Bad news for bees: Government reverses ban on bee-killing neonicotinoids12 January, 2021 18 June, 2024 The Government has bowed to pressure from the National Farmers Union and agreed to authorise the use of the highly damaging neonicotinoid thiamethoxam for the treatment of sugar beet seed in 2021. UPDATE: The Wildlife Trusts strongly oppose this decision and have launched a petition to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson asking him to overturn the decision. Please click here to sign the petition. The Secretary of State, George Eustice, made the decision in response to the potential danger posed from beet yellows virus, despite a similar application being refused in 2018 by the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides because of unacceptable environmental risks. In 2017, the UK Government supported restrictions on the neonicotinoid pesticides across the European Union due to the very clear harm that they were causing to bees and other wildlife. The then Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, promised that the Government would maintain these restrictions unless the scientific evidence changed. The evidence has not changed – indeed, the devastating impact this group of pesticides is having on our wildlife has increased, and hardly a month goes by without yet more evidence of the wider ecological crisis. Academic and author, Professor Dave Goulson, has warned that one teaspoon of neonic is enough to kill 1.25 billion honeybees, equivalent to four lorryloads.