Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Kate Green Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 30th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Kerry McCarthy]

Q It might be quite difficult to quantify the extent to which—

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.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Q I want to take this point about damage and liability a little further. You look alarmed, but actually I want you to simplify it a bit. The way you are describing it to me, I think the onus will really be on the person claiming that they have been damaged to make a claim and go to court. There may then be some difficulty for them. I think you are saying that there would be less difficulty in proving causation, because there would be a marker, but there would be considerable difficulty in proving the extent and the fact of the damage that had occurred. Is that correct?

Dr Edenborough: Yes, on both points.

[Kate Green]

Q What could offer better protection than this reliance on what looks, from the point of view of the organic farmer, to be a very unsafe means of obtaining redress?

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.

[Kate Green]

Q I think what I am trying to say is that we are talking about a process of tort.

Dr Edenborough: Yes.

[Kate Green]

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.

[Kate Green]

Q This may not be a question for you; it might be one for Professor Hartley. Is there the potential for a real inequality of arms in this—that we are going to see, not invariably but typically, smaller organic producers against potentially global or large commercial entities in court?

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.

[Kate Green]

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.

[Kate Green]

Q Is there any way you would suggest to rebalance that inequality, other than the strict liability, which I think you felt was very difficult?

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.

[The Chair]

We have about 90 seconds, Daniel.

--- Later in debate ---

[Deidre Brock]

Oh, right, okay. I see.

[Kate Green]

Q Just a follow-up to that: why can’t you do it for 20 days? What is happening during those 20 days?

Professor Martin: It gives them a bit of time to look at your form.

[Kate Green]

Q I thought you said it had been approved, and then there were 20 days?

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.

[Kate Green]

I see. Thank you.

[The Chair]

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.)