Legal battle over farm pesticide records heads to tribunal

A tribunal hearing this week will decide whether campaigners can gain access to records detailing pesticide use on farms.

Conservation group WildFish will appear at a tribunal on 12 March in a legal dispute involving the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Information Commissioner’s Office over access to records relating to plant protection products (PPPs).

The case centres on whether environmental groups can obtain pesticide use records kept under regulatory rules and supplied to the HSE.

Plant protection products include substances such as insecticides, weedkillers and fungicides used in agriculture to protect crops from pests, weeds and disease.

Campaigners argue that when such chemicals are washed from treated land into rivers and streams after rainfall they can affect aquatic ecosystems, including invertebrates which form the base of freshwater food chains.

The case comes amid wider public debate around the health of UK rivers and the potential impact of chemical pollutants.

Under Article 67 of the EU Plant Protection Products Regulation, pesticide users must keep detailed records of products used for three years and provide them to regulators on request.

WildFish argues that these records should also be accessible under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, which require public bodies and organisations carrying out public functions to disclose environmental information when requested.

The dispute partly stems from a request by students at Cardiff University seeking information from the HSE on glyphosate use. The regulator refused the request, arguing it was “manifestly unreasonable”.

WildFish later pursued the issue after its SmartRivers monitoring programme recorded signs of pesticide pollution in the Welsh Dee.

The group requested pesticide records covering a specific sub-catchment area but says access was again refused.

The Information Commissioner subsequently ruled that the information should be disclosed. However, the HSE appealed the decision and the case is now set to be heard by the First-tier Tribunal’s General Regulatory Chamber on Thursday.

Justin Neal, a solicitor at WildFish, said the group believes regulators should provide greater transparency around pesticide monitoring.

“WildFish often asks difficult questions of public bodies such as water companies and regulators,” he said.

“Time after time we hear similar excuses, like ‘it’s too difficult to provide this information’ or ‘we don’t have it!’.”

He added that regulators should ensure information on pesticide use is available to the public.

“What is needed is for HSE and other regulators to start regulating properly and to ensure that not only is there public access to information on pesticides, but that this information is actively published so we can all see what they are allowing to wash into our rivers.”

The HSE previously argued that some information requests can place a significant administrative burden on regulators.

WildFish said it would continue pressing for greater transparency around pesticide monitoring regardless of the tribunal’s outcome.