HL Deb 07 July 1994 vol 556 cc1448-54

7.43 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Howe) rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 14th June be approved [22nd Report from the Joint Committee].

The noble Earl said:My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels in Crops, Food and Feeding Stuffs) Regulations 1994, which were laid before the House on 14th June be approved. The regulations are made in exercise of the powers in both Sections 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 and Section 16(2) of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985. They implement both national proposals outlined in the Third Consultative Document on Pesticide Residues which was issued in 1991 and three European Community Directives: Directive 90/642/EEC, which establishes a framework by listing certain products of plant origin, such as hops, oilseeds and tea, and fruit and vegetables for which maximum residue levels (MRLs) will be set separately in stages; Directive 93/58/EEC, which establishes the first stage of MRLs for the products of plant origin, including fruit and vegetables; and Directive 93/57/EEC which sets additional MRLs for cereals and products of animal origin. The new regulations will supersede the existing Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels in Food) Regulations 1988. All of the new MRLs have been subject to extensive consultation with interested parties.

The regulations are designed to achieve three objectives. First, MRLs are designed to reflect the maximum residue which will occur if pesticides are used correctly, in accordance with good agricultural practice, and thus provide a check that farmers and growers are using pesticides in accordance with their instructions for uses. Secondly, they are intended to provide consumers with the reassurance that levels of pesticide residues in food are safe and are the lowest levels compatible with efficient food production. Thirdly, the MRLs set by the European Community will harmonise MRLs and thus facilitate intra-Community trade.

I would like to expand on these three objectives a little further. Good agricultural practice in the use of a pesticide is essentially the observance of the conditions of use set out on the label of the pesticide product. This reflects the terms on which use of the pesticide has been approved by Ministers in six government departments, such as the crop on which the pesticide may be used, the maximum number of applications and the interval between the last treatment and harvest. Good agricultural practice is intended to ensure that any residues which are left are not only safe, but are as low as possible. Statutory controls governing the use of pesticides were introduced in 1986 and the controls introduced on MRLs in food in 1988 provided an additional control to ensure that pesticides are neither misused nor over-used. The new regulations include additional pesticides and new food commodities. Crops for use as animal feeding stuffs are covered for the first time. If pesticide users follow the instructions on the labels of pesticide products, they should have no difficulty in complying with the maximum limits set out in the regulations. Residues should not be found above the MRL if the pesticide has been used correctly.

The regulations apply equally to home-produced and imported food. Food which contains residues which exceed MRLs can be seized or disposed of. Imports from outside the Community can be returned to the country of origin. Government surveillance will continue to be carried out by the Working Party on Pesticide Residues to check that samples of food comply with MRLs.

The safety of food for consumers is always of paramount importance. The regulations set MRLs which are in all cases acceptable to the experts who help us to run our regulatory system for pesticides, both within the Department of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and on the independent Advisory Committee on Pesticides. But I must emphasise that the limits are not themselves safety standards. In many cases, even if the crop in question contained residues at the level of the MRL, intakes of pesticides would still be well below the safety levels. This is because of the high safety margins which our approval system requires in all cases. If a chemical is found to be effective at a low application rate, we would not approve a higher rate even if there were no concern in safety terms. This reflects the Government's policy that pesticide usage should be the minimum consistent with efficient food production.

I also mentioned the part that the regulations will play in harmonising Community arrangements for pesticides. Many member states, including the United Kingdom, have existing national MRLs for a range of pesticides. The Community directives, implemented by the regulations, begin the process of harmonising these limits and hence promoting the completion of a single market for properly treated produce.

The regulations will extend considerably the scope of the statutory MRLs which were introduced in 1988 both in terms of the pesticides and food commodities covered. The number of pesticides covered will increase from 61 to 87 and the number of foods will increase from 40 to over 150. The foods covered include cereals, meat, milk, eggs, hops, tea, oilseeds and a very wide range of fruit and vegetables. It will be necessary to amend the regulations on a regular basis in the future in order to take account of the continuing harmonisation of MRLs within the Community.

Turning now briefly to the detail of the regulations, I should first of all explain that although the title of the regulations implies that they cover "crops, food and feeding stuffs", they do not cover feeding stuffs as such. There are separate controls covering pesticides and other contaminants in animal feeding stuffs—the Feeding Stuffs Regulations 1991. However these regulations do apply to crops and food when intended for either human or animal consumption. The intention is to prevent food which contains residues in excess of an MRL from being diverted to animal feed.

