Kate Green
Main Page: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)(2 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesQ
Dr Edenborough: It is all worked on probabilities. You would not test every grain of rice; you would test a few thousand and extrapolate. That is the way that all damages cases work.
Q
Dr Edenborough: Yes, on both points.
Q
Dr Edenborough: That is a fundamentally different point, in some senses, because if a person is alleging that they have been damaged, it is for the person making the allegation to prove their case.
Q
Dr Edenborough: Yes.
What might the alternatives be for offering protection, rather than going through the tort route?
Dr Edenborough: You could introduce some form of strict liability, whereby there is a presumption, in essence, against the person who is doing the contamination, but that is very rare. There are examples in patent law, but the exception is very narrow. The long and the short of it is that people do not like reversing the burden of proof. It does happen, but it is very rare.
Q
Professor Hartley: One example of this arose in Canada in the early 2000s with GM wheat. I do not know whether this might illustrate the market concern about contamination. Europe had just banned GM foods, and the Canadian wheat market exported largely to Europe. Monsanto had an application with the Canadian regulatory system to develop and test GM wheat, and there was no way in that regulatory process to stop that application, and yet the wheat market in Canada was threatened. In the end, there was a careful behind-doors negotiation and Monsanto withdrew its application. There was the potential for Canadian farmers to take a significant economic hit if the GM wheat was developed there, and there was nothing within that regulatory system to stop it. I think that is maybe part of the concern you are raising here. The market, in that case, did decide, in the sense that Monsanto negotiated with the wheat board in Canada to try to solve the problem.
Thank you. Do you have anything to add, Dr Edenborough?
Dr Edenborough: You mentioned inequality of arms. The long and short of it is that, yes, the larger manufacturers will have much greater power than the small farmers.
Q
Dr Edenborough: The only way in which the small people can be protected is if there is greater regulation by the state, because the smaller people do not have the resources and they need to rely upon a third party, which in this case has to be the state.
Professor Hartley: Can I add a further point? We are talking a lot about farming here, but the Bill is not just about farming. It is also about conservation and environmental management. There is more structure to the farming community than there is to the conservation community, and so there is the potential for this kind of conflict within the conservation sector as well, particularly between the devolved nations.
Q
Professor Martin: It gives them a bit of time to look at your form.
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Professor Martin: Let me just get this right. If you want to do a field trial, you have to say what day that would be. You have to notify them at least 20 days before you do that.
If there are no other questions, I thank our witnesses for appearing and giving us such full answers. The Committee will meet again on Tuesday 5 July in Committee Room 11 to begin line-by-line scrutiny.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Gareth Johnson.)