MR PETER BEAUMONT AND MISS ALISON CRAIG

TUESDAY 2 NOVEMBER 1999

  172. Can I welcome you to this session of the committee and can I thank you for the evidence that you have already let us have? Could you identify yourself for the record, please?
  (Mr Beaumont) My name is Peter Beaumont, Development Director of the Pesticides Trust.
  (Miss Craig) Alison Craig from the Pesticides Trust.

  173. Do you want to say anything else in support of the memorandum you have sent in or are you happy to go straight on?
  (Mr Beaumont) May I just mention very briefly, Sir, why we are interested in pesticides, in just a couple of sentences, and then if you would like to take us through the questions you are interested in? They are one of the few chemicals that are toxic to human systems, and of course wildlife as well. They are widespread in the environment. They are effective at very low doses, parts per million, parts per billion and parts per trillion. They affect other things apart from pests. I say that by way of preamble to explain our interest in the area.

  174. How can the reporting of incidents involving pesticides be improved?
  (Miss Craig) The first point is that there should be a one-stop shop where people can immediately report pesticide exposure incidents. At the moment there are about four or five different agencies that people report to: it can be the Environment Agency, it can be the HSE or it can be the local authority, it depends what is involved, what kind of pesticide it is and where it is, if it is on a farm or in a factory. There should be a one-stop shop, an emergency hotline.

  175. You would not identify which one of those it should be or should it be a new agency completely?
  (Miss Craig) We think it should be a matter for the agencies to decide.

  176. They all empire-build so somebody on the outside is going to have to decide. Which would be, in your mind, the most appropriate of the agencies that are in existence?
  (Miss Craig) I am hesitating because we have further comments later on about how the enforcement and inspection functions of the HSE should be divided, should be separated. At the moment there is a conflict of interest between those two functions.

  177. What happens in other countries, for instance, as far as pesticides themselves are concerned? Do you have any experience of what happens outside the UK?
  (Miss Craig) We are collecting information on precisely that point. I have made contact with a number of groups in other European countries and I am happy to supply more information about that.

  178. At this stage you do not have that information, do you?
  (Miss Craig) We are collecting it at the moment, we have some.
  (Mr Beaumont) Perhaps I might just add, very often it is a mess. Very often the only system of reporting is through poison centres, which are only just beginning to be co-ordinated, particularly across Europe. In some countries, for example California, reporting is mandatory and it tends to be to doctors, because of different occupational health and safety regulations. I think the point one would make is, it is helpful if the reports are made to an agency which has a network of local representatives, because farming, of course, being geographically spread, would indicate it should be within the remit of the HSE or the local authority; a local presence on the ground.

  179. In the recent past there has been a number of fairly major incidents on the use of pesticides, that is critical in many ways to people's health and safety, is there any experience that you have that would suggest that a single agency or a single formula is in use anywhere that would be able to in many ways augment the work that has been done by the existing agencies? That would be useful, as well as the note on the experiences of elsewhere in Europe, if you get them. You call for better enforcement by the HSE of certified training for pesticide use, is that based on you doing that training?
  (Mr Beaumont) Some of the training has been put out to private tender. Provided it is certified and approved I do not think there is any disadvantage in that. I think what we are concerned about is that training takes place in the first place. The concern is that under, I think, what are called the grandfather rights—what used to be known as the Dan Archer situation—those who are of a certain age when the law came into effect are exempt from having to have a certificate of competence. That may have been thought to be practical and pragmatic but I think the reality is, as the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service (ADAS) reported, possibly one third of the UK arable acreage is spread by people without training. Given the consequences that can ensue from very small quantities of quite powerful chemicals, I would submit that that is not appropriate. It is also right to observe that there is no parallel exemption under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health.