Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Debate between Baroness Morris of Bolton and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Report stage
Wednesday 25th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am aware of the time but I have attempted, through this amendment, to find a creative new way of tackling some of the issues that have come up in the Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said quite some time ago, early on, that we have to reassure the public. The noble Lord, Lord Trees, said in the last debate that it is essential to take the public with us. The Minister said that it is essential to build confidence. This amendment seeks a positive way forward. For anyone still worrying about their dinner break, I am not intending to put this to a vote, for the avoidance of doubt, but I want to suggest a way forward for what has clearly been a very difficult Bill with a lot of issues that remain of great concern in your Lordships’ House and more broadly.

On the first group, I spoke about the number of people whom I know are watching the debate at this very moment and feeling very disappointed about what has happened—or rather, not happened. I also refer back to what I said at the start about the scientists who were coming to me saying, “How do we get our knowledge through to the Government? We feel we are just not being heard”, and these are experts in a range of different fields. This is a creative suggestion. I might have included the word “consultation” but, as we have heard in debates on various amendments today, the Government did consult the public and stakeholders and then entirely ignored what they said. It might be said with some justice that what result you will get depends on how you ask the question. Indeed, I think the Minister at some stage referred to a survey saying, “If we can get drought-proof wheat with gene editing, should we go ahead with it?” If you phrase the question that way, you will get a positive result; however, that is not listening to the academic—a proponent of the technology—who said to me this week, “You cannot drought-proof wheat with one genetic change. That is a fact.”

What I am suggesting here is a process of deliberative democracy. This is something that has really taken hold in government departments—not, that I know of, in Defra, but in others—and indeed across the world. Some of the classic examples of deliberative democracy are in Ireland, on equal marriage and on abortion, where the public, when allowed a chance to deliberate and carefully consider the issues, showed themselves to be significantly in front of the politicians. We have seen climate assemblies in the UK— that may have been under Defra; I am not sure what department they were under. We have seen a very effective climate assembly in France. Lots of local government organisations have been having climate assemblies. It is a way of getting people together and getting themselves informed, both the general public and stakeholders.

I borrowed the term “priority setting partnerships” from an organisation called the James Lind Alliance; I did not ask first. I have spoken to people who have been involved in this process, and it is of particular relevance here because it has been used in a significant number of cases to look at how to set priorities and make decisions about ways forward in healthcare. It brings together clinicians, patients and carers in those healthcare settings. My Amendment 28 is a commencement amendment, but I am not going to push it on that basis. My constructive suggestion to the Minister is that, to find a way forward among many of the issues that have really not been resolved in your Lordships’ House, and have not been resolved among scientists, the Government should seek a deliberative process looking at how the regulations are constructed for the Bill. That process could actually get public involvement and engagement, because I guarantee him that there will be a great deal of public concern and public anger about where we have got to today, and public resistance to the products.

That issue is particularly going to arise around whether gene-edited products will be labelled. I could very easily have tabled amendments on this; lots of people asked me to. We debated it extensively in Committee, but I could not see a different way forward and I did not simply want to revisit the Committee debate. However, if we are going to talk to the public about labelling and about what is happening to their food, we know how deep the public’s concern is about food safety, the nature of their food and the way it is produced. I do not need to list all the scandals and the concerns, including genuine health concerns, that have arisen in recent years. This is an area of public concern, so I am suggesting that on regulations, issues such as labelling and many of the things that remain unresolved, the Government should bring together scientists, government officials, experts and the public and seek a way forward that works.

While I remain gravely concerned, for all the reasons I have set out previously about the Bill and what it could unleash, I think there is a very significant chance that this will go nowhere, both because of the legal tangles and the public resistance. If the Government want to find a constructive way forward, I have set out here a way in which they could co-create a model with the public and the experts. That is my genuinely constructive suggestion, and I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, if Amendment 28 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 29 and 30 for reasons of pre-emption.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Baroness Morris of Bolton and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, the arrival of this Bill in the House, slow as it has been, is a huge victory for campaigners—something that must not be forgotten. That a right-wing Government should plan to acknowledge the many ways abuse can occur within the family, not just physical violence, is really radical progress. Recognition of the reality and seriousness of physical violence within the family little predates the start of this century, the early history of which the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, set out. A hashtag sums up my point: #CampaigningWorks.

Victories inspire and encourage. Despite everything else going on, like many other noble Lords have noted, I have seen my inbox fill up quicker with briefings and proposals for improvements to this Bill than any other. That is where I get to the inevitable “but”: this crucial Bill should, and can, be much stronger to address the many issues of inequality, poverty and powerlessness that Covid-19 has exposed and amplified. As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, acknowledged with commendable frankness earlier, previous legislation has been inadequate. We need to get this right.

My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has already addressed many issues and I will not repeat those. Top of my list is “no recourse to public funds”—the immigration status that can effectively trap victims in abusive relationships. Only 5% of refuge places are available to women with “no recourse to public funds” status. The Step Up Migrant Women campaign makes many important points about how abusers can use immigration status and the threat of deportation against their victims. The law, and the Government’s hostile environment, must not be collaborators in domestic abuse. All services must be available without discrimination or danger; that is a fundamental principle of the Istanbul convention.

Another familiar theme is the discriminatory nature of universal credit. As our House expert, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, outlined, its household basis is profoundly dangerous and, of course, its level inadequate. At a minimum, there should be a requirement in the Bill to ensure that separate payments are made by default and advances paid as grants to survivors of domestic abuse. All welfare changes—and the current system—should be assessed for their impact on abuse victims and the possibility of escape, and the obvious problems presented by the benefits cap should be ended.

