Fears that towns and cities could be overrun by a plague of rats have been calmed after MEPs defeated EU plans to ban the use of killer chemicals. Pest control experts had warned that European Commission proposals to severely restrict anticoagulant rodenticides could lead to an explosion in Britain’s rat population.

But changes in the draft law were made after Tameside MEP Chris Davies brought together EU officials and industry advisors to discuss its implications.

And now he has helped secure the defeat in the European Parliament of attempts by Green MEPs to have the most widely used product immediately taken off the market.

The new law on the use of biocides now looks set to restrict future use of the highly toxic rodenticides to pest control professionals, but EU governments will each have flexibility to determine how the rules will be applied.

Chris Davies said the products used to kill rats were “nasty, cruel, but sometimes necessary.”

“These chemicals kill in a horrible way. If pet animals were treated like this there would be public outrage, but because the targets are rats and not cats the complaints are rare.”

The law will encourage pest controllers to try and find less cruel ways to deal with the problem of rat infestation, but if this is impossible the rodenticides will still be available.

Final details of the new law are still to be determined but the MEP said that so far it had proved a good example of the way in which the EU law-making process is supposed to work, but sometimes does not.