Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill (Second sitting)

Jo Churchill Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Thank you. We will open questions with the Minister.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)]

Q Thank you and welcome to Professor Lovell-Badge and Mr Coatti. I believe, Professor, that you are at the Crick for your day job.

Professor Lovell-Badge: I am, yes.

[Jo Churchill]

I would like to take a little from the narrative that you have given us, and from something that you stated in your returns to the consultation. Thank you for saying that the Bill has been consulted on widely; we are trying to get it right, so any advice would be gratefully received. You stated:

“If appropriately managed, precision breeding offers a route to achieving many potential and much-need benefits to society.”

That rather articulates your argument that it is outcomes-based. With that in mind, you stated that you support the advice of the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment that precision breeding poses no greater risk than traditional breeding methods. Can you explain why, and can you refer to whether you think the current regulatory framework has held up? I think that was what you were saying in the narrative about research and development. Where would you go with that regulatory framework in order to optimise the R&D so that we can evolve into being outcomes-based, both in environmental and human health terms?

Professor Lovell-Badge: Right. There is a lot there.

[Jo Churchill]

There is a lot there, but there was a lot in your opening remarks to try to encapsulate.

Professor Lovell-Badge: The first question was about risk, I believe. Generally, on the risk of a random mutation versus a genome-edited one, you are actually better off with a genome-edited one because you know what you are doing. Of course, there can be some examples where you might not know exactly what is happening. There is very little mention of human health in here and so there is concern about zoonosis, where an animal virus can jump to humans, for example. You could, in theory, make what you think is a fairly simple change to give a trait that you want, but inadvertently you allow an animal virus to jump to humans. That needs to be looked at, in terms of risk. Exactly the same thing can happen with traditional breeding, but I imagine it is not generally looked at. That is a risk.

Alessandro Coatti: The case that Robin used before is quite important, where you think about adding multiple changes to genes in the same organism. The Bill covers plants and animals, but it does not cover micro-organisms, which are an interesting aspect that we can discuss later. You also really have to think about the fact that the dynamics of the genomic changes in different organisms are different, just like the way they reproduce is different. The type of gene flow that you would see in plants is different from the one you would see in animals.

The case that Robin was discussing of adding multiple changes in neighbouring genes in an animal is harder, through traditional breeding, than it has been in plants. For example, you can mutagenise into this very big screening. You might get to that point faster in plants than in animals. Perhaps the fast pace where this technology now allows development is not, as you say, either a morally or a practically neutral question. It is interesting that the Government have decided to frame it as something that could have arisen through traditional breeding or spontaneously. There is a reason why that is. However, at some point, it becomes a bit stretched, because in traditional breeding it would take many generations, and it would be quite hard to do it in certain animals.

However, this is again talking about the techniques. When it comes to adding those two traits in neighbouring genes, you might end up actually making the life of the animal way better. That is why you look at the outcomes. By using genome editing, people have corrected genetic defects that have arisen traditionally in breeding, for example of cattle. There is this Japanese breed of cattle that has a genetic syndrome. With genome editing, they corrected it because it was due to a single gene. In fact, even if it were very unlikely that you might have done it with traditional breeding, it is a very valuable use and we should do that because it enhances the welfare and the health of the animal.

[Jo Churchill]

Q That is sufficient, because everybody will want some time. I think I glean from what you have said that it would take many generations but it is still possible, particularly in plants. It therefore allows you to target derived beneficials, but this is caveated with the regulatory framework being appropriate.

Professor Lovell-Badge: The question would be: if someone made a plant or an animal where you have targeted two adjacent genes, would that be permitted or not under these rules? It is hard to think that it might be, because you could not simply do it by traditional methods. You might have to wait thousands of years and it would cost you a lot of money. That is the question.

[Jo Churchill]

Right—noted.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Q I start by thanking you and your colleagues for your excellent evidence, some of it submitted to the consultation. It has certainly informed a lot of our thinking, although it also raised a lot of questions. In your introductions, you restated what was essentially in the evidence, which is that there is a problematic set of definitions and this would not necessarily have been the way that you would have gone.

I want to explore something slightly different: the role of advisory bodies. You began to touch on that in your last answer. The Bill at the moment is very thin on what the advisory bodies are there to do. In some of your written evidence, both your organisations suggested that the different bodies should have some kind of remit to look at the wider public good. Could you say a little bit about that? I have been taken by the example of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, or some aspects of the work that it does.

Professor Lovell-Badge: I have been very much involved in the HFEA public engagement exercises. When you are considering a broad area, or potential uses and outcomes, it is really important to have proper public engagement, including democracy, dialogue, or however you want to refer to it, where you really get to understand what the public will think about a topic.

