Anthea McIntyre MEP, Conservative agriculture spokesman, has spoken out against a report on pesticides which she says misrepresents the findings of the European Parliament's own researchers and seeks to undermine public trust in much-needed plant protection products.

Miss Mcintyre delivered a scathing criticism of the report which has been drawn up the parliament's Environment Committee when it was debated at Strasbourg's plenary sitting of the house.

She told the Parliament: “It is very important that we have a science based, evidence based approval process...and we do! This is a very rigorous process.”

The negative report is authored by Czech Socialist MEP Pavel Poc and purports to assess how effectively the European Union's most recent Regulation on Plant Protection Products (PPPs) has been implemented since it came into force seven years ago.

However, Miss McIntyre sees it as part of a wider campaign by the Left and ecological extremists to create a climate of fear over PPPs and to erode public confidence in the safety of the authorisation process.

Mr Poc asserts that practical implementation of the regulation does not deliver complete assurance over protection over public health in its three main areas - approvals, authorisations or enforcement.

Miss McIntyre says the report misrepresents the findings of a 588-page study ran up by the European Parliament Research Service to provide detailed analysis for the report.

In particular, it misleadingly notes that the precautionary principle is not being followed in the approval of pesticides, that there is increasing use of emergency authorisations (which are occasionally needed by niche growers), and that national inspection authorities are chronically understaffed.

The report comes as as a Special Committee on Pesticides, set up at the insistence of Green and Socialist MEPs, begins to consider its own recommendations on the authorisation or PPS following a lengthy deadlock over the re-licensing of the popular weedkiller glyphosate.

Miss McIntyre told MEPs:  “It is simply not true to say that the precautionary principle is clearly not being applied in the context of risk analysis and pesticides. No doubt there are problems with the implementation in member states, but the answer is not new regulation. 

“We need to enforce the regulation we have and a part of that is the possibility of emergency uses. 

“This is  not national governments flouting the regulation, it is national governments responding to the specific needs of their farmers and their agriculture.”