Honey Bee Health

There we are; our numbers have doubled at a stroke. There are things that need to be clarified, and we should understand the detail of how the money will be spent, so I have some questions of detail for the Minister. Everyone here is onside with the principle and is congratulating themselves and her on the progress so far, but we need to go into the detail now, so perhaps I can press her on a couple of important issues. My first point is the one made in the intervention by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), which is that the Government's support is labelled as being for research on not only honey bees but pollinators. I am sure that all hon. Members present agree that other pollinators may need some research, too. Bumblebees, for example, are undoubtedly under pressure, and some species are dwindling rapidly in the UK. I have been told that the same thing is happening to some species of butterfly and moth as well. I do not think that anyone is saying that all Government money must go on honey bee research or the world will end, but the right balance is important. I hope that the Minister's response will reflect the fact that, as I have said, honey bees are the main event for pollination in this country and therefore, from an ecological and economic point of view, it is sensible to give them the lion's share, while not trying to close off research on other worthy causes. Perhaps the Minister will suggest, as far as she can at this stage, what the proportions of the spend will be. It is important to ask what kind of research will be involved. It is possible that robust proposals that are scientifically extremely interesting will come before one of the research councils for funding from the pot of money that has been announced—I understand that the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council may well take many of the detailed allocation decisions on research grants—and that those proposals will advance the frontiers of human understanding of pollinator behaviour, or even honey bee behaviour, but that will not help with the problem that we are debating today of honey bee health and the reason why honey bee colonies in the UK are under pressure as never before. Therefore an element of the process must be to ensure that applied criteria, as well as pure science criteria, are involved. There may be a place for pure science, but applied criteria will be important, and it would be helpful to have the Minister's reassurance about that.