When it comes to assessing technical aspects, it will be challenging. It is fine to have a lay member on a panel, but I do not know whether consulting the public about really detailed, technical issues might be challenging. It depends on what the advisory committee’s role is and whether it is to look more broadly at potential uses and outcomes or to focus on the specific techniques that are being used.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from William Angus, owner of Angus Wheat Consultants Ltd, who will join us via Zoom, Professor Johnathan Napier, research group leader, and Professor Nigel Halford, who is a crop scientist. Both are from Rothamsted Research and are with us in person. Could you introduce yourselves for the record? I will go first to William Angus.

William Angus: My name is Bill Angus—christened William, but anyway. I am a wheat breeder, and my job is to breed new varieties of wheat. I have been doing it for quite a long time. I started in the public sector at the Plant Breeding Institute, and then moved to the private sector with Nickerson. I started my own wheat breeding and oat activities in 2016, which has resulted in us being the largest privately owned wheat and oat breeder in the UK. That is not too hard, because the agricultural landscape is dominated by multinationals. I am also vice-chairman of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre board of trustees in Mexico. This is the largest publicly funded wheat programme on the planet, breeding for 200 million hectares. To put that into context, that is 100 times the size of the UK. Their focus is primarily on the developing world.

Professor Napier: Hello. My name is Johnathan Napier. I am a project leader at Rothamsted Research. I am a plant biotechnologist. I have a degree—PhD and DSc—from the University of Nottingham. Rothamsted is a publicly funded research institute. I am passionate about using basic research for public good and translation. I am very keen to see the research move beyond just discovery. I ran the first gene edited field trials in the UK in 2018. I have run GM field trials at Rothamsted since 2011 or 2012, and I am looking forward to talking with you.

Professor Halford: I am Nigel Halford. I am also at Rothamsted Research. I have been there a long time—all through the biotech period. In fact, I was involved in GM wheat trials in Bristol in the 1990s. Like Johnathan, I am very passionate about taking our research through to products that are actually going to help British farming, agriculture and consumers. I am currently running a gene edited wheat field trial at Rothamsted. We are looking at reducing the acrylamide content of wheat products, so it is a food safety target.

[Jo Churchill]

Q Good afternoon Bill, Professor Halford and Professor Napier. I would like to declare for the record that Bill is a constituent of mine, but I think we have only met once, in a field—to my memory—looking at wheat. I will ask Bill one question and then move on to the professors.

From the point of view of small and medium-sized enterprises, do you think this Bill will help smaller players to have some access to market, or would you like to see this Bill enable smaller breeders, such as yourself, to have access to these technologies?

William Angus: That is a good question. I have worked for a large multinational company. I was interested to hear both Johnathan and Nigel talk passionately about public good—that is what I do. When I was at the PBI this was part of your culture and it became part of my culture when I was at Limagrain.

I love the entrepreneurial spirit that we have in the UK. We started off this, which may be considered by some to be a slight mission of madness, but I had the opportunity to do it. We started in my lounge, then we moved to the greenhouse and then the garage, and now we have built up quite a significant activity.

I am worried about perhaps an agenda that this could be dominated by large multinationals, although one of the joys of wheat-breeding globally over the last 100-plus years has been the freedom to exchange germplasm. As soon as we start putting constraints on that, as soon as we start having people talking about ownership of genes and ownership of genetic material, or licensing genes that are already in the public domain, it starts to fill me with a great sense of foreboding.

Also, being on the CIMMYT board, I am really concerned and very passionate about the smallholder farmers that we have around the world. It has changed my life being on CIMMYT, in that it opened my eyes to the fact that there are millions and millions of people in very dire circumstances. Many people do not realise that the vast majority of farmers in the world are women.

So, yes, I am concerned about that and I would like to see some mechanisms whereby the freedom that currently exists for small companies, or individuals, to start up is not diminished. Therefore, I hope that some protection will be put in place.

Johnathan and Nigel may agree or disagree, but what we have in the UK is that, if you go back 40 years ago, we had a publicly dominating plant-feeding activity in the PBI. We have a really mature situation now. Globally, we are probably the best, and I have seen a lot around the world, of having these public-private partnerships. These guys at Rothamsted, or the John Innes Centre, or whatever, cannot take it to the market and we have a wonderful relationship with them, in that they do the fundamental research and then we, as the plant breeders, translate it into the field. And I include the multinationals in that.

We have a very mature situation and we must make sure that, whatever comes out of this Bill, that relationship is not damaged in any way and continues.

[Jo Churchill]

Q Lovely; thank you. Perhaps a question that you could think about is how gene editing, in your view and with your international experience, might help those developing countries.

However, I will direct my next question to both professors, in the hope that you both cover it to a degree. You have both expressed a passion, and have longevity about looking at this issue, and I think it was Professor Halford who said that he was involved in the GM trials in the ’90s. Can you please help us to understand how far we have come and say what benefits we should try to capture through this Bill in order to drive things forward?

Professor Halford: Any target you can think of for plant breeding—whether it is something that aids farmers, such as nitrogen-use efficiency or simplifying weed control, climate resilience, which is an urgent problem that we have to address in agriculture, or the kind of things that we are working on, benefits to consumers—gene editing can play a role in it. It is not sweeping anything else aside, but it certainly enables you to do some things that other methods in plant breeding do not allow you to do. That is what we are talking about.

