject to pressures and harassment from extremists. This amendment would prevent the unbalanced extremist from rushing about, entering farms and instituting or threatening to institute legal proceedings under the Bill.
It is quite apparent to me that throughout this Committee stage there has been a conspicuous lack of support for extremists be they farmer or eco-nut as we call them these days. This amendment is in line with that moderate, middle-of-the-road philosophy. Of course, any citizen can always protect himself or herself from consequential damage through the normal process of the law and can report the farmer to the appropriate authority if he or she suspects that an offence has been committed under the Bill. It will then, as my amendment reads, be up to that authority to decide whether to submit that alleged offence to the Director of Public Prosecutions. I beg to move.
Lord Melchett: I strongly oppose the amendment. Even at this time of night, for the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, to try and get away with a suggestion that it is

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only extremists who go to law and no one else, seems a little far fetched. Even worse is the suggestion that the taking away of the right of individuals to go to the courts is a moderate amendment. It is nothing of the sort. It is, if I may say so, a rather extremist amendment. It attempts to remove from private individuals their right to go to the courts and to have recourse to law. That is not something that should be lightly set aside. It is certainly not something that most moderates, I hope, would support. Indeed, I hope that the moderate line would be to leave the Bill as it is.
No one has anything to fear from the courts, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, would agree, unless they have broken the law. If they have broken the law, Parliament should not prevent them being taken to court, prosecuted and found guilty if that is the case. There are a number of provisions in the Wildlife and Countryside Act—the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, referred me to it earlier—that enable private prosecutions to be taken. They have proved extremely valuable and important powers. Most of the prosecutions taken for the particular misuse of poisons to which I referred earlier—the illegal poisoning of birds of prey—have been private prosecutions. I am delighted to say that the police are taking rather more than they used to take. Nevertheless, most of the prosecutions in those fields are taken either by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds or by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It would be very undesirable if that right of private prosecution was lightly cast aside by moderates or anyone else.
Lord Belstead: It is normal under the law in England and Wales for any person to be free to prosecute any crime. Obviously, the Crown takes the large majority of prosecutions, but the right of anyone to take prosecutions is normal. I have to say that despite what has been said to the contrary by my noble friend Lord Stanley, I do not believe that it is necessary to place a restriction on the right in this area.
I recognise what my noble friend says about his worries, but I really do not believe that any responsible and capable user of pesticides (our safety record in this country shows such people are the majority) have anything to fear from this legislation—certainly not enough to overturn the normal right of the citizen to bring a prosecution if he or she feels that that is necessary.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I do not agree with my noble friend and I certainly do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Melchett. I am not saying that a person cannot bring a prosecution. What that person does is that he or she draws the attention of the Minister to an offence. It is then up to the Minister to decide whether an offence has been committed. My noble friend says that I am worrying unnecessarily about this. I can tell the Committee that I have had experience of people wandering into my farm saying, "Do not spray." This is the sort of person I am trying to prevent causing more trouble in this manner. I am just saying that it should be up to the Minister. There is precedent for this and my noble friend must know it. It is under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965. It is also under the
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Highways Act—blocking of rights of way. I am not happy with this and I may well come back to it if I can get more support from the House. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 19 agreed to.
Clause 20 [General defence of due diligence]:
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 129:
Page 18, line 21, leave out ("this Act") and insert ("section 1(5)(a), 2(4)(a) or 9(1)(a) above")
The noble Lord said: This amendment would amend a drafting defect in Clause 21. The due diligence defence which is provided under Clause 20 is intended to apply only to offences which have no other mental element; it is not intended for offences which already contain their own mental element, such as those set out in Clause 15(6). Indeed, the defence is inconsistent with offences which contain their own mental element and could not be applied to them. This amendment would therefore clarify the extent of the defence by specifying the offences to which it would apply. I beg to move.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I think this is the question where my noble friend is cutting out the words "due diligence", is it not? I am correct, am I not?
Lord Belstead: Yes. My noble friend is correct. For the reasons which I gave in introducing the amendment, we are cutting out the due diligence offence because these particular offences have their own mental element as a defence.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: I am sorry to delay the Committee. It is rather a legal question. I am advised that my noble friend is incorrect again. I am sorry to disagree with him over the last two amendments. I am advised that there is a great deal of difference between "due diligence" and "reasonable excuse". "Reasonable excuse" can be made when perhaps an accident occurs and the person cannot go on spraying, or he falls over and he spills the spray tank. However, "due diligence" is another matter, I am told—I am afraid I am speaking from hearsay; I am not a lawyer—and this would be a case when the person has taken all care to fulfil the instructions on the label, etc. Therefore, I find it rather difficult to understand why my noble friend has taken out the words "due diligence".
Lord Belstead: I am sorry. I owe my noble friend a little more of an explanation. The reason is that we only want the defence of due diligence to apply to those offences where there is strict liability, and by moving this amendment I would achieve that objective.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 130:
Page 18, leave out lines 24 and 25 and insert ("the commission of the offence.")
Amendment No. 131: Page 18, line 27, leave out first ("the") and insert ("an")
Amendment No. 132: Page 18, line 27, leave out ("act or omission") and insert ("commission of the offence")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 130. As this amendment and Nos. 131 and 132 are all drafting, perhaps I may deal with them as well. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment No. 130 agreed to.
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendments Nos. 131 and 132:
[Printed above.]
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 20, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 21 agreed to.
Clause 22 [Interpretation]:
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 133:
Page 19, line 1, at end insert—
(" "agricultural" is to be construed in accordance with section 109(3) of the Agriculture Act 1947, section 86(3) of the Agriculture (Scotland) Act 1948 or section 43(1) of the Agriculture Act (Northern Ireland) 1949;")
On Question, amendment agreed to.
12 midnight
[Amendments Nos. 134, 135 and 136 not moved.]
Clause 22, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 23 [Northern Ireland]:
Lord Belstead Lord Belstead moved Amendment No. 137:
Page 22, line 25, leave out paragraph (f).
The noble Lord said: If I may, I should like to deal also with Amendments Nos. 138, 139, 140 and 141.
Amendment No. 138: Page 22, line 30, after first ("to") insert ("Northern Ireland or").
Amendment No. 139: Page 22, line 33, after ("or") insert ("one or the other of").
Amendment No. 140: Page 23, line 1, leave out subsection (4).
Amendment No. 141: Page 23, line 13, leave out ("this Act") and insert ("section 18 above").
These are all drafting amendments. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: With the leave of the Committee, I shall now put Amendments Nos. 138, 139, 140 and 141 en bloc.
[Printed above.]
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 23, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses and schedules agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the amendments.
House adjourned at two minutes past midnight.