Ben Bradshaw, the MP for Exeter, has drawn
17th place in the ballot for Private Members' bills. This allows MPs to draft
laws for consideration by parliament on topics that reflect their own concerns.
Mr Bradshaw is proposing a bill to give Ministers the power to release
information about all pesticides-instead of, as at present, only those
pesticides that have been reviewed by the Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP).
The aim of the UK's Food and Environment Protection Act
1985 (FEPA), which provides the statutory basis for pesticide registration-and
also to make information available to the public. Information on about 160
pesticides, which have been reviewed by the ACP, is now in the public domain. If
Mr Bradshaw's bill becomes law-the debate will not be until November this
year-we can look forward to publication of information on the rest of the
pesticides in use in the UK-another 270 active ingredients.
Ben Bradshaw, MP, House of Commons.
[This
article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 37,
September 1997, page 19]