Professor Napier: Nigel and I are veterans of the GM of the ’90s, the problems that emerged from that and the hiatus of seeing none of our research translated for a decade. Then, at Rothamsted, we restarted GM field trials in 2012, just because we realised that there was this urgent need to translate the research. The UK has a fantastic reputation for doing basic plant sciences, making lots of fantastic discoveries in labs, but that is no good to feed people or to solve the challenges of climate change and food security. You cannot eat promise; you really need a product.

The reason I am in agriculture is that it is the ultimate scalable solution: once you demonstrate that you can grow something in one field, you can grow it in a million fields. But until you have actually done it in the first field, you do not know whether the technology works. That is the exciting thing that has already changed in the regulation in the past few months—it is easier to do experimental gene edited field trials. Nigel and I are doing those at Rothamsted under the new regulations, and that is great, that is enabling. That is what we need.

We want to enable the technology to advance, which is not to say that we ignore the importance of safety and all those other things. On one level, it goes without saying that those are important, but it should not go without saying—you have to say that those are of paramount importance. What we want is enabling regulation. I am not totally sure I have answered your question, but it gives you the idea.

[Jo Churchill]

Q That gives us a very clear picture: to be overly prescriptive might be as difficult, and the regulatory framework needs to be appropriate.

Professor Napier: That is exactly right. Even if you look at the situation in the US, which is imagined to be the most tolerant and enabling of regulatory environments for GM, for example, it still costs probably $10 million to deregulate a crop. That is an utter barrier to entry to any small or medium-sized enterprise. The reason why the market is dominated by the large corporations is that they are the only people who can afford to pay those costs. If the barrier to entry is lower, basically you make it much more open to the more entrepreneurial, smaller, nimbler but less deep-pocketed organisations.

Professor Halford: The GM revolution is now a generation old. It is a 20th-century technology. We see varieties in the Americas and Asia with multiple input traits, output traits, insect resistance, herbicide tolerance, high lysine with a cherry on the top. None of that is available here—absolutely nothing, not a single GM crop plant grown commercially in the UK. We have completely missed the boat on that one, and it is really important that we do not miss the next boat.

We will have to go some way to persuade plant breeding companies, biotechnology companies, that there is a market in the UK. Currently, I can tell you, nobody is thinking about developing a GM or GE commercial crop for the UK or Europe. We will have to have regulation in place that gives breeders confidence that when they get their product to market, they can actually sell it. If my wheat all pans out, it works really well and I hand it to breeders to incorporate into their breeding programmes, we are still talking probably five to 10 years before we could possibly see anything on the market. That is a lot of work and investment. So farmers need to be confident that, at the end of that, they have a market.

[The Chair]

I remind people that we have until 3.15 pm for this session. A couple of Members have caught my eye. I will start with Daniel Zeichner.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you, William. We have less than a minute left. I know the Minister wants a quick question—it is less than a minute for your question and the answer.

[Jo Churchill]

Q You want to see this applied and translated. Bill, you stated that you already feel that, with some tweaks, we have a strong regulatory appeal in this country anyway. In one word, is the Bill proportionate?

Professor Napier: Yes.

Professor Halford: Yes.

William Angus: Yes.

[Jo Churchill]

This feels like “Britain’s Got Talent”. There we go; we have finished before 3.15 pm.

[The Chair]

That brings this session to an end. I thank all our contributors for a really informative session.

Examination of Witnesses

Roger Kerr, Steven Jacobs, Joanna Lewis and Christopher Atkinson gave evidence.

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from Roger Kerr, chief executive, and Steven Jacobs, business development manager, both of Organic Farmers & Growers, and from Joanna Lewis, policy and strategy director, and Christopher Atkinson, head of standards, both of the Soil Association. All the witnesses are with us in person. We have until 3.50 pm for the session. Will each of you in turn introduce yourself for the record, and then we will come to questions?

Roger Kerr: My name is Roger Kerr. I am chief executive of Organic Famers & Growers. I am also a trustee of the Organic Research Centre, which is an independent organic research organisation. I am also a director of the Organic Trade Board.

Steven Jacobs: I am Steven Jacobs. I am the business development manager for Organic Farmers & Growers.

Joanna Lewis: I am Joanna Lewis. I am the policy and strategy director for the Soil Association and a trustee at the Food Ethics Council and at Sustain, the alliance for food and farming.

Christopher Atkinson: Hello. I am Chris Atkinson. I am head of standards at the Soil Association charity. I am also an elected board member of IFOAM Organics Europe, our European umbrella organisation.

[Jo Churchill]

Q Welcome, lady and gentlemen. The organic industry currently keeps supply chains separate between organic and non-organic. I wonder whether you could explain how that system works and what you view as the challenges in carrying on that system, given the current legislation.

