Chester MP calls for greater biodiversity ambition

The city’s new MP has called on the Government to show more ambition towards nature recovery.

Samantha Dixon MP has used her Westminster Hall debate contributions in Parliament to challenge the Government’s decision making on environmental matters.  

Mrs Dixon was welcomed by fellow MPs when she spoke during her first Westminster Hall debate ‘Bee killing pesticides’ (1^st Feb) and more recently during the ‘Climate Change and Biodiversity’ debate (8^th Feb).  

She used her first debate to criticise the Government’s decision to make an exception to an agreed ban on 'neonicotinoids' for farmers whose sugar beet crops were being threatened in East Anglia. This is the third year in a row that Government has lifted the ban.  

She said: “it is well known that neonicotinoid pesticides can be very harmful to a wide range of insects and invertebrates, including, of course, our beloved bees.   

“The chemicals can be washed into watercourses and can work their way into the food chain.   

“As with most things in nature, there are always the ripple effects of consequences, chain reactions and things interlinked with one another.”  

Mrs Dixon said she backed farmers and was concerned to learn sugar beet farmers were experiencing a difficult time.  

"However, lifting the ban is not the answer. We must find a science-led way forward that protects our bees and safeguards our future biodiversity, but that also includes better support for the farming sector.”

Mrs Dixon highlighted the efforts of Chester Zoo in aiding nature recovery efforts locally, adding: “Neonics can have consequences well beyond their site of application and, if used more widely, can put in danger vital efforts to recover threatened native species, including in my own constituency where Chester Zoo is working hard with partners to create new habitats that encourage bees and other pollinators as part of its nature-recovery corridor in Cheshire.”  

Looking beyond biodiversity issues, Mrs Dixon hailed the work of Chester and Cheshire West organisations in tackling nature recovery more widely.  

She said: “In my constituency, Cheshire West and Cheshire Council, along with local communities, schools, businesses and partners and other organisations, are committed to making Chester a greener city and to building a community that people want and can live in now and in the future.  

“The success of a nature recovery corridor in my constituency, led by community groups and guided by conservation experts, is an excellent example of how this can work in reality.  

“We must see a more ambitious approach to nature recovery, with local communities at its heart.”