Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill (Third sitting)

Clive Lewis Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 30th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Deidre Brock]

Q Which might be?

Professor Whitelaw: Craig might be able to answer this more clearly, but depending on the species, that might be breed books or production systems, which would be embedded within the companies or with different nations.

Dr Lewis: We should be very aware here that there is a species component to that. When we start thinking of cattle, for historical reasons, there is a very strong traceability element through the cattle chain. However, if we look at the pig industry in the UK, it is more done on a—shall we say—lot basis. For example, normal practice in the UK pig industry is to use pulled semen at a commercial level for a terminal sire, so even within a litter, you might have three or sires represented. That is today, so an individual animal traceability in the UK pig industry today does not really exist. When we answer the question on traceability and what exists today, that is very species-specific, rather than “This is the livestock sector.”

Professor Whitelaw: This is the basis of all of my thinking. We are using these tools to create precision changes to the genome—changes that can happen naturally. There is no difference between those two. There is a difference in how they arise; one is because we choose to target a specific DNA sequence and change it, and the other is just a random lottery that evolution throws up. However, from the animal’s perspective, and I would argue from our perspective, in how we look at these animals, it is just a genetic variation that exists. There is no difference. Going to the traceability question, why and what are you tracing?

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

Q I know you do not deal with IP, but if it is a natural occurrence, why is IP applicable? Surely, it is not invention; it is a genetic coding. I am just keen to know why you feel you then have the right to impose intellectual property rights on something that, as you are arguing to us, is naturally occurring. Yet, you will impose intellectual property, I would imagine, to be able to make a profit. I am finding a logical failing there. That is just to put that one out there, and maybe you can come back on to that.

We have been dealing with crops so far, and we have now moved on to animals. I must admit that I am now beginning to struggle with this slightly. We are not talking about plants but about sentient animals, and about genetic modifications to them.

The thing I have been reading about PRDC—porcine respiratory disease complex—is that part of it comes down to environmental and conditioning factors. There are obviously some pig farmers, for example, who keep their animals in better conditions than others, but many do not. Even when you keep your animals in optimal condition, there are certain conditions that they are kept in that will encourage that disease.

My question is on behalf of the millions of people who are increasingly becoming vegan or vegetarian. We are now introducing genetic editing to enable us to keep those animals in sometimes quite horrific conditions. It is for this disease at the moment, but what is to say that exploitation of these animals is not going to only deepen? Now we can keep these animals knee deep in their own crap—sorry, Ms McVey—and we can edit their genes so they can survive in those conditions. That is how some people will see this and that is how much of the public will see it. Can you give me some reassurance that that is not going to happen? When profit is the bottom line, I see these animals becoming more robust and able to live in ever-more extreme and difficult conditions.

Dr Rice: Perhaps I can jump in. If you have read about PRRS virus, you will probably know that it is actually not dependent on conditions. Animals in the wild, as well as animals in production, all get sick. What actually happens on farms today is that farmers have to install multimillion filtration systems—because viruses are airborne—to filtrate outside air through very complicated filtration systems so that viruses cannot get into the farm. So it actually has nothing to do with the conditions.

[Clive Lewis]

I disagree with that. I am reading a peer review paper here—

[The Chair]

Allow the witness to finish.

Dr Rice: It is a reality today and you are welcome to visit those farm centres. I visited one two weeks ago, and I just want to tell you that when we are talking about conditions, I was at the farm and the animals looked beautiful. At the same farm, the owner was telling me that two months ago, he was walking into a room full of dead piglets. Why did that happen? It was because the mother got PRRS virus and it killed all her not-yet-born piglets and they were born dead. So when you walk into this room and see all the crates covered with dead bodies, it is actually very impactful on people’s minds and everything. People suffer mentally seeing those pictures. We have an ability to prevent that. It seems a little strange that we would say no, that they would have to continue to suffer like that, even though we have a tool to give them to completely avoid those types of situations for those poor animals. No, they are not maintained in very bad conditions; they are properly farmed. There are rights on those farms, I would say, but again, all the pigs are getting that and the main biosecurity precaution today is to prevent air from outside from bringing the virus to the farm.

Dr Lewis: I appreciate your questions and concerns, Mr Lewis. Let us just step back. First and foremost, I have the privilege of travelling the world and working with pig farmers all over the world. First and foremost, the UK should be very proud of its tradition of animal welfare and the UK farming sector’s animal welfare standards. If I look at the most extensive and intensive systems here in the UK, both equally get PRRS virus. I struggle with that in many conversations with vets all over the UK. Really, the system does not dictate whether—

[Clive Lewis]

Q Can I make one point on that? I have to speak on behalf of many people in this country who would make the point that if you did not have animals as foodstuffs or even believe that we can keep them as pets—there are many people who think that; maybe not millions, but plenty—the fact that you are keeping them for the sole purpose of benefiting human beings, either as foodstuffs or for other products that they can create, is in itself part of the problem. I am just putting that down there. There is obviously a growing number of people who are becoming vegetarian and vegan with the climate crisis and so on who increasingly believe that. Now we are moving into a new phase of gene editing and all that comes with that.