Christopher Atkinson: Organic is a regulated activity, so the requirements for organic production, including separation and segregation, are laid out in law. In the UK, that is currently a retained European regulation, No. 834. That mandates an inspection and certification system based on international norms for product certification. The way in which producers who are under the control system specified in the regulation notify their activity and interaction with independent third-party certifiers, such as Organic Famers & Gowers and the Soil Association, is described in that regulation.

It is very much a farm-to-fork regulation: it covers all parts of the production process, from the farm, beyond the farm gate, right through to the point of sale. There is complete traceability, which is overseen by the certification bodies and maintained through record keeping and some elements of testing and checking, which are carried out both by those who are subject to the regulation and by the certification bodies that oversee their activity.

Roger Kerr: The question was also about the risk of GM to the supply chain.

Christopher Atkinson: Yes. At the moment, there is prohibition of GMOs in organic production, and organic producers rely on the current labelling regime to verify and identify freedom from GM. There is also a testing regime based on detection thresholds for GM specified in the legislation, and there are duties both on the producers and on the certification bodies to apply those requirements.

[Jo Churchill]

Q With respect, we are not talking about GM products but about gene edited products and precision breeding. Therefore, I suppose I would like to tease out why it does not work for precision-bred crops that arguably are akin to traditional breeding. In the animal world, we already have scientists at Roslin and so on working on avian flu in our bird population, and we have porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome devastating our pig population. Looking some 10 years hence, are you saying that advances to combat such diseases would not be compatible in your current system, given that those are arguably beneficial in stopping an animal dying in distress? I am trying to understand your world, if you see what I mean. It will be quite difficult to undo the potential benefits.

Joanna Lewis: Your mention of PRRS offers a good way to explain why the global organic movement currently does not support the genetic engineering approach. That movement is very much founded on the principle that you harness natural processes to stop pest and disease problems arising in the first place. For instance, PRRS is widely accepted to be a disease that arises from industrial farming systems as a result of overcrowding. The crucial thing is to make sure that there is a public interest test at the heart of the Bill, and that is what we are calling for.

We noted that the Regulatory Policy Committee has raised a red flag about the impact assessment—I am sure that it has been discussed before. We found that the impact assessment had overlooked three crucial areas: first, clearly, the freedom of choice for citizens; secondly, the needs and interests of organic agroecological farmers and growers, who have a key role to play in the Government’s ambitions for a sustainable farming transition; and, thirdly, the impact on the Government’s ability to achieve their own really important legal biodiversity and climate targets, and to address their professed concern about animal welfare and their desire to improve those welfare standards.

One does not need to doubt the good intentions of the research institutions that are involved in the research, but there are strong commercial drivers at play here. It is no accident that current and recent developments on gene editing of crops relates overwhelmingly to herbicide resistance. When you have four companies controlling 60% of the global seed market and two of them, Bayer-Monsanto and ChemChina, which owns Syngenta, account for more than half the agrichemical market, it is no accident that there is that commercial bias.

When it comes to the interests of farm animals, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics held a public dialogue on gene editing and farmed animals. The concern expressed by the public, now backed by the support of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and Sciencewise—I am on the oversight group for that dialogue—was clearly centred not so much on the distinctions between gene editing and conventional breeding, but on the fact that the direction of travel for conventional breeding had been to prioritise traits that came at the expense of animal welfare and which facilitated the keeping of animals in inhumane industrial farming systems. The concern was that gene editing might accelerate that trend.

That brings us back to the question of where the public interest test is that could allow the Government to do more than just presuppose and gamble on the benefits of this for climate, nature and health. Norway has developed a gene technology Act, which places that public interest test at its heart. I do not know if that has been discussed yet, but there is a test that requires evidence of community benefit and support for sustainable development, so we would like to see that considered in the deliberation of this Bill.

Steven Jacobs: Just to pick up on where we stand as an organic control body, our role is to maintain integrity through the whole chain of custody, from farm to fork and from seed to shelf. You cannot necessarily tell that a bottle of milk is organic by testing it—actually, there could be tests for that. You can tell a bottle of milk is organic because we have inspected every stage of the process. According to our licensees—and we license more than half the organic land in this country—that is not onerous. They already do various certifications, such as Red Tractor. Our inspectors will be able to do two, three or four of those in one visit. Asking the same question can generate two, three or four certification requirements.

The situation we have is one where there is an established market. In this country, it is worth around £3 billion. Globally, it is worth around $100 billion. It has been going for 60 or 70 years. The regulatory regime has been in existence since the early ’90s. That integrity is accepted in the marketplace and is being bought by shoppers. In the consultation, something like 85% of respondents said it was not that they necessarily objected to gene editing, but they would like to see existing regulatory frameworks upheld. We work in a regulatory framework. We have ISO standards. We are audited by a Government-approved auditor every year. That is how we ensure that that integrity is maintained. For us, those customers have said they do not want GE or GM.

