The UK government breached environmental law on several occasions when granting farmers permission to use a bee-killing pesticide, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has found.
Failures in emergency authorisation
In 2023 and 2024, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), then under the Conservative government, granted emergency authorisation for farmers to use Cruiser SB, a banned neonicotinoid pesticide, on sugar beet crops. The pesticide's active ingredient, thiamethoxam, is highly toxic to bees. According to Prof Dave Goulson, a bee expert at the University of Sussex, one teaspoon of thiamethoxam is enough to kill 1.25 billion honeybees.
Following a complaint by the campaign group ClientEarth, the OEP launched an investigation into possible serious failures by Defra. The watchdog concluded there were failures to comply with environmental law on four occasions, including a failure to consider the authorisation's impact on protected sites and to understand, avoid, or mitigate the known risk of harm to those sites.
Reactions and repercussions
Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist and policy director at Greenpeace UK, described the findings as "absolutely shocking neglect from past governments" that would have had "deadly ramifications for our beleaguered wildlife."
Since the OEP investigation began in July 2024, the government has pledged to ban emergency authorisations for three banned neonicotinoids. However, not all neonicotinoid pesticides are banned. The government recently granted an emergency authorisation for a second spray of the neonicotinoid pesticide Insyst SG to control peach-potato aphid on sugar beet crops.
Parr called on the government to "ban all pesticides of this kind" and provide farmers with "urgent support they need to move away from these chemicals and towards nature-friendly farming methods."
Proposed changes and concerns
In response to the OEP's findings, Defra has proposed updating the assessment process for granting emergency authorisations to expressly recognise the relevance of potential impacts on protected sites. Kyle Lischak, head of ClientEarth UK, called this announcement a "huge step forward."
However, Jenna Hegarty, head of UK policy at the Nature Friendly Farming Network, warned that the findings could damage confidence in the government's commitment to transitioning to environmentally friendly farming. She said: "It's great we have the safeguards in place to catch this but for a sector that has had its trust shaken, to see the failure by the government to do things properly, I think it's not going to engender the confidence we really need to see rebuilding in the sector."
The OEP will monitor the implementation of the updated process, which is due to be in place by November 2026. Defra has been approached for comment.
