§ Mr. CameronTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) if she will make a statement on the grounds for the ban on the import of queen bees from Hawaii; [174128]
(2) what evaluation her Department has made of the (a) health, (b) disease and (c) animal welfare grounds for restricting the import of queen bees from (i) Hawaii and (ii) Australia; and if she will make a statement. [174129]
§ Alun MichaelNew European Community legislation strengthening the animal health controls and certification requirements for the importation of bees from third countries came into effect across the Community on 27 December 2003. Its aim, in particular, is to protect the EU bee population from exotic pests and diseases.
The new import controls include the requirement that consignments of queen honey bees will only be allowed into the Community from those third countries that have demonstrated the veterinary competence to certify bees for export, and provided that the notifiable diseases of bees in the EU—American foul brood, the small hive beetle and tropilaelaps mite—are also confirmed as notifiable throughout the exporting country. The specified third countries are listed in Part 1 to the Annex of Council Decision 79/542 and include the USA and Australia.
To date, only Australia, New Zealand and Argentina have demonstrated to us that they are able to comply with the conditions provided in the legislation, and 1288W imports of queens from these countries are permitted. However, in the case of Hawaii, while it is our opinion that it does have a high bee health status, and, indeed, we have until recently permitted imports of queen bees from there, it is nevertheless a territory of the USA. The EU legislation is clear in its intention, and it is our understanding that the three notifiable diseases mentioned above are not yet notifiable throughout the USA as a whole. The Commission has stated that it is not prepared to treat Hawaii as separate from the rest of the USA for this purpose. We are therefore not free to authorise the importation of queens bees from Hawaii until the USA has demonstrated equivalence with the EU.