[Jo Churchill]

Right, okay. I am not sure that I entirely understand why you feel it would be any different with GE, which is a completely different technique—with all due respect—from GM. If I could tease out that animal welfare point, you are predicating your argument on the idea that everything is detrimental on a welfare front. Surely the eradication of avian flu—particularly as we have had the challenge in the last year—would be beneficial to free-range birds as well. I am keen that the rest of the Committee has its chance to contribute, though.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Good afternoon and welcome. I am glad that you raised the impact assessment because there is a lot of interesting stuff there. Some of it is a touch surprising, which we will probably explore in more detail when we go through the Bill line by line. You already touched on some of this, but what are the threats from these developments for your sector? What would you like to see in the Bill to deal with those challenges, as you see them?

Roger Kerr: From an organic regulatory basis, as Chris has already indicated, GE is still defined as GM. We need to be much clearer about what GE is being defined as, and we still do not have that clarity. As things stand, it is not allowed within the organic regulation, so the risk is where there is a lack of co-existence measures in place, which means that organic crops are contaminated. Organic consumers make these purchasing decisions because they believe they are avoiding GM, and that is a right they should have.

By not having robust co-existence measures in place, we are obviously putting our consumers at risk, because they are purchasing organic products on the basis that they do not believe they are consuming GM. It is a personal choice—I am not saying that you should not—and the organic sector is not saying per se that we should not have genetic editing. What we are saying is that it is incompatible with organic. Organic is out there, and there is a market for it, as Steve has clearly stated. There is a significant opportunity, both domestically and internationally, for the UK organic sector.

We should protect the organic sector, and there should be some visibility in terms of GE—where it is being grown, what is being grown and what the potential risks associated with that are for the organic sector—so we can ensure that the organic sector remains free from GM or GE, as it is at the moment. There is concern that if we are looking to provide consumers with the choice of having GE or not, we will end up with quite a significant cost within the supply chain to ensure co-existence, in terms of space and time, between GM and non-GM. This is not organic per se; it is just GM and non-GM. We will then have to have extra storage, more vehicle movements and a much higher level of testing. There are concerns that, without real clarity about what is going on and where the potential points of contamination arise, a significant cost will be borne by the food sector, which is already under significant pressure.

Joanna Lewis: I understand that you are addressing us as the organic industry and the organic sector, but I just want to reiterate that the Soil Association is a charity of 70 years’ standing that represents all citizens, farmers, growers and scientists who want to see a mainstream transition to agroecological farming and regenerative farming for climate, nature and health.

The response to the consultation on the Bill—85% of people and businesses were opposed—reflects a deeper unease not just about the safety issues and technicalities around the distinction between gene editing and GMOs. That is what I was trying to bring through with reference to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’s public dialogue. It is really important to emphasise the very legitimate public concerns about the fact that breeding as a whole—plant and animal breeding—has been on an unhelpful trajectory that is not up to the challenge of the Government’s goals on sustainable farming transition. We therefore need to ensure that we are not accelerating that trend through carte blanche deregulation.

There is an opportunity to put good governance at the heart of this Bill, set that public interest test, and ensure full supply chain traceability, transparency and labelling for citizens who want and deserve the right to choose whether this is the solution for them. I would not want it narrowed down to saying we are representing an economic sector. This is a broader movement, and it is very much one for mainstream transition.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Q We will now hear evidence from Dr Richard Harrison, director of Cambridge Crop Research and member of the BBSRC agrifood strategic advisory panel, from NIAB, and Professor Giles Oldroyd, professor of crop science at the Cambridge Crop Science Centre. Both witnesses are with us in person, and we have until 4.30 pm for this session. If you could both introduce yourselves, and then we will begin questioning.

Dr Harrison: I am Richard Harrison and I am director of crop research at NIAB. NIAB is an independent research organisation based around the country. It receives both public and private funding, and it sits in the area of strategic and translational research in crops. My role in NIAB is as the director of Cambridge Crop Research, which encompasses most of the arable crop research we do in the organisation. That include genetics, biotechnology and some of the statutory work that we deliver in seed certification and variety valuation for the Animal and Plant Health Agency on behalf of DEFRA. My own research is in the area of plant-microbe interactions in complex trait genetics. Most of that work has been done over the past 10 years in horticultural crops—strawberries, cherries, raspberries and other tasty things—where my group have worked on disease resistance but also developed and implemented gene editing technologies in those crops.

Professor Oldroyd: I am Professor Giles Oldroyd. I am professor of crop sciences at the University of Cambridge. I am a fellow of the Royal Society and I am director of the Crop Science Centre, which is an alliance between the University of Cambridge and NIAB. I am the University of Cambridge component of that alliance. My research focuses on how we improve the sustainability of farming systems, with a particular focus on removing the need for inorganic fertilisers from farming. I work on driving sustainability in developed-world farming, but also for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. I get most of my funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I currently have a field trial ongoing in Cambridge that uses a combination of genetically modified lines as well as genetically edited lines.

