Sir, – Bashing EU regulations is the favourite pastime of many. However, seeking to mislead and distort public opinion for the sake of a few cheap headlines is not a game – it’s deadly serious.

I’ve watched with growing anxiety as a well-meaning but misguided movement, whipped up by tawdry anti-European demagoguery, has built up against the proposed biocides directive, on the issue of rat poison.

As usual, the debate is more complicated than that being publicised. Anticoagulants, used in rodenticides, is nasty, horrible stuff. For example, the European impact assessment for difenacoum says it “poses an unacceptable risk for primary and secondary poisoning of birds and other non-target mammals.”

Furthermore, it is also “very toxic by inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed.” This is not something we should be using unless absolutely necessary and we should be encouraging the chemical companies to invest in research into safer alternatives, by restricting the temptation to make indiscriminate use of what is currently available.

I appreciate that, at this stage, a complete ban on essential rodenticides for control efforts, is not necessarily on the cards, and I don’t believe that the Parliament will vote to ban them.

Indeed, the legislation which is actually on the table states quite clearly that certain anticoagulants can be used if “it is shown that the active substance is necessary to control a serious danger to public health”, while placing strict conditions on their use.

I think this strikes a good compromise: it will restrict casual use of these repulsive substances, while leaving enough leeway to tackle genuine threats to public health. Many of these poisons have been phased out over the last few years anyway. All this talk of “bubonic plagues” is so much Tory hot air.

European public health legislation is a serious business, and we need serious people to discuss and debate this, to achieve the right results for our citizens: not irresponsible scaremongering by vested interests.

Alyn Smith

MEP