The Control of Pesticides (Amendment) Regulations 1997

Amendment of the principal Regulations

8.  For regulation 8 there shall be substituted the following regulation—

“Release of information to the public

8.— (1) The Ministers may, at the request of any person, at such reasonable time and place as they may determine, make any evaluation held by them available to that person for inspection.

(2) The Ministers may, at the request of any person, supply that person with a copy of any evaluation held by them on payment of such fee (which may not exceed the cost reasonably attributable to the supply) as the Ministers, with the consent of the Treasury, may determine.

(3) The Ministers may, at the request of any person to whom an evaluation has been made available for inspection under paragraph (1) above or to whom a copy of an evaluation has been supplied under paragraph (2) above, make available at such reasonable time and place as they may determine for inspection by that person any study reports held by them to which the evaluation relates.

(4) No person to whom any information or document has been made available for inspection under paragraph (1) or (3), or to whom a copy of any information or document has been furnished under paragraph (2), shall make any commercial use of it nor, unless authorised in writing by the Ministers to do so, publish any part of it.

(5) In this regulation—

• “commercial use”, in relation to any information or document, includes the use of that information or document in any manner whatsoever in connection with the manufacture, distribution, importation, advertisement, sale, supply, storage, use or export of any pesticide but does not include the use of that information or document for the purpose of books, journals or other publications with the written authorisation of the Ministers;

• “evaluation” means a written evaluation of study reports or other data examined in the course of an appraisal of the active ingredient of a pesticide leading to the giving of a full approval or provisional approval, the amendment of any conditions imposed in relation to any such approval, or the revocation of any such approval, in relation to that pesticide;

• “study reports” means study reports and any other data relating to an application for a full approval or provisional approval or the continuance of any such approval including the amendment of the conditions imposed in relation to any such approval.

(6) This regulation is without prejudice to the provisions of the Environmental Information Regulations 1992(1) and Article 14 of Council Directive 91/414/EEC concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market(2).”.

(1)

S.I. 1992/3240, which implements in Great Britain Council Directive 90/313/EEC on the freedom of access to information on the environment (O.J. No. L158, 23.6.90, p. 56); these Regulations provide for a general right of disclosure of information relating to the environment which is held by (inter alia) Ministers of the Crown (other than information capable of being treated as confidential) and specify certain requirements which must be observed in responding to requests for disclosure of such information.

(2)

O.J. No. L230, 19.8.1991, p. 1. Article 14 of the Directive obliges member States to treat as confidential any information involving industrial and commercial secrets provided in support of applications for authorisation of plant protection products under the Directive, where applicants for such authorisation so request and the member State accepts that the request is warranted, subject however to the second paragraph of that Article which removes from that protection all information of the types set out in that paragraph.