[Jo Churchill]

Q Good afternoon, gentlemen, and welcome. I will go for a broad-brush question. What impact do you think the Bill could have in terms of the benefits from translating research and freeing up research and development? Given your experience in particular, Professor Oldroyd, how will it help to address challenges such as food security, climate change and so on?

Professor Oldroyd: I think that the current Bill would be truly transformative in our ability to see impact from the foundational research that happens in many of our universities around the country. The UK is a world leader in plant sciences. It has been very frustrating for plant scientists to struggle to see impact from their research because of the restrictions that are placed on the release of potential products from their work.

I believe that gene editing is equivalent to what you can achieve from conventional natural processes, but the level of precision that it provides allows us to do things in a way that we could not—or found it difficult to do—when restricted to only what is available in the natural diversity of that crop. It really does allow us to move things from the lab to the field to the consumer in a manner that is much more straightforward, to apply the phenomenal knowledge that we have developed in plant research in the UK over the last 30 or 40 years, and really to drive what I believe is a crucial transformation in food production. We have phenomenal challenges facing us: we have to feed a growing population, drive sustainability and cope with climate change, all over the next 30 years. That is not easy and we cannot do it with our hands tied behind our backs.

Dr Harrison: I could not agree more with that synopsis. One of the major strengths in the UK is our fundamental research base. Over the past 30 years, we really have understood at a deep level how genes function—in plants and in animals—and the ability not only to capture what is there in nature through conventional breeding, but to use technologies that allow the directed introduction of mutations that could occur naturally but are not necessarily present or are not in the right pre-adapted germplasm. Bringing those into the gene pool and using them for crop and animal improvement is, as Giles says, transformative to our abilities to address the major challenges that we face in food production and the sustainability of food production.

[Jo Churchill]

Q When you are doing this research, you are bound by regulatory frameworks and have to keep the safety of the product. How do you, as leaders in science, challenge yourselves to make sure that the products that end up on our shelves—albeit that they have to go through FSA approval and so on—are bred for safety, and how we and the consumers assure ourselves of that?

Professor Oldroyd: There are currently very tight restrictions on validating the health and safety of GM products. For products produced by conventional breeding, we also have tests with regards to their performance in the environment, their performance relative to other varieties and their health. We have a robust regulatory framework in place that addresses the safety of the consumer, and it has served us well over many decades. I cannot think of an example where we can say, “Okay, this line has caused genuine risk to human health,” and that is because of the regulatory framework that exists.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Good afternoon and a warm welcome to you. May I say how much I enjoyed visiting your splendid new offices a few months ago to meet your new director?

My questions are about public confidence. We know that this has been a vexed debate over many years. There is fantastic science being done in Cambridge, but it often strikes me that the wider public have very little idea about it; that is hardly a unique issue there. Do you think there are sufficient measures in the Bill to secure the public confidence that is needed? If not, what extra could be put in to secure that?

Dr Harrison: The key point is proportionality. In all the preamble to the Bill, it is suggested that there is a proportionate response to how the technology is regulated. What we must never forget about gene editing and the scope of the types of changes that can be introduced is that they are indistinguishable from nature, so fundamentally we are not doing anything that could not happen or arise through natural processes.

The level and proportionality of the regulation of, and the transparency of, those products is important, and it is important that the public are aware, which I suppose is why there are systems in the Bill to register intent to put into the existing system gene edited products, but I do not think we need to stretch much beyond that. We have, as Bill Angus said, very well established regulatory frameworks in which to evaluate the performance of crops. We have the DUS system—distinctiveness, uniformity and stability—and we have the value for cultivatable use system. They have shown over many years that when varieties are put on the market, they are safe. The legislation that exists beyond that gives any country the right, if they find a problem with a variety, to remove that from what is the common catalogue in the EU, or, in our case, from our national list. As long as the proportionality is adhered to, the Bill is appropriate.

Professor Oldroyd: There are a lot of studies that have looked at the general public’s position on biotechnology. There are really only a few at either extreme—who absolutely support it outright or who are very scared of it. Most of the general public are looking to people like me—to scientists—and to the regulatory framework to define what is safe to consume.

Within precision breeding, as is intrinsic to the Bill, is the fact that these are events that could happen by exactly the same natural diversity and so already could be introduced, theoretically, through a conventional breeding process. One of the issues is that some—in particular, those on the previous panel—have taken as a presumption that anything that is biotechnology is inherently dangerous, and that is not correct. It is not correct to say that just because it is being developed by this mechanism there is an inherent danger in that approach. That is the erroneous position to take when comparing with conventional breeding.

We use many varieties that have been generated by mutagenesis breeding, by double haploid production. These are conventional breeding approaches. There is very little about gene editing that is different from that in the end product; it is just how you get to that event.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Minister, you have another point.

