Agriculture Bill

Earl of Lindsay Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, as I have listened to this debate my speech has got shorter and shorter. If ever there was a person ringing a bell and saying: “Press officer beware”, it is my noble friend Lord Greaves. I find myself strongly agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Randall, who said that the Government are getting into trouble here. Will they please do as the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, said and honour their own manifesto? That is all we are really asking for, and any of these amendments would take steps towards making sure that we know the standards are there.

It is an old cliché that we trust this Minister implicitly but the one who follows him could be the devil incarnate. However, the closest we get to binding anybody to anything is to put it in to law, even though, ultimately, it can be changed. If we do not get something on the face of the Bill—and I cannot see any other bit of legislation it could go into—there is no other way of at least making the Government stand up and say: “Yes, we are changing it because …” That is what this is about.

I hope that the Minister is taking this on board. As my noble friend Lord Greaves also said, there will be ping-pong; a backhand, a forehand and the odd smash might be involved in this one. The House could get involved in a long discussion, asking the Government to honour their own manifesto commitment. I would not have thought any Government would want that.

[The Earl of Lindsay (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I share the concerns about how standards will be maintained when negotiating new trade agreements and therefore, in principle, support what many of the amendments in this group are trying to achieve. In that context, I welcome the establishment by the DIT and Defra of the new Trade and Agriculture Commission. However, at the same time, I strongly support the important point made by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering and the noble Lords, Lord Curry of Kirkharle, Lord Cameron of Dillington and Lord Krebs, and others. A trade standards commission needs to be more than a temporary body with a six-month lifespan. It should be a permanent body with a continuing and influential role in any and all future trade negotiations, as is the United States International Trade Commission, among other examples.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Lindsay [V]]

My Lords, as vice-chair of the APPG on Science and Technology in Agriculture, I believe that the Bill is a timely opportunity for the Government to consult on and thereafter create the option in future to oversee and regulate precision-breeding tools such as new gene-editing technologies. I therefore fully support the amendment and agree with everything said so far in its support. I also note the wide support that the amendment has attracted from reputable institutions across the UK, in mainland Europe and elsewhere in the world.

It is universally accepted that agriculture and food production must become more sustainable in a world that faces considerable challenges from climate change, environmental degradation and an increasing and more affluent global population. Most would accept that we need to be more innovative if we are to reduce the dependency on pesticides and fertilisers and tackle biodiversity loss while at the same time providing food that is sufficient, nutritious, sustainable and affordable.

The new generation of precision-breeding tools, properly regulated, would make a major contribution to delivering these vital objectives. It would be a step change in our ability to deliver a more sustainable, productive and climate-resistant agriculture. Finally, it would also align with the regulatory stance of other countries around the world whose scientists, breeders, farmers and consumers already benefit from access to these valuable precision-breeding technologies.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone [V]]

My Lords, I have rather drawn the short straw in being the first speaker to disagree with the rather stellar line-up promoting Amendment 275. I have huge trepidation in doing that because all noble Lords who have spoken so far are people whose views I hugely respect and who have the best possible motives.

I have listened very carefully to what they have said and remain pretty concerned about any loosening of the regulation of gene-edited crops. I shall not talk about health issues and the health impact, but will focus on the environmental issues associated with gene-edited crops. I was chairman of English Nature at the time that this was giving the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, scars in the late 1990s and I was on the opposite side from him then, but I hope that the noble Lords who have spoken so far will not dismiss my arguments as emotional. I am talking about science as much as they are, and I would be disappointed if that were dismissed as Luddism. One of the failures of this debate to date, as it was 20 years ago, is that it immediately starts polarising, opposing voices are demonised and there is a sense of battle lines being drawn up. That is something that we should not repeat.

There is no doubt that there may be benefits from gene-edited crops that would be hugely valuable in the face of growing world populations and climate change. Some have already been talked about, including high yields, increased nutritional content, greater proof against drought, pests and extreme weather, less use of land and less application of fertilisers, but there are undoubtedly well-evidenced down sides as well. Let me go through those that bear weight with me. First, there is the undeniable issue that once gene-edited species have been released, that is irreversible and if there are any consequential ill effects, they cannot then be put back in the bottle. So this is important and tricky stuff. Secondly, there is the possibility of gene flows taking place between crops and close wild relatives. The impacts of that, which may be unforeseen, need to be carefully taken into account. Thirdly, and I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on this one, producing insect-resistant crops is not just stopping the insects eating the crops; it will have an impact on the biomass of insects in just as dramatic a way as killing insects with pesticides. We have to think about what is happening to our insect populations if many of our crops are to be developed with insect resistance. That is their food source. Fourthly, although gene-editing tools are coming on by leaps and bounds, even CRISPR and the like are not yet as precise as is claimed and there is substantial research evidence of unforeseen changes in other parts of the genome.

At the moment these crops are regulated as GMOs and there is a full assessment of the environmental impact before they can be released. The noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, responding to the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, on 4 March this year, said that the Government would take a “science-based approach” to gene editing and there would be “strict controls” to safeguard the environment with

“a robust case-by-case safety assessment taking full account of the scientific evidence.”—[Official Report, 4/3/20; col. 609.]

How does the Minister see such assessments taking place if there is a change from the regulatory framework for gene editing, and where will scientific advice on the impacts on the environment come from? I made some inquiries with the chairman of Natural England a couple of weeks ago, which formally advised the Government on the impact of genetically modified crops on the natural environment, and he has revealed that Natural England, English Nature’s successor, can no longer afford a specialist team in this area so it has disbanded any expertise that it had.

Of course, a perfectly good EU review of the whole issue of gene editing of crops and animals is under way and due to be published next April, so why are we rushing to make an amendment to the Bill that would jump the gun? Can we not wait to see what that review reveals? Rushing to deregulate gene editing, as some wish to do, to bring us into alignment with the US risks us pursuing the US market, which will always be a smaller, specialist market for UK food products, and risk our not being able to continue to do business with our major existing EU markets, depending on what they decide.

Therefore, why not wait to see what the EU decides to do after April 2021? In the meantime, the Minister would have the opportunity to lay out more clearly how his assurances on controls to safeguard the environment would work and it would enable a much broader public debate on acceptability. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, talked about open and transparent consultation, but changing the entire regulatory regime for gene editing under cover of darkness in the Agriculture Bill without any prior public consultation does not seem the right way to start off in an open and transparent way with the general public, who, for good reason or bad, are sensitised to this issue.

This artificial need for haste feels very like going back to the bad old days of the late 1990s, which the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, recalled during a debate on previous amendments. Monsanto tried to ride roughshod over British public opinion and the British political process. It got a very bloody nose and set any case for responsible genetic modification back by 20 years.

The signs are there again. One side has terrific zeal that this technology will solve all problems; the other side is denigrated as an unscientific bunch of woolly- pully tree-huggers. Public concerns are reduced to an equation that says, “Well, if we explain it more carefully to the public, of course they’ll accept it”, but that is the worst possible way of approaching a public consultation exercise that involves something very near and dear to the hearts of all people in this country—what they put in their mouths and what happens to the environment.

Let us not fall into the trap of 20 years ago. Let us take this steadily and have a properly scientific, open and transparent debate, and let us not set off on the wrong foot by accepting this amendment.