Dr Lewis: I was just coming to that point. This is a conversation that I have actively had. I have had the privilege of being in a couple of public dialogues with Peter Nuffield. There is a great debate about where animal welfare, farming systems and the food system are in the UK today, but I do not think it is directly relevant to this Bill. If we say that animal welfare needs to change, we already have robust legislation and codes of practice for the UK on what animal welfare should look like and what the standards are. The debate about whether they should move or not is about the animal welfare legislation, and I believe it should be part of a public consultation.

Considering that that legislation is already in place, whether we have genome edited animals or not does not change how many animals we put in the pen; that is dictated by a separate piece of legislation. Just saying that we are going to have gene editing so that we can put more animals in the pen—

[Clive Lewis]

But here is my question—

[The Chair]

Mr Lewis, we are straying from the topic. I have to stop you because I have three other Members who want to remain on topic—Kerry, Andrew Bowie and Katherine Fletcher. We will move on because we have strayed off the topic. I have been very patient and I did let it go on for a little while.

--- Later in debate ---

[Deidre Brock]

Thank you.

[Clive Lewis]

Q Mr Stevenson, if you could change the Bill, what are the key changes you would make? For example, do you agree ethically with the plant component of the Bill, in terms of gene editing plants, but not the animal side? You have talked about some of the changes that will need to be made on welfare and about putting the farmer, or whoever it is, in the driving seat with the changes you talked about just now. I am keen to know if you make a distinction between plant gene editing and animal gene editing. Does the Bill go far enough in the revisions that it makes to deal with gene editing of animals, or do you want to throw it out completely?

Dr Mills, on gene edited exports, one presumes that once this biotechnology is achieved, it does not make a difference what welfare rights we have in this country for animals. A big part of the Bill is giving British biotechnology the ability to get out in front on this, and we could then sell that technology to other countries that have much lower animal welfare standards. Is that a concern?

Peter Stevenson: I do not know enough about plants to give a proper opinion. When it comes to the animal side, as I said earlier, there are a few cases in which I think gene editing could be beneficial, but ideally I would like to see animals removed from the Bill and much more thought given to how gene editing is going to be used and what protections should be there before legislation is introduced.

For example, the arguments that gene editing can be beneficial in terms of disease resistance have been overstated. Yes of course, if you are looking at diseases that have nothing to do with the way animals are being kept, gene editing for disease resistance can be helpful, but the science is absolutely clear that many diseases stem from keeping animals in intensive conditions. Very specifically, the crowded, stressful conditions in intensive livestock production can lead to the emergence, the spread and the amplification of pathogens. Gene editing should not be used to tackle such diseases. These diseases should be addressed by keeping animals in better conditions. There is a very real danger that if you gene edit for resistance to diseases that primarily result from keeping animals in poor conditions, that could lead to animals being kept in even more crowded, stressful conditions, because they may be resistant to the diseases that are inherent in such conditions.

Having said all that, I suspect Government isn’t about to drop animals from the Bill. I have talked about how the Bill should be strengthened in terms of giving a stronger central role to the welfare advisory body, but it also needs to be strengthened in setting out what that body should be looking at. The Bill is very unusual. Usually primary legislation provides more definition.

For example, the welfare advisory body should be looking for things like a piece of gene editing aimed at animals growing faster or providing higher yields, and asking, “Has this caused a problem for animals that have been selectively bred for such purposes?” If it has, it should be very careful and look at whether that is likely to happen with gene edited animals. It should also be asked to look at whether the desired objective of the gene editing could have been achieved in less intrusive ways. An awful lot more thought needs to be given to the use of gene editing in animals.

I will add one point. It is more than 50 years since Ruth Harrison’s book “Animal Machines” first alerted us to the dangers of intensive livestock farming, yet gene editing is doing exactly that: treating animals as machines that can be fine-tuned to make them a bit more convenient for us. The Bill sits at considerable odds with the recent Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 that regards animals as sentient beings. The two do not mesh.

Dr Mills: To pick up on what Mr Stevenson said and to clarify, the Nuffield Council certainly sees many benefits in genome editing as applied to animals. Unlike perhaps a number of other commentators on the issue, we does not see genome editing as necessarily being the last resort. We recognise that, in some cases, there are social conditions that are every bit as intractable as the biology of animals; indeed, given the technologies that are becoming available to us, the biology of animals is perhaps more tractable. Our way of approaching this is to treat those things symmetrically and to consider in what way different interventions might promote a just, healthy and sustainable food and farming system, taking into account the interests of the people and animals that are dependent on that system.

You asked about the technology being sold to countries that have lower animal welfare standards than the UK. I am very happy to live in the UK, a country that does respect animal welfare. Of course, the science and the technology are very easily translated across national and jurisdictional boundaries, but that really is an argument for the governance of breeding according to purposes. It should be consistent with the purpose of securing safe, just and sustainable food and farming systems. A technology can be applied in any number of contexts, and one cannot necessarily control them all. However, if you set out in the right direction, you have a much better chance of arriving at a desirable destination.

Dr Campbell: Chair, may I comment on that?