[Jo Churchill]

Q Just a quick question in conclusion: could you articulate whether, in your view, this will lead to more investment in R&D in this country, including philanthropically—you mentioned the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—for the benefit of others across the world? We know that the majority of the world tends to farm on less than a hectare, so enabling them to have disease-resistant crops or crops that do not need expensive inputs could arguably have a beneficial effect. What is the quality of our research? I think Dr Harrison said that we have the absolute chance to lead. Any comments? I am slightly hesitant, knowing where you are going to be shortly. How do we optimise that?

[The Chair]

May I jump in here? We have about four and a half minutes left, and Daniel Zeichner wants to ask a question as well.

Professor Oldroyd: A lot of eyes are focused on this country at the moment, with regard to how we approach this. We have to recognise that we influence quite a bit. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa are absolutely looking to Europe, to the UK, for leadership on this. Our position will influence internationally how these technologies are legislated for. Certainly, we have a lot. I am excited about the potential to drive up food production for smallholders, as well as the sustainability of farming practices here in the UK. The opportunities are immense. Definitely, having this, the ability to use gene editing, will facilitate that delivery both to smallholder farmers and to UK farmers.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is definitely paying attention to what is happening here in the UK. With regard to additional investment, this Bill opens up opportunities for the UK. We are already a leader—we really are a leader in agricultural research—and I think it will position us even more greatly to be spearheading the impact of all that agricultural research.

Dr Harrison: I, too, see a big opportunity for the UK not only to lead, but to garner additional investment. At NIAB, where we operate in both the private and public sectors, we have seen on both sides a big increase in the attention given to the services we offer to industry and academia for crop transformation and gene editing. I definitely think there is an opportunity here. In the kind of ecosystems that you see around major university cities such as Cambridge, there are a lot of start-ups that are very much trying to bridge the gap between the need to use crop science to transform food and farming to be sustainable, and the use of new technologies. A definite opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from Sam Brooke, chief executive of the British Society of Plant Breeders, who will be giving evidence in person. We have until 4.50 pm for this session. Before we open the questions with the Minister, could you please introduce yourself?

Sam Brooke: Good afternoon, everyone. I am Sam Brooke, and I represent the British Society of Plant Breeders, which is a not-for-profit society. We currently represent 80 members of the plant breeding sector, which is virtually 100% of the plant breeding industry in the UK. As you can imagine, because we have 80 members, we range from one-man bands and SMEs to multinational breeders, so we have a very good coverage of the breeding industry in the UK. Our main aim is to continue to promote plant breeding, the importance of genetics, and the importance of seed and where it fits into the scheme of things.

[Jo Churchill]

Q Having such a depth of commercial experience within your organisation, and looking—as you have said—from the SME through to the international plant breeder, what impact do you think this legislation might have on the seed production industry? In particular, could you talk a little about how we ensure fairness and equity, from SMEs through to the internationals? I saw you nodding when Professor Oldroyd was giving his evidence, but I would like to hear it from you.

Sam Brooke: From our perspective and that of our members, the legislation offers huge opportunities. It will definitely open up investment in the UK for plant breeders. When the European Court of Justice ruled in 2018 to legislate precision breeding techniques as genetically modified organisms, around 70% of our members classed as SMEs ceased investment in those new technologies because of the expense and political uncertainty around being able to bring those products to market. From our point of view, it is critical that these new techniques are now available and can be utilised.

We believe that the legislation will naturally bring the cost of those new techniques down, giving a broader range of our members greater access. As I have mentioned, we have guys who are literally one-man bands, who are breeding locally in the Cambridgeshire area where we are based, and we also have the bigger multinational companies. You have mentioned being fair and equitable: breeders have already established a network of trait licensing platforms, which we see working very well across the UK and Europe. A very successful vegetable trait licensing platform is already established, and an agricultural trait licensing platform is being established as we speak. That is a fantastic way of ensuring that those traits are available across all breeders and all entities, of all shapes and sizes, which is great, because it means they have access to broader diversity, more technologies and more traits. That is really important.

[Jo Churchill]

Q One final question from me before I hand over: what would you not want to see in this Bill?

Sam Brooke: As a whole, the BSPB is incredibly supportive of the Bill and what it is trying to achieve. Our main concern would be around clause 3 and a risk assessment around food and feed. All the scientific evidence would show that there is no greater risk in using these technologies than in using what we currently are in conventional or traditional breeding—or whatever we want to call it—so I feel that there is no reason for that extra risk assessment step. We are very concerned that that could act as a blocker to early stage research and development.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Good afternoon and welcome. I will follow on from some of the previous questions and ask a similar question, really. In the end, it seems that one of the big challenges here is in maintaining public trust. While scientists may give a whole a series of assurances, if the public and perhaps some of the major retailers are not convinced, then there is a problem.

The key issue is getting the balance right between reassuring the public and following the science. However, to many of us, this Bill looks very thin on the “reassuring the public” side—so much so that, despite the FSA and its polling showing that the public would really like more information, as the Bill stands, that is not the way it will be. How convinced are you that the issue of public confidence will be resolved in favour of the science?

