Gene Editing

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, like all other noble Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Bakewell for securing this debate. From listening to today’s thoughtful contributions and my own preparation, it is clear that the 2020s and beyond could be touted as the decade for genome editing.

When I was studying for my O-level in biology at the Ardrossan Academy in the mid-1980s, I remember thinking whether I would ever in later life need to know about deoxyribonucleic acid and the building blocks of adenine, cytosine, guanine and thiamine and how their pairing created a double helix of DNA. I now know that it was of great use.

This year’s Wolf Prize in Medicine was awarded to, as we heard earlier, Professors Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier for their discovery of the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9. The Wolf Foundation stated:

“This transformative technology has the potential to … revolutionize the fields of genetics, molecular biology and medicine.”


By acting as molecular scissors, CRISPR allows scientists to tweak, change or remove genes at a specific location. Doudna said:

“Over the next decade, researchers will continue to advance the use of CRISPR … to treat and in some cases cure diseases, develop more nutritious crops, and eradicate infectious disease.”


Obviously, this is an exciting time for those working in this field but, as noble Lords have mentioned, consideration must be given to the oversight of this science to protect people and society from any possible negative and unintended consequences. As Doudna stressed:

“We must work to ensure that the technology is responsibly applied to allow it to reach its potential and benefit millions”.


The process of genome editing can, as we have heard, lead to biological, medical and environmental benefits. This technology has the potential to help, treat and prevent human diseases. Illnesses such as heart disease and Alzheimer’s could be cured through genome editing. It also has the potential to deal with hereditary diseases.

This technology has also been trialled on food to determine whether it can help farming and crop resilience. Genome editing can, potentially, significantly improve the UK’s environmental footprint. The Commons Health Select Committee stated that the Government should

“require UK Research and Innovation to closely monitor the development of genome editing for potential obstacles to innovation”.

Can the Minister explain what steps the UKRI has taken to follow these recommendations?

In agriculture, genetic editing is seen by some as the answer to farming sustainability and crop resilience. The World Resources Institute has said that genetic modification is the key to feeding a growing global population in the face of warmer weather and scarcer water supplies. However, the effects of human interventions are not always predictable and food standards could be threatened. Like many other noble Lords who received it, I found that the National Pig Association’s briefing raised some interesting points in relation to this issue. It stated:

“We do not see this technology being the sole solution to the efficiency of pig production in the UK, but we recognise that it will be an important part of the solution.”


We all know that the US has a more relaxed approach to GM food and, although on a slightly different tract, Professors Erik Millstone and Tim Lang have said that accepting products such as hormone-treated beef would be an “unnecessary and unacceptable risk” just to secure a future trade deal. Can the Minister outline the Government’s thinking on GM food in relation to any future trade deals?

The Prime Minister has called for the bioscience sector to be liberated from the rules against GMOs, as we heard from the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, and the Conservative Party’s manifesto stated that it would implement science-led policy to improve the quality of food, agriculture and land management. Science led, yes, but where do ethics and moral issues sit within that?

Clearly, this is one area in which the Government want to go it alone after Brexit, but it is not enough just to give the green light from No 10. We need a strong regulatory framework for this science to be ethically and commercially available. I agree with my noble friend Lord Winston that regulation alone is not enough; scientific co-operation will also be necessary.

So, as much as the benefits of genome editing could of great help to many of us, the Government need to ensure they do not get ahead of themselves and consider all factors in genome editing before they continue moving on these medical practices. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned, in 2019 the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced ambitions to see all children receive whole genome sequencing at birth. I agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle and the comments of the British Society for Genetic Medicine, who advised that this could prove to be problematic as

“the genetic code of a healthy newborn will only rarely predict future disease accurately”—

again, an issue touched on by my noble friend Lord Winston. The BSGM later stated:

“Such a venture therefore needs to be carefully researched, and the ethical and societal aspects require careful consideration before roll-out to the general population.”


As my noble friend Lady Bakewell mentioned in her introductory remarks, in July 2018 the Nuffield Council on Bioethics published findings from an independent inquiry on the social and ethical use of genomic editing in human reproduction. This inquiry concluded that genome editing could only be deemed ethically acceptable on humans if two principles are satisfied. The first principle is that the interventions are intended to secure, and are consistent with, the welfare of the newborn child who may be born consequently to this practice. The second principle is that these interventions would uphold the principle of social justice and should not provoke social division, marginalise or disadvantage groups within society. Do the Government agree with these principles? If so, what have they done so far, and what will they continue to do, to ensure that these two vital principles are consistently met?

So, like my warning to my children when they were younger—do not run while holding scissors—I encourage the Government to do the same, even if those scissors are molecular scissors rather than tangible ones.