Within the body of the regulations themselves a slightly different approach has been taken which distinguishes those MRLs set on a national basis and those which have been fixed by the Community. The national limits are shown in Part 1 of Schedule 2 and the Community limits are shown in Part 2 of Schedule 2. National limits are being implemented by means of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985. Part III of which concerns pesticides, and the Community limits are being implemented by means of the European Communities Act 1972. The EC directives which fix MRLs require that food shall not be put into circulation with a residue greater than the maximum permitted level, while the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 requires that no level of residue may be left greater than the maximum permitted level.

Although these regulations are being made under two pieces of primary legislation, as I have just outlined, the penalties for exceeding either a national or Community MRL will be similar. There will be fines of up to £5,003 on summary conviction and unlimited fines on indictment.

Responsibility for enforcing the regulations will rest with agriculture Ministers. One of the purposes of the surveillance carried out by the Government's Working Party on Pesticide Residues has been to check compliance with the statutory MRLs first introduced in 1988. The surveillance is targeted at areas where residues are most likely to be found. The full results of the surveillance programme are published each year and results in recent years have shown that two-thirds of food does not contain detectable residues. Overall, residues above MRLs are found in 1 per cent. of samples analysed. Where it is clear that breaches of the regulations are occurring in a number of cases in a particular food commodity, a campaign to enforce the regulations can be mounted. That involves Ministers designating as enforcement officers individuals, such as departmental staff, local authority or port health authority officers. Their job would be to collect samples for analysis at a government laboratory. The intention is to target a particular food commodity and to obtain samples which could then be traced to the individual grower if the results showed that an MRL had been exceeded. Growers could then be prosecuted for the breach of a statutory MRL and the food could be seized and destroyed. Where action is taken with imported food, the consignment can be held while residue analysis is carried out and if an MRL is found to have been exceeded, the consignment can be refused entry.

Not all pesticides leave detectable residues and many that are present just after application do not persist. Since 1988 we have had a framework of controls on pesticide residues in food within which farmers know that they can operate freely, although in accordance with good agricultural practice traders can buy and sell and the consumer can purchase food in the knowledge that produce meets stringent controls on residues. These regulations represent a further step to harmonise controls on pesticide residues within the Community and to achieve a single European market. I commend the instrument to your Lordships.

Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 24th May be approved [22nd Report from the Joint Committee].—(Earl Howe.)

Viscount Addison

My Lords, I wish to draw your Lordships' attention to what I feel may be a major omission in the draft agriculture pesticides regulations. I hear what my noble friend the Minister said in explaining the regulations, but the omission relates to the maximum levels of pesticide residues which may be left in crops, a very broad spectrum of foods, and feeding stuffs for human consumption. However, in much of Schedule 2, Part I and Part II, many foods and products of foods are left completely blank; in other words, no maximum residue level has been set. Those include some tree nuts such as almonds and Brazil nuts; miscellaneous fruits such as dates and figs; brassicas such as kale and broccoli; leafy vegetables such as spinach, celery and watercress; and oil seeds such as linseed, peanuts, sunflower seeds, soya beans, mustard seed, and others. Even products of animal origin such as meat, milk and dairy products have some omissions.

Perhaps I may give the example of bananas. They come under miscellaneous fruit. One might be staggered to know that in a kilogram of bananas 0.05 milligrams of aldrin and dieldrin, 20 milligrams of inorganic bromide, and 0.05 milligrams of paraquat might be found. I am assured that those levels are considered safe for human consumption. If higher levels of those and certain other pesticide chemicals are found in that kilogram of bananas then, as my noble friend the Minister said, an offence has been committed and penalties for contravention are administered. My point is that many products have no upper limit whatsoever set down. So does that mean that the sky is the limit?

My noble friend the Minister told us that over a further period of time more limits will be introduced, but I have to say that there are many gaps remaining from the 1988 pesticides regulations. Will my noble friend push for a threshold level to be put on all products that remain without a set maximum limit? That would prevent the risk of over-the-limit food imports or homegrown produce reaching the marketplace, as at the moment the regulation neither protects the public fully nor provides for a definite penalty against the offender. I am concerned that it appears to be more of a guide to what one can get away with than a regulation.

Lord Carter

My Lords, the House will be grateful to the Minister for, as always, giving such a lucid explanation of these complicated regulations. I was struck by the interesting observations of the noble Viscount, Lord Addison. I am not sure whether the Minister is aware that he is outnumbered two to one this evening by former students of Writtle Agricultural College.

