Genetically Modified Organisms (Deliberate Release) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Lord Jopling

Monday 14th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, the point of regulation is to balance the benefits and any potential harms of a given process. This SI changes the regulation from a precautionary principle to an American proof of harm, a fundamental change enabled only because we have now left the European Union and are no longer subject to its positions on the precautionary principle. While we had many debates in this House on the then Agriculture Bill and the fact that the Government were maintaining the precautionary principle, we are going to have many debates where the use is very much qualified by the term “proportionate”. This is the first example where we are seeing just how proportionate everyone’s commitment to the precautionary principle is going to be. We can only worry what the Prime Minister’s promised Brexit freedoms Bill will deliver, when we see this being the first instance of what the precautionary principle actually means.

The question is whether the evidence is so overwhelming that it is right that the regulatory framework should be changed. While the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and others point to benefits, of which I am sure there are some, there are also harms. The question therefore is whether the balance is right. In the justification that the Government have given in the Explanatory Memorandum, they cite only ACRE principally as the scientific body. I am not sure that I would go so far as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, in questioning the motives and links of some of the people in ACRE, but it is but one body, and it is clear from the consultation itself that there is not unanimity among that scientific body.

We are signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which is brought together by biological and scientific experts around the world, and they say that, with regard to synthetic biology, nations should take a precautionary approach. The Convention on Biological Diversity says we should take a precautionary approach, yet the Government are saying that we will move to the American model of proof of harm. I notice that the Minister very carefully referred to the Americans but not to the European Union. While some may claim that the Europeans are looking to move, they have not moved yet. They are still fixed on not allowing this form of gene editing and, given that our biggest agricultural market is the European Union, it raises the question of where we are actually going to market these products in the long term.

But I do not want to repeat points that have already been made. I want to make two points. The first is that there is no public mandate for this. The Explanatory Memorandum, which gives figures for how many people respond to the government consultation, makes it absolutely clear that the public are overwhelmingly opposed and businesses are overwhelmingly opposed. The Government are setting off down a track where there is no market in the UK at present—and, as I just said, our biggest agricultural trading partner, if we were to go down this route in the future, does not allow it. So, the Government have a fundamental question to answer: where is their mandate for this?

Equally, if the Government say, as I suspect the Minister will, that they will be consulting with the public on this in the future, it seems odd to me to bring forward the regulatory framework without setting out first how to consult the public. It is as important, if not more important, at this opening stage in this salvo, that the Government are committed to labelling these products, if they are going to end up on the food markets in the future. You should not set off down a track without making a firm commitment to those members of the public who do not want this technology—and, as I said, the majority of people say they do not—that you are going to label this in the future. I would hope the Minister will be able to say in summing up that the Government are committed—if they are prepared to be open to this by changing the regulation today—to labelling. So my first point is around: where is the mandate for this?

My second point is, for me, a really powerful one. In this country, we are committed to environmental justice. We are signatories to the Aarhus convention, which gives members of the public the right to challenge decisions that have gone ahead at all stages in the future. In a democracy, things happen that people do not like, and that is fine. But, in order to be able to undertake that job of challenge, members of the public have to be able to have the information about trials and initiatives. Yet, going through the SI, looking at the prescribed information, I see we are getting away from all this information that used to be provided to the public. All we are going to be asking these companies to provide is the name, address, telephone number and email address of the person with overall responsibility for the project—nothing about the locale or location.

If I was doing my gardening on my allotment—after this SI goes through, as I am sure it will—I might want to find out why some of my crops might be changing their genetic formulation. Forgive me, I did my degree in theology, so my awareness of scientific terms is limited. But the basic point is that if you want to make a challenge, you need to know where it is. Yet under this SI, in the prescribed information, members of the public are not able to know where these are taking place. That seems contrary to our commitments under the Aarhus convention and, more importantly than that, our commitment to allow people to have environmental justice.

If this Government want this to go ahead, they should at least have the decency to allow people who oppose it in the future to have the information at their disposal to make their complaints. The wording in this SI does not give me confidence that people have the right to environmental justice that I think they should have in this country. It is for that reason, principally—although other matters are important too—that this SI fails to give people environmental justice, that I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, I must begin by declaring my interests as a farmer and also by saying to your Lordships that I have some knowledge of the science, in that I have a degree in agriculture. In its final comment, the Select Committee said:

“The draft Regulations are drawn to the special attention of the House on the ground that they are politically or legally important and give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.


I agree with that so much. These are very important issues.

Years ago, soon after becoming a Member of your Lordships’ House, I was a member of a Select Committee chaired by that admirable chairman, the late Lord Reay. We did a study, which lasted for quite some time, on genetic modification. At the end of it, we shone a green light on continued development of the production of genetically modified crops and animals. But we also raised a very strong caveat that we had to be very careful not to go hell-bent on developing this science, because there were so many imponderables in it. The point of our committee’s report was that we ought to do everything we could to encourage the science to find out what was sensible to develop and what was dangerous to develop. One issue that I remember was over salmon, which had not been handled very well and which was dangerous. However, we acknowledged that the importance of genetic modification was something that one had to take very seriously.

Somebody made the point that I have often made, which is that, although some say that genetic modification is just a development of normal breeding, hybrid breeding and so on, it is not. Somebody—I forget who—made the point that this is the first time that we have been able as scientists to cross an elephant with an oak tree, putting it to its extremes. This is the first time that one could think of doing that, and so it is very important. Genetic modification could be crucial in dealing with some of the horrors which could lie ahead of us, of increasing world population, and of water shortage and climate change causing difficulties in food production. We are back to Malthus here. Genetic modification could become a very important tool in combating the possibilities—not the probabilities—of world starvation in the future.

I remember very well that, when I first became Minister of Agriculture, years ago in the 1980s, a very distinguished scientist told me that one of the great breakthroughs would be the possibility, through genetic engineering, of being able to amalgamate wheat with the capabilities of legume crops, which as we know extract nitrogen from the air, like clovers and other plants. The wheat itself could then extract nitrogen from the air. That was a possibility. It has not worked, but it is an example of what might have worked and might possibly work in the future. It is only science that will take us this way, and that is why these regulations are important and helpful. As my noble friend the Minister said, this encourages the scientists to develop these possibilities.