INDUSTRY CONSULTATION ON PLANT HEALTH ISSUES IN SCOTLAND
FUTURE CONSULTATION PROCEDURE, PUBLICATION OF PEST RISK ANALYSES AND DISCLOSURE OF OUTBREAK SITES
Environment and Rural Affairs Department
Plants, Horticulture and Potatoes To: Interested parties and organisations | Pentland House
47 Robb's Loan
Edinburgh EH14 1TY
Telephone: 0131-244 4895
Fax: 0131-244 6509
Bob.King@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
http://www.scotland.gov.uk Your ref:
Our ref: SPB 102 16 December 2004 |
This document is also available in pdf format (68k)
Dear Sirs
I am writing to seek your views on two issues, ie:
- the procedures we proposes to use in future when making decisions about action on plant pests; and
- the disclosure of site information following an outbreak of a plant pest or disease subject to statutory controls.
The attached paper is being sent to relevant business interests including agricultural, horticultural, environmental and consumer groups, to those growers who are authorised to issue plant passports, and to those with current or recent outbreaks of quarantine pests. The paper gives details of these issues and invites you to reply to specific questions. It is also available on our website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Consultations.
This consultation is being conducted on a Scotland-only basis as implementation is being considered separately in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
If you wish to make your views known I would ask you, please, to send these to me at the address above by 10 March 2005 at the latest, or earlier if possible.
Please see the Appendix to this letter which gives further information on this consultation and includes a Respondee Information Form which should be completed and submitted with your comments.
Yours faithfully
BOB KING
Plants, Horticulture and Potatoes
Appendix to consultation letter
INDUSTRY CONSULTATION ON PLANT HEALTH ISSUES
Responding to this consultation paper
We are inviting written responses to this consultation paper by 10 March 2005.
Please send your response to:
Bob King
Scottish Executive, Environment and Rural Affairs Department
Plants, Horticulture & Potatoes
Mail point 1 - B
Pentland House
47 Robb's Loan
EDINBURGH
EH14 1TY
E-mail: bob.king@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Fax: 0131 244 6509/6539
If you have any queries please contact Bob King on 0131 244 4895
We would be grateful if you could clearly indicate in your response which questions or parts of the consultation paper you are responding to (using the consultation questionnaire if appropriate) as this will aid our analysis of the responses received.
This consultation, and all other SE consultation exercises, can be viewed online at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations. You can telephone Freephone 0800 77 1234 to find out where your nearest public internet access point is.
The Scottish Executive now has an email alert system for SE consultations ( SEconsult). This system allows stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new SE consultations (including web links). SEconsult complements, but in no way replaces SE distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders to keep up to date with all SE consultations activity, and therefore be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We would encourage you to register.
Access to consultation responses
We will make all responses available to the public in the Scottish Executive Library within 4 weeks of the consultation ending and on the Scottish Executive consultation web pages one week after depositing responses with the Library, unless confidentiality is requested. All responses not marked confidential will be checked for any potentially defamatory material before being logged in the library or placed on the website.
RESPONDEE INFORMATION FORM
THE SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE CONSULTATION PROCESS
Consultation is an essential and important aspect of Scottish Executive working methods. Given the wide-ranging areas of work of the Scottish Executive, there are many varied types of consultation. However, in general Scottish Executive consultation exercises aim to provide opportunities for all those who wish to express their opinions on a proposed area of work to do so in ways which will inform and enhance that work.
While details of particular circumstances described in a response to a consultation exercise may usefully inform the policy process, consultation exercises cannot address individual concerns and comments, which should be directed to the relevant public body. Consultation exercises may involve seeking views in a number of different ways, such as public meetings, focus groups or questionnaire exercises.