As I understand it, the regulations are a general updating, tightening up and bringing into line with European directives. As the Minister said, they combine good agricultural practice and a reassurance for consumers. For those reasons, of course, we have no objection from these Benches. I believe that the point raised by the noble Viscount was responded to by the ministry to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, but I must say that I found the response and the reasons for the gaps in Schedule 2 hard to understand, and so I shall be interested to hear the Minister's response to that point.

If I am correct in assuming that the regulations increase consumer safety, where the figures are quoted, then obviously they are to be welcomed. I have only three brief observations. The first relates not to the regulations but to the interesting comment made by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments about the signature on the regulations of a Minister from the Department of Health. The point made by the joint committee was reasonable—that just because a department approves a policy that does not constitute a reason for signing a regulation. It is the first time I have seen that criticism of a regulation. I did not find the department's response particularly convincing.

My second observation is a general one. It concerns the multiplicity of crop chemicals which are now available. The days are long gone when a farmer could obtain a decent two tonnes of wheat to the acre with some fertilisers in the seed bed, one squirt of MCPA in the spring, and a top dressing of nitrogen. Then one shut the gate and waited to harvest. That extra tonne to the acre for which we all look and expect now requires a pretty good range of chemicals to help achieve it.

The third point is one of interest. I was struck by the fact that, in the case of milk, on page 55 of the regulations the footnote states that the levels for the MRL are for fresh, raw cow's milk and fresh, whole cream cow's milk expressed on the whole milk. I wonder what would be the effect on skimmed and semi- skimmed milk which now forms a high proportion of total milk sales. I am not a chemist, but I imagine that the amount of residue may differ, as it were, in the cream and the rest of the milk. I wonder how the calculations will be done for skimmed and semi-skimmed milk. Is it a straightforward arithmetical calculation from the tables or is some other factor involved?

With those general observations, I repeat that we on these Benches welcome the regulations. I thank the Minister for explaining them so clearly.

8 p.m.

Earl Howe

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Addison and to the noble Lord, Lord Carter. My noble friend was concerned that MRLs have not been set for all the pesticide/product combinations in Schedule 2. It is indeed the case that there are still some pesticide/product combinations for which MRLs have not yet been set. In such cases there will be a "blank" in both Part 1 and Part 2 of Schedule 2. However, the European Commission's objective is to set an MRL for all the pesticide/product combinations in Schedule 2. Many of the blanks that appear at present arise because the positions have been left "open" to allow experimental data to be generated by agrochemical companies or growers.

Maximum residue levels are set on the basis of crop trials in order to establish the residue levels that occur under approved conditions of use. To obtain representative data, a series of trials conducted under a variety of conditions is required. Companies have been allowed up to four years to generate this data.

As soon as the data is available MRLs will be set. In the meantime, we are able to rely on other powers, including powers in the Food Safety Act, if any health concern over excess residues arises.

My noble friend asked whether there was a case for inserting a threshold MRL in those open positions. As I explained, MRLs can be determined only on the basis of data from properly conducted crop trials. Without such data, a reliable MRL cannot be set. The blanks mean that no level has been set but that does not mean that action would never need to be taken. The chances of excessive residues occurring in any one instance are small, but if they do occur we can use powers to cope with that situation.

The noble Lord, Lord Carter, raised several points and I wish to cover two of them. I shall deal, first, with the comment by the joint committee as regards the signatures. I am aware of the anxiety expressed by the joint committee. In drafting the statutory instrument we were guided largely by precedent. The 1988 regulations, which are replaced by the regulations under discussion, were signed by the Secretary of State for Health and by territorial Secretaries of State. This has also been the practice with other legislation on pesticides. It was considered desirable that the Health Secretary should sign the regulations because they relate to issues of consumer safety and consumer protection, which fall within her responsibility. However, while our current view is that we should maintain that practice, we will look again at the issue in relation to future legislation. Obviously, it is a matter about which the joint committee is anxious.

The noble Lord, Lord Carter, also asked about the MRLs for milk, in particular skimmed or low fat milk. MRLs for milk are set on the basis of the raw milk product but they are then adjusted as appropriate depending on the fat content of the milk, which is referred to in the footnote to Schedule 2. I do not have in front of me the precise table of calculations which would enable me to give a more precise answer, but I hope that the noble Lord will take it on trust that these matters are worked out with all due care.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until ten minutes past eight o'clock.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

[The Sitting was suspended from 8.4 to 8.10 p.m.]