My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 221, to which I have also put my name. This is my first contribution in Committee, and I have listened and learned an awful lot from the debates thus far. I have long-held concerns about the pollution and contamination caused by the widespread use of pesticides and chemical treatments across increasingly large parts of our agricultural land.
I am no expert on the effects of pesticides on human health and our wildlife, but the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, most definitely are. The House heard them talk in detail on a previous group of amendments about how exposure to agricultural pesticides is linked with many diseases and conditions. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, emphasised that in moving the amendment. It is obvious that those living near crop fields are particularly vulnerable to exposure.
The Government have had in place a national action plan looking into this problem since 2013, but little seems to have resulted and unsurprisingly, it has been described as “woefully weak”. I read the Minister’s letters to Peers after Second Reading, in which he said that the Government will develop their policy in a revised national action plan on the sustainable use of pesticides, and that they will consult in coming months. This is not an adequate response to what is a serious, well-documented and ongoing health hazard.
We have all agreed that the Agriculture Bill is a landmark piece of legislation. It is going to provide the foundation for our agricultural and environmental policies for decades to come. The Minister in the other place described it as an ambitious Bill. But it is not ambitious in this area. What is our strategy regarding the use of pesticides? Are we going to have a target to reduce their use to, say, half, as the EU has adopted? Or, is our strategy to aim to remove them completely from our food and farming system, as at least one Chief Scientific Adviser has advocated? We need to hear about more concrete action and a clearer strategy than that revealed thus far.
5.45 pm
The problem with pesticides is that their effects are cumulative and take time to reveal themselves. There is often a considerable time lag between the adoption of new chemical substances and the full effects of their continued use. As time goes by, it is clearer than ever that the intensive use of pesticides and chemicals causes a wide range of adverse health impacts, with often irreversible and permanent chronic effects. Those living in rural areas, particularly children, are most at risk, hence the provisions of Amendment 221, but I also support the other amendment in this group.
Science is advancing at a great pace and finding alternatives and solutions to the problems our present pesticide and chemical use causes. That is welcome,
but it is no reason not to take measures now to deal with what we know are the considerable health hazards facing those living nearby and downwind, as my noble friend Lord Whitty so graphically described. It is those people, and particularly the children in those areas, on whose behalf we need to take action.
We have watched with increasing concern the decimation of our insect population, and we have to take action and adopt a clear strategy to protect those in most danger as a matter of urgency, while work continues on longer-term solutions.