Engineering Biology (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I too was pleased to have been a member of the committee that produced this report on an important issue that was so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge. I declare my environmental and higher education interests, as listed in the register.

I shall touch on two issues that may not have been touched on by others. First, our report emphasised the need to scale up, and scale up fast, if we are not to lose our place in world markets. There has been a range of estimates of what size of scale-up is possible, but it is not clear from many of them on what basis that has been calculated. One could say that visionary—but perhaps on occasions rather wild—claims are made about engineering biology replacing, for example, all fossil fuel-based materials, which would be a massive transformation.

We have not yet seen enough examination of what it is that is being engineered. What are the feedstocks? It is clear that our ability to depend on feedstocks grown or produced in this country is to some extent limited, particularly for those feedstocks that rely on production on the land. The Government have just finished consulting on a land use framework for England, which was needed to ensure that wiser choices are made about competing land uses. Engineering biology would be another competing pressure for land on a huge scale, if some of the visionary ways forward were made reality. That is land that is finite on this small island. Of course, major growth in engineering biology could potentially take up the whole harvestable land surface, which will be in competition with food security, timber supplies, biodiversity, housing, the view—practically any other land use that you care to mention, and I name but a few.

Importing feedstocks on a substantial scale would also pose challenges. It could leave us subject to external shocks, as we have seen already in recent years. Alternative sources of feedstocks lie in the materials that we already use being repurposed as part of the circular economy. That may, for some engineering biology activities, be a fairly secure and valuable part of our use of materials at the moment, but we need to see the circular economy strategy so we can judge whether it takes into account the potential of engineering biology and takes it forward as part of the circular economy scene.

Since the Government have not yet commissioned an analysis of feedstocks and their sourcing, I ask my noble friend the Minister whether they will now do so, taking account of those three sources: homegrown, imported and circular economy-based feedstocks. Otherwise, if securing those feedstocks is not part of what they are trying to do, it simply looks as though the Government are not serious about upscaling. Can the Minister tell us when we will see the circular economy strategy? Will it deal with the feedstock issue?

If substantial land-based feedstocks are envisaged, Natural England should be included in the regulatory arrangements to ensure that land use and biodiversity impacts are not forgotten, as they were in the GMO debate, during which I was proud to be on the opposite side of the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, in his new regulatory role, is listening. Natural England is not currently a member of the Engineering Biology Regulators Network.

My last point, which I have 20 seconds to deal with, concerns the lack of a reliable process internationally for the screening of sequences of concern, and potential misuse of the technology. We have had guidance, but guidance is not enough. The Government said that they would consider putting screening on a statutory footing. What is the timescale of this consideration? What steps are we taking to develop international consensus on the need for screening for sequences of concern?