Employers too, as the TUC stresses, need to have a statutory duty to support affected staff, including provision of a period of paid leave. But the only way to ensure that everybody has the resources they need to escape an abusive relationship is an unconditional payment to meet their needs: a universal basic income.

However, services would still be needed. As Women’s Aid notes, there is a 30% shortfall in the number of refuge spaces, measured against need, and 64% of people referred in 2018-19 had to be turned away. Funding for specialist, dedicated services, both residential and in community, needs to be long term and secure, and guaranteed in the Bill. The market approach, of making effective, in-place services bid again and again for contracts, is enormously wasteful and destructive.

What is also lacking in the Bill is a requirement for all publicly funded services to make trained inquiries into current and historical domestic abuse and sexual violence standard practice, as the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, highlighted. Also, far more needs to be done in the Bill to ensure that family courts are fully aware of, and acting on, the risks and dangers that domestic abusers present. A Ministry of Justice panel concluded that the presumption of contact should be “urgently reviewed”. That has been started, but there is already ample evidence of the need to act. As a mother told that inquiry:

“It is not correct to assume, before investigation, that somebody will further a child’s welfare just because they share his/her genes.”


While we are talking about protecting children, I draw the House’s attention to the so-called “smacking bans” in Scotland and Wales, and note that the Bill could be an ideal opportunity to introduce that to England.

Finally, I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws: moments of change are rare and should be seized.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen.

Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Debate between Baroness Morris of Bolton and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

I thank the Minister for his clear introduction to the statutory instrument, and it is a pleasure to follow the clear expressions of concern of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for green, sustainable change, the need for systems thinking and the joining up of various elements of environmental impacts in understandable ways.

It is clear that now, on 1 December, there is little alternative but to back the statutory instrument. As have so many noble Lords in recent days and weeks, I can only say thank you to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for its clear examination of this and so many other SIs. I note that the committee says that

“this instrument allows qualifying NI goods which meet EU … requirements to be placed on the GB market, even where these requirements may differ from those that will apply in GB after the TP”

and that the instrument will also

“allow products from GB to be placed on the NI market, provisions are made for a UK(NI) mark which will have to accompany all products which have been CE certified by UK bodies and are destined for the NI market.”

The report continues, but I shall stop there. I am thinking particularly about small, independent businesses. Is the Minister confident that they are getting the advice and have the chance to understand these complex, very last-minute arrangements? As he said, this is another change from the 2019 statutory instrument. I am thinking of traders on eBay, perhaps, and similar trading platforms. What contact have the Government had not just with big businesses but such trading platforms, which are these days used by many small traders? They are suffering under the turmoil of Covid and now have this problem, but as we see regulations change and possibly diverge in future, it will only become more complex. There is a need to deal with the next month and the next 12 months, but will support also be in place for the long-term, continuing problems that will inevitably arise?

Both the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, noted that this is a chance to look over where we are with ecodesign. I doubt that many noble Lords can forget the period when these EU regulations were applied—or were mooted—over the past decade or so. It was a tabloid storm. British floors would turn into archaeological assemblages like a slovenly medieval household without 2,000-watt vacuum cleaners. British marmalade would be spread on soggy, white or somehow or other inadequate toast without a huge blast of heat. We would all be breaking our necks on the stairs without incandescent lighting burning up the planet while showing us the way. I wonder whether some of the journalists who were writing that guff then might like to recant now, particularly as, as the Minister noted in his introduction, it had the “terrible” effect of saving households £100 a year, as well as cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Now it seems we are in a different age. The Government have issued a consultation on higher energy standards, improving on EU standards. I can only applaud that. The cleanest, greenest, cheapest energy you can have is the energy you do not need to use. The EU headline energy efficiency target for appliances for 2030 is at least 32.5%. Do the Government have in mind how much they would like to exceed that figure by? I also note that the consultation refers to the possibility of appliances being part of a smart grid. Your freezer might be part of the energy storage system, and there is talk of improving the performance of ovens and stove tops from A to A+, which could save 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.

There is also talk of displaying lifetime energy costs at the point of purchase for a product, plus additional information on the cost of running it and, importantly—this picks up points made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan—how easily it can be repaired, reused and recycled, and how durable it is. Will the Minister consider whether the Government could sign up to the Manchester declaration, also known as the right to repair? We would be talking about an end to planned obsolescence, the creation of a situation where, if any element of an appliance goes wrong, it can be repaired, ideally at home or in a repair cafe, with the parts available when needed and the documentation available to assist the repairer. This is in a context where—I cite a German study from 2015, but I doubt the situation has changed—there was effectively a doubling in the proportion of defective appliances sold from 2004 to 2012, and the number of appliances failing in their first five years of use rose from 7% to 13%. We are talking about a real change towards ensuring that we and our appliances tread lightly on the planet.

We come back to Northern Ireland. Our discussion has already revealed how fast-changing this area is in technology, practice, consumer expectation and the urgent planetary need. The future will surely look back and ask just what we thought we were doing in the past few decades in terms of planned obsolescence. Batteries in a certain brand of popular phone were designed not to be replaced. There is the sheer profligacy of our use of resources. In Northern Ireland, the trading situation the Minister outlined in his introduction means there will be ongoing considerable difficulty. Are the Government ready? Do they have sufficient plans in place to help small business in particular, not just through the inevitable chaos of January and the next 12 months but in the years to come?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester.