Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very clear introduction to this statutory instrument and the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for raising this issue, even though I will take a very different approach to the SI. I will park the constitutional questions, leaving the Windsor Framework to one side, and raise the issue of why Britain is trailing globally on the issue of mercury dental fillings. I take issue with the Minister’s introduction, which talked about a stable, safe and typically cheaper material. It is worth stressing that this SI provides bespoke arrangements—here, I am looking at it purely from the medical health side—for a longer transition period away from mercury dental fillings in Northern Ireland compared with the EU, a delayed phase-out that is in line with the rest of the UK. This is bad for the people of Northern Ireland, bad for the UK and bad for the world. Coincidentally, a new study is out today from the Rivers Trust and Wildlife and Countryside Link that shows that more than 98% of fish and mussels tested in English waters contain mercury levels above EU safety limits. In fact, more than half the fish and mussels tested have mercury levels more than five times above the EU safety limits. We all know that mercury is a potent neurotoxin, even at low levels of exposure. There is the tragedy of Minamata, the disease that resulted from the industrial release of methylmercury in Japan. This has been known for many decades. Some 43 countries have now banned mercury amalgam fillings, including the EU and the Scandinavian countries, but also countries such as Tanzania and Indonesia. The practical reality is that crematoriums are now the second-largest source of mercury emissions to the air, after the combustion of fossil fuels. We know that fossil fuels are and have to be on the way out for other reasons, so the percentage contribution will only rise higher and higher. As has been mentioned, there is the Minamata convention meeting in November, and there is talk of a global phase-out by 2030, led by African countries including Botswana and Burkina Faso. I raised issue with the “cheaper” point. Cost is often cited as the reason why we have to go slower, but countries such as Germany use safer alternatives and the cost is only very marginally higher. If Germany can manage it, surely we can manage it too. It is also important to understand the issue of mercury pollution on a global scale. It is interesting that the African nations are leading at that November convention, because the rise in the price of and demand for gold is also associated with massive increases in mercury pollution around the world. We are used to the idea of blood diamonds; mercury-poisoning gold might not be such a catchy phrase, but it is something we should really be talking about. The risks are particularly acute in the Amazon, as highlighted by the campaigning priest Miguel Ángel Cadenas, who works in Peru. It is also a huge issue in artisan gold mining in Africa, and globally it is estimated to release 800 tonnes of mercury into the air per year. That is nearly 40% of global emissions. These are global emissions; they do not stay where the emissions happen. I point the Minister to a very important study that has just been published in the journal of the European Geosciences Union. We are used to the idea that food crops are being contaminated by taking up mercury from the soil, so the mercury has drifted in dust around the world, settled in the soil and then been taken up. This study has demonstrated, which we have not realised before, that the mercury is being taken in from the air by plants when they photosynthesise. It is going directly into the green, leafy crops that we all need. I put to the Minister that this SI takes Northern Ireland in the wrong direction. More than that, the Government are not taking the steps they need to take for public and environmental health here in the UK and for global One Health.