Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the contribution by the Minister of State at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of 10 June 2015, Official Report, column 136WH, on organophosphate sheep dip, in what ways the Health and Safety Executive made the report referred to in that contribution and its content publicly available.

The Minister of State at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs made reference to the 1991 Health and Safety Executive (HSE) report that presented the findings of a 1990 survey of sheep dipping. The report was published by HSE as an internal document in May 1991.

The report was discussed at a meeting of the then Health and Safety Commission’s Agricultural Industry Advisory Committee (AIAC) working group, Chemicals In Agriculture (ChemAg), on 10 July 1991. The ChemAg working group membership included HSE, the Confederation of British Industry, the Trades Union Congress and other industry organisations.

It is not possible to say with certainty what wider dissemination of the report there was, however, the September 1991 version of HSE’s published advisory leaflet “Sheep Dipping, Protect your health” (see attached) gives advice about the measures necessary to use dips safely and reflects the findings of the 1990 survey.

The 1990 survey also proposed additional work to further quantify the problems identified. This work was referred to in a press release (attached), issued in July 1993 that sets out the poor practice identified on farms using sheep dips and gives a summary of the sheep dip study findings.