§ Mr. FlightTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the108W comparative costs of achieving label approval and registration of pesticides in (a) the United Kingdom and (b) other EU countries; and what assessment he has made of the factors underlying the differences. [61181]
§ Mr. RookerAll European Union countries regulate the safety and efficacy of agricultural pesticides on the basis of scientific data. For the most part, these data are provided by the companies concerned. The cost of generating data will therefore differ between countries according to the standards of safety and efficacy applied in each. EU countries also differ in their policy on charging companies for the costs of the work done by the regulatory authorities. Of the two sources of costs to industry, the cost of generating the data will normally be much greater than the fee.
The UK is thorough in its evaluation and recovers its full costs, mostly by means of fees which vary from £10 to £65,700 depending upon the type of application. Where regimes are less rigorous or do not recover the full costs of evaluation, the total cost to companies may be lower.
Under the framework of Council Directive 91/414, regulatory standards are being harmonised at a high level very similar to that presently applying in the UK. At present, Directive 91/414 does not require countries to recover their costs but the UK has pressed for such a requirement to be introduced.