21
March
2019
Whether you’re fed up to the back teeth, or just can’t get enough, of BREXIT there are some areas where it may impact your club directly. One of those could be the availability of pesticides following our, at the time of writing, withdrawal from the European Union. And, unsurprisingly, there could be complications regardless of whether it’s deal or no deal! Deal Subject to ratification of an agreement, there will be an Implementation Period starting on 29 March 2019, (or 30th June), and running until December 2020 (unless extended). The UK will no longer be a Member State of the European Union during this Implementation Period, but market access to pesticides will continue on current terms until the end of the Implementation Period. During the Implementation Period the EU PPP (Plant Protection Products) regulatory regime (including new decisions - e.g. withdrawing products from use), will continue to apply, providing continuity and stability. There will be some changes to the way that the regulations work during the Implementation Period but the HSE will remain as the UK’s national regulator, on behalf of the UK Government (Defra) and the devolved administrations. The key difference will be that, during the Implementation Period, the UK will not be able to act as a ‘leading authority’ under the EU regime. This means the UK is unlikely to have any input on decisions, like which products are approved or withdrawn. See gov.uk for full details on Regulating Pesticides during an Implementation Period in the event of a deal being agreed. No Deal In the event of no deal, the UK will make its own decisions on approvals and withdrawals for pesticides based on its own assessments. This means that the same products will continue to be authorised for use in the UK immediately after our exit, until such time as the HSE introduces any changes. Users will not need to take any action if the current markets and levels of access to PPPs are maintained. However, PPP supply is heavily reliant on imports so there may well be interruptions to the supply chain following a no-deal exit, perhaps resulting in some products becoming unavailable for a time. For the full government details go to the Regulation of Pesticides following a no deal webpage. Please LOGIN to read the full article.
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