Typically, Scottish Executive consultations involve a written paper inviting answers to specific questions or more general views about the material presented. Written papers are distributed to organisations and individuals with an interest in the area of consultation, and they are also placed on the Scottish Executive web site enabling a wider audience to access the paper and submit their responses 1. Copies of all the responses received to consultation exercises (except those where the individual or organisation requested confidentiality) are placed in the Scottish Executive library at Saughton House, Edinburgh (K Spur, Saughton House, Broomhouse Drive, Edinburgh, EH11 3XD, telephone 0131 244 4552).
The views and suggestions detailed in consultation responses are analysed and used as part of the decision making process. Depending on the nature of the consultation exercise the responses received may:
- indicate the need for policy development or review
- inform the development of a particular policy
- help decisions to be made between alternative policy proposals
- be used to finalise legislation before it is implemented
If you have any comment about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them in the first instance to:
Bob King
Scottish Executive, Environment and Rural Affairs Department
Plants, Horticulture & Potatoes
Mail point 1 - B
Pentland House
47 Robb's Loan
EDINBURGH
EH14 1TY
Annex
INDUSTRY CONSULTATION ON PLANT HEALTH ISSUES
Background
Plant pests are insects, other invertebrates, bacteria, fungi, viruses and other pathogens which affect the health of cultivated or wild plants by feeding on them or causing disease. Plant pests generally pose no risk to humans or animals.
Most plant pests are not regulated by the government. Farmers, growers and gardeners can choose how they manage them, as long as they follow rules on use of pesticides. There are, though, two categories of plant pests which are subject to regulation: "quarantine pests" and "regulated non-quarantine pests".
Quarantine pests, according to an internationally agreed definition, are pests of potential economic or environmental importance to an area, which are not present there or which, if present, are not widespread, and are being officially controlled. Action to exclude, contain or eradicate them is co-ordinated across the European Community through the Plant Health Directive, which lists over three hundred different EC quarantine pests. The UK plant health service takes decisions each year on other organisms, either because they have been found on imported plants or produce, or because a laboratory has asked us for permission to import them to carry out research in contained conditions. Action we take against these "unlisted pests" is reported to the European Commission and other Member States.
Some pests which are widely established, and which therefore do not qualify as quarantine pests, are nevertheless prohibited or only permitted within a certain tolerance on planting material such as certified seed potatoes or fruit plants. These may be referred to as "regulated non-quarantine pests".
Pest Risk Analysis (PRA)
The decision on whether a pest is a potential quarantine pest is taken on the basis of a "Pest Risk Analysis" or PRA. PRAs may range from a simple expert judgement ("tropical insect, no host plants in Europe, no risk") to a detailed scientific review which attempts to put figures on the risks, and the costs and benefits of different ways of managing those risks. Under international trade rules any measures which regulate imports must be justified by a PRA written according to international standards.
In the UK, PRAs are normally produced by Defra's Central Science Laboratory (CSL) or, for forestry pests, CSL and/or Forestry Research. Once a PRA is available the UK plant health service can consult interested businesses, organisations and individuals for their views on the risk management options which should be adopted. There are, however, a number of constraints which have to be taken into account.
To add or remove an organism to/from the listed EC quarantine pests requires the agreement of the EC's Plant Health Committee, on which all Member States are represented. While this may slow down the decision it also ensures that, once agreed, measures are taken across the EU and most of Europe (as other European countries often follow the EC's lead) and are therefore more effective than measures taken by one country alone. Member States are free to take emergency measures while possible EC measures are being discussed.
EC plant health regulations must follow international rules and cannot involve prohibition on imports of a pest that is already found here and against which we are taking no official action.
Regulations should generally focus on the pests for which they can achieve most benefit at least cost. The more pests that are regulated, the more thinly we spread our resources for taking effective measures against them on the ground.
This consultation has been set up to review procedures and to see if they can be made more transparent and efficient. Consultations are also being undertaken on this issue in England by Defra and in Wales and Northern Ireland.
Proposed consultation procedure
We intend to make available on the SEERAD plant health website, via a link to the Defra website, the main PRAs carried out by CSL that relate to suggestions for changes to the lists of pests in the Plant Health Directive and in response to outbreaks of pests in the UK or elsewhere which may pose a risk to the UK.
