The Crop Protection Association has welcomed a new report from the House of Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee which calls for independent scientific advice to be strengthened within Government policy-making.
The report, ’Putting Science and Engineering at the Heart of Government Policy’ demands an enhanced role for the Government’s Chief Scientist, reporting directly to the Prime Minister via the Cabinet Office, rather than through Business Secretary Lord Mandelson.
The Committee’s report calls for Departmental Chief Scientific Advisers to be appointed to all major Government departments, with a remit to challenge policy-makers to demonstrate clear evidence to support policy. Ministers who disregard scientific evidence when formulating policy should be exposed.
The report also highlights the importance of safeguarding the independence of the Government’s network of scientific advisors, to ensure relevant advice is politically or ideologically neutral, and can be presented without fear of prejudice. Crucially, it calls on Ministers to seek specialist scientific advice prior to making decisions, early in the policy-making process.
CPA chief executive Dominic Dyer believes the Committee’s recommendations will help ensure future policy decisions are underpinned by the best scientific advice, and will allow the UK to challenge EU policy developments at an earlier stage. This will be crucial to ensure UK and EU farmers have access to the technologies and scientific tools needed to meet the demands of food security and climate change.
"Despite strong UK Government opposition, a lack of scientific scrutiny of proposed legislation at the EU level has resulted in the introduction of new hazard-based EU rules on pesticide approvals. The UK Chief Scientist has confirmed that ditching the current risk-based system in favour of a hazard based approach offers no extra protection for consumers and the environment and will result in many safe and widely used products being withdrawn. It is therefore crucially important that the Government continues to put science at the centre of the policy-making process, to ensure such policies are not adopted without proper scientific justification or impact assessment.
"We fully support the Committee’s call for a stronger, better co-ordinated and more transparent role for scientific advice in the policy-making process, and the recommendation that such advice needs to be introduced much earlier to prevent the introduction of bad policies which stifle investment, innovation, and progress," said Mr Dyer.
