§ Mr. BakerTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what assessment he has made of the evidence assembled by other EU member states before their decisions to ban Lindane; [104528]
(2) if he will ban the (a) sale and (b) use of Lindane; [104651]
(3) what assessment he has made of the extent of bans on the use of Lindane in other countries; [104527]
(4) what steps his Department takes to monitor the effects of Lindane. [104609]
§ Ms Quin[holding answer 13 January 2000]The Government act as necessary on pesticides in order to safeguard health. In the case of lindane, using a precautionary assessment, independent scientific advice is that currently approved uses (agricultural and non-agricultural) of lindane do not pose any unacceptable risk to people or the environment. In addition all UK pesticide approval holders are legally obliged to report any scientific information relating to the safety of their products and the Government's Pesticide Incident Appraisal Panel considers all investigated incidents where the use of agricultural pesticides may have affected a person's health.
482WBoth the EU and UK have programmes to review pesticides and lindane is under consideration in both programmes. Last June the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, an independent body, considered evidence from both the UK and EU reviews of lindane. In the light of the Committee's recommendations the Government moved swiftly to ban those uses of lindane that gave rise to unacceptable levels of exposure with the remaining uses being allowed to continue subject to further controls to reduce exposure and, where appropriate, companies being required to submit further data including environmental data for non-agricultural uses.
We do not routinely monitor and investigate the decisions taken by the regulatory authorities of other countries primarily because our decisions are based on the evidence and advice presented to UK Ministers about uses in the UK. Technical specifications, product formulations and uses are liable to considerable variation across the world and particular decisions elsewhere may have no direct relevance in the UK. Consequently, in the case of lindane, we have not attempted to establish its historic use overseas or the reasons why other countries have introduced partial or complete bans. The EU has yet to reach conclusions on the future European status of lindane but we have reported the action we have taken to the Commission and encouraged them to reach a European view as soon as possible.