Sam Brooke: Having lived and breathed plant breeding for just over 20 years, I think we should have shouted more, and earlier, about how regulated the industry is, both at plant-breeding and seed level. We have a rigorous testing system in the national list process. Each variety undergoes at least two years of testing before it comes to the market. Every variety must be on that UK national list before it can go into sale. All that is underpinned, obviously, by laws on food safety, novel foods, and so on. We have this incredible history of safety of plant breeding in the UK, and of bringing those products into the market in a safe, sensible and secure way.

On top of the registration process, we also have seed marketing legislation, which really protects the user. Naturally, it protects the consumer in that it ensures that all seeds that go out into the market meet a common and prescribed standard. I think that is really important, and it is probably our fault as breeders that we have not shouted in the past about how legislated the process of producing new varieties and seeds actually is. That is what we need to go out and talk about, and tell the consumers. I am a consumer—we are all consumers—and I think, had consumers had more information and knowledge about how regulated varieties and seeds already are, we might already be a step closer to having that absolute trust.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear evidence from Dr Alan Tinch, vice-president of genetics at the Centre for Aquaculture Technologies. He is appearing via Zoom, as we can all see, and we have about 20 minutes for this session. Could the witness please introduce himself? Thank you also for joining a little bit earlier.

Dr Tinch: No problem. I joined five minutes early just to be prepared. My name is Alan Tinch. I work for the Centre for Aquaculture Technologies, which is a company involved in developing technologies for use in fish breeding and aquaculture. I work on projects in genetics, genomics and gene editing. In terms of my background, I am a geneticist. I graduated from the University of Edinburgh and Roslin Institute in Scotland many years ago. I have worked on a number of different species, both terrestrial and aquatic. Throughout my career, I have worked on genetics, genetic development of breeding programmes and developing new systems for improvement of livestock.

[Jo Churchill]

Q Good afternoon, Dr Tinch. Can I ask how you anticipate the Bill helping in the area of aquatic species? How do you see it fitting in with the international regulatory environment?

Dr Tinch: That is an interesting question. I think all livestock breeding is now very much international, so it is difficult for small companies based in one country to operate successfully. There are a number of large international operators in genetics. In aquaculture in particular, we are not as far down the development of the species as some of the terrestrial species. We have been farming and breeding fish for about 40 to 50 years, so we are domesticating many of the species already. We are working hard to improve things such as disease resistance. There is good evidence, and we have seen very good examples, of genes that can be used to improve health and welfare of fish—particularly with Atlantic salmon, where a Scottish group identified a gene that accounted for over 80% of the variation of disease resistance. That was bred into the salmon populations and is now in most farmed salmon populations, making them resistant to the infectious pancreatic necrosis virus.

I see the implementation of gene editing allowing us to do similar things. Without having to go into the field, if you like, and look for animals that are carrying favourable mutations, we are able to identify genes that affect things like disease resistance, make targeted changes in those genes and make fish resistant as a result. I think that is a very positive way of taking breeding forward. It is not the only tool in the toolbox, but it certainly allows us to do some very interesting and valuable things for the health and welfare of the animals we farm.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q Good afternoon. You will probably find my line of questioning fairly predictable. Animal welfare organisations have consistently said that they are concerned about the introduction of traits, which would allow animals to be farmed more intensively. Given the concerns that have been raised around aquaculture in general, how concerned are you that that is the way it will be perceived and seen? My second question is more to do with the trade issues and comes almost on the back of the first question. If our European partners take a different view on this issue, what effect would it have on your industry’s exports?

Dr Tinch: That is a tough question. The association between improving the ability of animals to perform and changing disease resistance, and the idea that that means we are going to increase stocking density and make welfare worse, is very simplistic, and it is not as simple as that. That is not the way farmers tend to operate, and it is not the way that breeders operate practically. That argument is raised quite often as being a reason not to improve farm animals, but it is not like that.

We should use the technologies that we have to improve animals. We are putting them in a farming environment that is different from the environment they evolved in. We have to adapt them, using genetics, to the farming environment, and that is what we aim to do. We aim to improve health, welfare and the sustainability of the animals from an economic point of view and an ecological point of view, and we use a number of different methods to take that forward. The tool is genetics, and gene editing is the next step forward in our ability to change different things. We should look at how we aim to improve animals in a constructive and welfare-driven way.

On the trade issues, if the legislation put us in a position where we were restricted in the use of the technology, we would be faced with the problem of people farming gene edited animals in other countries, and we would not be as competitive. We are already seeing gene edited animals being farmed in Japan, for example, and there is very permissive legislation in places such as Canada and Australia. I think those countries will be the first to bring in this technology. I see that coming first in some of the economic traits, and we will face competition as a result—maybe not in the species that they are planning and gene editing at the moment, but as it comes through the system in these areas, we will see our industries being uncompetitive in their performance.