§ Sir Fergus MontgomeryTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what recommendations he has received from the Veterinary Products Committee regarding the licensing of Aquagard; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. MacleanA product licence for Aquagard sea lice treatment for use in treating farmed salmon was first issued in June 1989, for a period of one year, following advice from the Veterinary Products Committee—VPC. The committee has recently met to review Aquagard in the light of a programme of further research, and has recommended that a two-year extension of the licence be granted subject to some modifications of the label warning and a further environmental impact report from the manufacturers in one year. I have decided to accept this recommendation, and a licence will therefore be issued subject to the conditions set by the VPC being met. Efforts will continue to be made to develop an alternative strategy to control sea lice in farmed salmon within this two year period.
It is however imperative that an alternative strategy to control sea lice in farmed salmon be developed as soon as possible. The Government are determined to meet their commitment at the North sea conference to reduce by 50 per cent. the inputs of certain substances to the marine environment by 1995, including dichlorvos, the active ingredient of Aquagard. Any application for extension to the licence for Aquagard beyond 1992 will need to be considered in the light of this commitment, and the presumption will therefore be to replace it with satisfactory alternative methods of treatment.
The VPC's original recommendation that the licence should be limited to one year's duration took account of the full range of Medicines Act considerations on product safety, quality and efficacy. The further review recently carried out did not therefore address matters on which the VPC was already satisfied, but took into account the following:
- (a) target species safety; and
- (b) environmental impact
All the aquatic toxicology studies considered by the VPC suggested that lobster larvae were the candidate 649W species to utilise in calculating a provisional annual average environmental quality standard—EQS—and also to derive a 24-hour EQS. These studies will also be used by the Department of the Environment in confirming EQSs for use by the appropriate water and river authorities. As all sea lochs differ in their tidal flushing characteristics, clearly this factor will also need to be taken into account in the calculation.