Gene Editing: Agriculture and Medicine

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

As we have discussed, there is huge potential regarding illnesses such as HIV. Clinical trials of gene therapies involving gene editing are still at an early stage, and are receiving support from the National Institute for Health Research. Any applications that go beyond the experimental and research stage would inevitably have to go through the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency regarding safety and clinical potential. So the right system exists, investment is taking place at the early stage of research and before anything is done to any scale, it must be subject to the proper discussion and scrutiny.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, as the Minister said, we have an enormously strong agriculture and genetic technology science base in this country. While this is not a magic bullet for food production, it could be a very important weapon in our armoury for meeting the world population’s future food needs. Given that, will he undertake that centres like the John Innes Centre in Norwich will continue to receive government support to develop genetic technology in agriculture, within a strong and ethical regulatory framework?