Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Anthony Browne Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I want to speak in support of the Bill. Anyone who comes to the rural idyll of South Cambridgeshire and sees the fields of golden wheat, yellow rapeseed and barley swaying in the wind, or indeed goes and sees the cattle herds in the south-west of England or the sheep in the north, might think that that was agricultural produce as nature gave it to man—and woman, no doubt— but that is not the case. Since agriculture was invented 10,000 years ago, people have consistently bred the plants and animals they have been given, and those plants and animals have changed incredibly over the last 10,000 years. For example, there is very little in common visually between a chicken and the south Asian jungle fowl that it came from. All of that breeding was done by the natural mutation that happens randomly in nature, and most of those mutations are mistakes and do not get used.

We now have the technology to speed that up. We have radiation breeding, which various colleagues have talked about, where we speed up the mutation and do not just rely on the random happenstance of nature. We now have precision breeding, and gene editing in particular. We have the technology to do that, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) went into detail about how it works. This technology has huge advantages, but we cannot use it because it is banned by the EU and we inherited that legislation. This Bill is clearly designed to allow us to do it.

This is a huge issue in my constituency. It is not just that I have a lot of farmers; I also have a lot of plant breeders who are chomping at the bit to use this technology, and a lot of genetic companies. South Cambridgeshire is the genetics capital of Europe, and there is huge interest in this there. There are lots of advantages to it that many of my colleagues have mentioned. There is a win for food security as it will enable us to have greater crop yields. There is also a win for the environment because we can use fewer pesticides and fertilisers and there will be less demand on water resources, which is a big thing in South Cambridgeshire.

The technology also benefits humans, as colleagues have mentioned. For example, the Japanese tomatoes that are on sale at the moment will reduce blood pressure, there are US soya beans with less saturated fat, and there are less carcinogenic amino acids in wheat. All of those are benefits. It can bring benefits to animals, too, by ensuring chickens are immune to avian flu and pigs are immune to swine flu, but we need to make sure that this is not used in any way to reduce animal welfare standards—I strongly support the Secretary of State’s assurance that we will not compromise on animal welfare standards as a result of this Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) mentioned the industry’s concern that part 3 of the Bill means the Food Standards Agency will require a full risk assessment for food and feed, as if it is a genetically modified organism with genetics from two different species, rather than the traditional breeding approval process. This adds time, cost and uncertainty. The developers and breeders will not know if their crop will be improved at the end, so the measure will damage investment in the sector.

Such decisions should be based on science and evidence. The Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, Health Canada, and the European Food Safety Authority agree that there is no difference between the risk profiles of traditionally bred strains and precision-bred strains, and therefore there should be no difference in the approval process. They are, in essence, exactly the same. It is impossible to tell the difference between them.

The irony is that, by gold-plating in this way, we risk ending up with a more restrictive regime than the EU’s regime. This is meant to be a Brexit opportunity, but it could end up with the EU taking the lead. A few amendments may be needed but, with that caveat, I strongly commend the Bill to the House.