The lobbying behind a bee-killing pesticide
A new investigation into neonicotinoids should be an opportunity to lift the lid on a secretive lobbying operation - will it be taken?
There’s been a lot going on this week. That’s why I’m writing to you today about a story that has less attention than I think it should: the news that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is being investigated by the environmental watchdog after Conservative ministers authorised a bee-killing pesticide that was banned by the EU.
Neonicotinoid - a chemical so powerful that one teaspoon is enough to kill 1.25bn honeybees - was given emergency clearance under the Tory government in 2023 and 2024.
As the Guardian reports, "former environment secretary Michael Gove promised in 2017 that ministers would use Brexit to stop the use of the pesticide. Instead, the EU banned all emergency authorisations of neonicotinoid pesticides while the UK government has allowed its use".
Conservative ministers authorised the pesticide against the warnings of scientific advisers.
The big question for us is whether the new investigation - launched after campaign group ClientEarth submitted a complaint to the Office for Environmental Protection - will focus on how the Conservative government was lobbied to keep neonicotinoids.
Last week, Democracy for Sale reported on the "extraordinary" access trade lobbyist Shanker Singham had to Tory government ministers and policy makers - and guess what one of the things he was lobbying for was? Yep, neonicotinoids.
The screen grab below is from an email that Singham sent to then 'Brexit opportunities minister' Jacob Rees Mogg in March 2022. The instructions are incredibly detailed, and call on Rees Mogg to “ensure” that the ban on neonicotinoids is “eliminated”. (This document, and many others, are available at the end of last week's story.)
Singham’s lobbying for neonicotinoids was not previously reported - perhaps unsurprising given that most of his 50+ meetings with ministers had nondescript titles like “to discuss regulatory issues”. (Singham did not respond to our requests for comment.)
Singham was not the only one privately lobbying government to let farmers keep using the deadly pesticides. In 2020, the National Farmers Union was accused of secretly lobbying then environmental secretary George Eustice to bring back the bee-killing chemicals.
After all this lobbying, the Conservative government duly allowed the pesticide’s continued use, despite widespread environmental concerns….
Labour has already promised to ban neonicotinoids - but will the new government also use this investigation as an opportunity to finally bring in proper lobbying legislation?