Chamber and committees

NatureScot keeps hold of the cull returns, and I am at the committee’s disposal to come back any time.

Thank you for inviting me to give evidence on bracken control. This year, the Scottish ministers consented to the Health and Safety Executive’s decision, because of risks to human and environmental health, to refuse the application for emergency use of Asulox in Scotland. Ministers are also aware of the risks that are associated with bracken, and our consent to the regulatory recommendation was not given lightly.

Authorisation of the emergency use of Asulox has been granted annually for 10 years, and Asulox has been applied to between 2,000 and 3,000 hectares of land—to about 2 per cent of Scottish bracken—where topography precludes mechanical control. This year, the Health and Safety Executive assessed that Asulox use did not meet the legislative requirements for authorisation, as safety concerns and risks were identified that outweighed the benefits of use.

The regulatory safety concerns centred on several points. No progress has been made in addressing the risk that relates to Asulam’s endocrine-disrupting properties. The European Food Safety Authority concluded that Asulam meets the criteria for an endocrine disruptor—a substance that can alter the function of the hormonal system in humans.

No progress has been made on addressing data requirements from previous authorisations in relation to livestock exclusion restrictions and long-term risks to soil organisms, birds and mammals. There is also concern relating to the toxicity data of the technical material about a new risk, as well as concerns about detections in water.

Insignificant progress has been made on the development of alternative controls.

Without progress towards filling the data gaps as requested and removing the need for future authorisations, it becomes difficult to characterise the need as an emergency.

The evidence about the risk that is associated with bracken was robustly assessed by ministers during the process of consenting to the regulatory advice. That included consideration of the impacts on biodiversity, forestry and grazing, as well as concerns about links with tick-borne disease.

We are committed to working closely with stakeholders to support sustainable and proportionate bracken management. In August, the cabinet secretary and I convened a stakeholder round table to discuss next steps. We committed to establishing a working group to lead on identified priorities, including further evidence gathering; to support the publication of updated bracken control guidance for land managers, which was a particular request; and to ensure that the decision on the 2024 application is communicated as early as possible, as this year’s delay was frustrating.

Decisions on pesticide authorisation are based on regulation and scientific evidence, and the use of products is authorised when evidence demonstrates that they do not pose unacceptable risks to people, animals or the environment. I am happy to take any questions that the committee has.

Absolutely. Yes, we will ensure that all the information is in there.

On the action that is being taken, 98 per cent of bracken in Scotland—so, nearly all of it—is already being managed by other means or not being managed at all. That is unchanged; only the remaining 2 per cent is affected by the refusal to grant an emergency authorisation this year.

There are a number of methods for managing bracken. It can be managed mechanically and it can be sprayed from ground level with other chemicals. There are also ecological methods, including allowing tree growth, which is a natural mechanism. We probably need to look into what those ecological methods are; that needs to be developed through the research.

We have been asked by members of the round table, which comprised farmers and other people affected by bracken, to urgently provide guidelines, setting out what we need to do. Our priority is to get those guidelines out, so that land managers know what they can do right now.

I can have a go. There are various hormone pathways in the body—for androgen hormones, for example, which control sex characteristics and so on. Asulam is considered an endocrine disruptor of the T pathway, which involves thyroid function. As I understand it from looking online, that largely affects embryos and developing humans.

That is the limit of my understanding—that endocrine disruptors affect human development. There is a risk that they will affect the development of birds and mammals, as well as aquatic organisms. There is a lack of evidence—neither the applicant nor the manufacturer has demonstrated that the chemical is safe. It is for the producer to demonstrate to the authorisation bodies that the product is safe to use and does not have such negative effects, and it has failed to do so.

There is no evidence of significant exposure in that respect. We have some papers on that. For example, one states:

“while some studies have linked exposure via drinking water to some cancers (e.g., Galpin et al., 1990) a FERA risk assessment from 2010 suggest that human exposure to bracken toxins via drinking water is low”.

There is a reference paper for that as well. I would be happy to share those papers with the member.

Absolutely. That is a real frustration. I, too, engaged with people at the Royal Highland Show and elsewhere, and I understand that that was a frustration. I am happy to go through that.

I remind the member that Asulox is not an authorised chemical. It has not been authorised in the UK for more than 15 years. The emergency authorisation process has been used every year to enable its use.

The timeline this year was that, on 20 March, I received the HSE recommendation. I consulted with the ECP, as discussed, and I was able to make my decision on 3 May. Because the application was for the UK, all four nations needed to respond before the result could be published. That is the convention. Some of the nations were slower than us. After all had responded, we got the final decision from DEFRA on 15 June. There was some delay in DEFRA making that decision. A further six days passed while the Scottish Government considered DEFRA’s decision before we made ours.

I am very keen to consider whether, next year, we can break convention and have different nations announcing their decisions in a more timely manner. I am happy to take away an action to discuss that with the Health and Safety Executive. That has never been done before, but, because I understand everybody’s frustration, I am happy to take that away as a discussion to have with the HSE.

You are correct that the work to develop that is early doors. The commissioning of the work from the James Hutton Institute was a good first step, and the round-table event the other week was a good preliminary step in understanding which research areas are important and how we want stakeholders to engage.

I am not aware that, as yet, there is a plan to take that forward, but I am happy to go away, get that information and provide it to you, convener.

To put that in context, all of those stakeholders had been engaged in the conversation since 2020 and prior to that—it was not new information to them. When the independent deer working group published the recommendations, back in 2020, it did so on the basis of evidence that it had gathered for many months. It has been a very long process to get to where we are today, and it is on-going. The recommendations were published back in 2020. The Scottish Government then engaged with the stakeholders to develop our response in 2021. We had those conversations and, when our consultation came out, most stakeholders had already submitted to us what they wished to say, although a few—a dozen—wrote back to us with additional information. They did not contribute any new information but largely covered the same ground. The issues have been thoroughly discussed with stakeholders.

I am not sure that your assumption that an authorisation to go lamping automatically allows someone to use different technology is correct, but I am happy to get the information on that to you. I do not know whether the authorisation specifies which technology is to be used—I do not have that level of detail with me—but I am happy to clarify the position for you.

I absolutely support what the member says. Have we drifted into discussing the close season?