Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Debate between Lord Winston and Lord Sentamu

Committee stage
Monday 12th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

Seeing as my name has been mentioned, perhaps I ought to speak. I thought we were still on the two previous amendments. The difficulty I have with this is that Amendment 21 is really a continuation of Amendment 20, and Amendments 22 and 23 follow logically.

Let me just deal very quickly with this. Basically, what we are talking about here is the release of organisms into the environment, and the proof that we have done to those organisms what we what we said we were going to do. Of course, that particularly means looking at the phenotype of the animal, whether it is a normal animal and therefore not suffering in any kind of way, and at whether the editing has changed the genome in a way that is unexpected. Of course, the Minister mentioned off-target mutations, but that is only one thing that can occur with gene editing. Once the DNA is on a double-stranded split and there is a gap there, you can actually introduce foreign DNA—even human DNA; whatever is floating around in the laboratory. When we are doing very careful work in the lab with genetic material, we have to be scrupulously clean of the flow hoods and so on. Those things need to be considered, because they would be part of what is seemingly a simple procedure, but in reality there are really quite difficult safeguards. What I am really asking is whether the Government intend that there be some form of sequencing to see whether there have been mistakes, or some form of examining the genome of the animals after we have done the work required.

To my mind, there are two issues here. One, of course, is the need to get better data on the effect of the gene editing, wherever it is done, and, in particular, of gene editing in general. That will help the research. If we really want to promote a market, we need to show that we are what we promised to be: a leading scientific organisation in this country, doing this sort of stuff at the top level. That is important. The other issue, of course, is protecting the environment. Clearly, release of organisms that turn out to be not what we expect, and which would have the ability to produce progeny, is risking things further. That is basically the reason for all these amendments, but Amendment 21 expresses my main concern: to ensure that we have done what we promised to do, and if we have not, to find what went wrong so that we can deal with it.

The primary question of privacy of the information has to be discussed by us, but it is deliberately not in this amendment at the moment. There are pros and cons for doing that. There does not necessarily have to be openness, but there must be a proper register of the information. We may well not get the work done if we do not have complete confidentiality, although science is never done best when it is confidential. On the whole, openness has been described, in the general information about the Bill, to be an issue in it, and transparency is a word mentioned by the Government. In the interest of transparency, this amendment may be required.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, when I practised law before I started practising law and grace together, I was of the view that any lawyer enshrines into legislation an agreed public policy. Here, the public policy in Amendment 19 to Clause 3 is that really, if you are to develop these organisms, they must be

“for or in connection with one or more of the following purposes”.

The purposes are explained. The Minister has to work out clearly what the public policy is that he is trying to enshrine here, because any general knows that it is no good launching out into a battle when there are no soldiers coming behind you. One of those purposes here is to try to help the public to understand why this is being done. It is not just for money—although that, of course, is important—and it is not just because we think that science has developed and there is no control over it. At the end of the day, it is about the fact that we want to get our purposes to work out and progress. I hope that the Minister will see this as helpful in stating what the public policy is, why this is being done, and what areas may in future be brought into being.

Of course, I regret that the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, was stuck in Scotland and therefore could not be here, because, under Clause 3, if all those things that are supposed not to be let out are let out, what will be the sanction?