§ Mr. Farrasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the total number of notifications received by his Department and by the Secretary of State for Scotland, under the Notification Scheme for Chemicals used in Agriculture, in each year since the scheme's commencement, and the total number of instances each year when the notified product failed to gain clearance by the Government's Advisory Committee on Poisonous Substances.
Mr. VanePrecise records are not available for the early days of the Notification Scheme but in each of the four years 1957 to 1960 about 50 notifications were received under the Notification of Pesticides Scheme, and in 1961 there were 80 notifications. In no case has the Advisory Committee on Poisonous Substances found it necessary to refuse clearance altogether to a new product, but clearance is only given subject to acceptance by the notifier of such recommendations for safe use as the Committee may specify, including where appropriate restrictions as to the crops to which the product is to be applied. In some cases the notifiers have not proceeded with their marketing plans, possibly because they may have felt that acceptance of the stringent precautionary measures recommended by the Advisory Committee would have made the product insufficiently attractive commercially.
§ Mr. Farrasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what 17W new toxic chemicals for use in agriculture have been put on the market since the inception of the voluntary Notification Scheme, without prior clearance by the Government's Advisory Committee on Poisonous Substances; and if he will give details of such instances.