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.
The investigation into Defra was launched after the campaign group ClientEarth submitted a complaint to the Office for Environmental Protection, which was set up after Brexit to replace the EU’s framework for punishing environmental offences by governments in the bloc. On Monday, the OEP announced it would be investigating the emergency authorisation of a neonicotinoid pesticide in 2023 and 2024.
It said: “The investigation is seeking to determine whether there were serious failures to comply with a number of environmental laws in relation to emergency authorisations granted for the use of Cruiser SB on sugar beet seeds.
“In particular, the investigation is considering Defra’s interpretation and application of the precautionary principle and compliance with its nature conservation obligations when it considers granting emergency authorisations.”
The neonicotinoid pesticide Cruiser SB is used on sugar beet and is highly toxic to bees and has the potential to kill off populations of the insect. It is banned in the EU but the UK has provisionally agreed to its emergency use every year since leaving the bloc.
The 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, one of many ways the UK has diverged from EU environmental policy since Brexit.
Prof Dave Goulson, a bee expert at the University of Sussex, has warned that one teaspoon of the chemical is enough to kill 1.25bn honeybees.