Defra does not, nor does SEERAD, propose to make available all PRAs, such as those following requests from scientists to import organisms under licence for research purposes. However, these may be available from us in response to specific requests.
Where necessary, the PRAs will also provide the information required in a Regulatory Impact Appraisal (RIA). The intention is to provide in a single short document the information which you need to know about a pest in order to make an informed contribution to the development of policy on its management.
When a new or amended PRA is loaded onto the Defra website, we will inform by e-mail all representative bodies and other groups or individuals who have asked to be on the mailing list for such consultations, and any growers and others we are aware of who may be affected by the specific pest in question, or the proposed measures.
A covering note will explain the timetable for forthcoming decisions on the pest. These decisions may have to be taken in a shorter timescale than the twelve weeks usually allowed for responses to consultations. Nevertheless all responses received within twelve weeks will be acknowledged, included in a summary appended to the PRA, and taken into account in the further development of policy on that pest. Unless you tell us otherwise, your response will be made available to others on request.
As well as comments on risk management options we will welcome comments, with supporting evidence, on the assumptions and figures which have gone into the PRA. These will be passed to Defra in order to enable Defra to refine their estimates of costs and benefits.
Following the twelve week period, a summary of UK responses received, and any information about decisions taken as a result of the consultation exercise, including any revision of the PRA, will be made available on the Scottish Executive's plant health website.
In order that you can see what sort of information is included in PRAs we have included hard copies of two recent examples (which may also be viewed by clicking on the following links): one for Eulecanium excrescens ( http://www.defra.gov.uk/planth/pra/eulecanium.pdf), a scale insect found on wisterias in London, and another for Clover yellow mosaic virus ( http://www.defra.gov.uk/planth/pra/clover.pdf) , which was intercepted recently on imported verbena cuttings. In both cases the PRA concludes that further statutory action is unlikely to be justified. As a recent example of a longer PRA you may wish to look at the one published on Defra's website ( http://www.defra.gov.uk/planth/pra/tilletia.pdf) for Karnal bunt, a fungal disease of wheat which is already on the quarantine lists. In view of the size of this document, it is not being sent out in hard copy and is available in electronic form only.
We will be consulting separately about a contingency plan for Karnal bunt in due course.
Contingency planning
- Sometimes, as with Karnal bunt, the outcome of a PRA is that a specific contingency plan is drawn up outlining how we will respond if an outbreak of the pest occurs. We are keen to develop a more collaborative approach to contingency planning so that plans also cover the response of the relevant industry sector and other people who may be involved in an outbreak. We intend to publish draft contingency plans and invite comments, in the same way as suggested for PRAs Our proposed general contingency plan, which will cover the points common to most plant pests, will be applied to any outbreak for which no specific plan is available.
Disclosure of outbreak details
At present when statutory action is being taken against a pest outbreak we will, where appropriate, provide information in general terms, for example by naming the geographic area in which it has occurred. However it has been longstanding policy not to give out details which would identify an affected grower 2.
SEERAD is however committed to making information public unless there are clear reasons not to do so. There can be real benefits to plant health from disclosure of information. For example, campaigns, such as those against Colorado beetle, have depended heavily on public awareness and co-operation.
We will therefore continue to consider for each eradication campaign where the balance of public interest lies between disclosure and confidentiality. This will take into account the public right of access to environmental information (Environmental Information Regulations 1992 (as amended) and Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004) and personal data protection (Data Protection Act 1998). In general, we intend to release more details of outbreaks than we have hitherto, in the form of geographical information ( eg grid references or dots on maps) published on our website. However, unless there is a clear plant health reason to depart from it, we would expect to continue with the established practice of regarding names and addresses of affected sites as confidential.
Questions
Pest Risk Analysis and consultation
i. Do you have any comments about the proposed future consultation procedure?