Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I rise more to inquire than to support particular amendments. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Winston, for tabling his amendments. I imagine that they are probing amendments, and that is the spirit in which I wish to address them. I declare that I am an honorary associate of the British Veterinary Association, and I am grateful to it for the briefing that it has given today.

The first question I put to the Minister for my better understanding is what the difference is between cloning an animal and gene-editing an animal or animal product. I did not follow it that closely, but I was very proud that my alma mater, Edinburgh University, was the first university in the world, I understand, to clone an animal—Dolly the sheep. However, it was not entirely successful as I understand she had a very short life. Obviously, one has to ask whether the reason for her curtailed life was that she had been cloned and not produced in a normal way.

The BVA brief that I have received today states:

“Prioritisation of animal health and welfare is essential, as is the use of adequate product labelling to enable transparency and consumer choice”—


I know we will come to those amendments in a different group. In particular, the BVA states, and I support this:

“Breeding and genetic modification must be used in an ethically responsible way to improve animal health and welfare, increase efficiency, and support sustainable agriculture.”


It goes on:

“The Bill is misleading and proposing deregulation based on the incorrect premise that ‘traditional breeding’ results in characteristics which can be assumed ‘safe’, and therefore gene-edited organisms which produce the same outcome are also ‘safe’. This ignores the potential for mutations.”


The Bill has “precision breeding” in its title, but this group of amendments goes to the fact that it can never be precise, because we can never be sure of the consequences, so perhaps it should be called the “imprecise breeding” Bill.

The reason that I am tempted to support a number of amendments in this group, particularly Amendment, 1 is the very fact that it states that,

“‘directed bred organism’” means a directed bred plant or a directed bred animal.”

It is important to understand in what way that plant or animal has been directed and that there is scope for an imprecise outcome, an unexpected outcome. As the noble Lord, Lord Winston, for whom I am full of awe and praise, with his widespread knowledge and, even more, his experience, said, we could be creating something of which we cannot control the outcome. I am not saying that I stand in the way of that, but I would like better to understand what it is.

There was a news story last night about a little girl whose cancer had not been cured until they came up with a gene-editing formula. They edited genes and implanted them in her, and it looks as though she may now have a cure. However, we are at the very early stage of these procedures, as I understand it, and I believe that there is some sympathy still for the view that the European Union took, which is widely criticised in this House and the other place. Probably the reason that the European Union and its institutions overreacted was the widespread fear among consumers. I think that fear is still there. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, has tabled a number of amendments which we will deal with in another group and with which I have a degree of sympathy. As I said at Second Reading, if this procedure, this form of breeding is so good, why can we not be told about it on labelling? Why should consumers have the barrier of having to go to a register? With those few remarks, I support the thinking behind some of the amendments in this group.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for not being present at Second Reading. I had a hospital appointment and, having waited some time for it, did not want to postpone it for what could have been another three months. I did, however, watch the debate on Parliament TV and will make a short contribution.

The noble Lord, Lord Winston, made a very valuable and knowledgeable contribution in seeking clarification on the definitions within the Bill. It is important that we all understand completely what the Government mean by the various terms and what the outcomes will be, especially if there are likely to be unintended consequences. It is the role of this Chamber to ensure that there are no unintended consequences or mutations in the future, and that the quality of life for any animal so produced needs to be good. That was not the case with Dolly the sheep. It is important that the phrases used in the Bill are easily understood by those who will affected by its implementation. As the noble Lord, Lord Winston, said, the results of previous debates on GMOs received a bad press, which did the science no favours at all.

In Amendment 86, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, also seeks clarification. She wishes the Title of the Bill to be changed so that the somewhat anodyne phrase “Precision Breeding” would be replaced by “Genome Editing”. I have sympathy with this proposed alteration, as I believe that phrase is more accurate and more likely to be easily understood by the public than “Precision Breeding”. The Bill is, after all, intended to modify and edit the genome of plants in a shorter timeframe than would normally happen. Being married to an aeronautical engineer, for me, and possibly others, a phrase such as “precision engineering” conjures up an entirely different picture than the thrust and purpose that the Bill has. I look forward to the Minister’s response to this short group of amendments, which sets the tone for the rest of our debate today.