Information Commissioner’s Office rules that Health and Safety Executive must disclose Welsh farmers’ pesticide use records

WildFish is pleased to report that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ruled yesterday that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) must comply with its obligations under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and disclose records of pesticide use by farmers in Wales.

Last year, we asked the HSE to provide farmers’ pesticide use records within a small catchment of the Welsh Dee where our SmartRivers citizen science project identified significant chemical pollution.

Farmers’ pesticide use records are held by farmers on behalf of the HSE under Article 67 of European-derived law that is now assimilated into domestic law.

A Decision Notice was originally issued by the ICO back in November 2024, ordering the HSE to provide information after the HSE argued that they did not hold the records. The HSE then raised a different argument: that the request for information was “manifestly unreasonable” and refused to provide it.

Now, the ICO has ruled that the request was not manifestly unreasonable and has therefore ordered HSE to comply with the request.

Speaking after the decision, Justin Neal, Solicitor at WildFish, said: “Members of the public have a right to see what’s going into our rivers. With this decision, we are helping to open up the filing cabinets of the HSE and forcing it to do its job properly so that the public can be informed and scrutinise these records of pesticide usage”.

WildFish believes that academics, conservation groups and the general public should be able to see what pesticides are used, on what land, and in what quantities, particularly where they end up being washed into streams, lakes and rivers where they affect entire aquatic ecosystems.

Nevertheless, WildFish has had to battle on all fronts. We are currently fighting a parallel case that was appealed to the First Tier Tribunal by the HSE following a request for pesticide use records in Carmarthenshire. That case is set for hearing on December 8, 2025.