Nanotechnologies and Food: Science and Technology Committee Report

Lord Crickhowell Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Crickhowell]

My Lords, I, too, served on the sub-committee, which was admirably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. His presentation of the sub-committee’s work was equally admirable, comprehensive and clear, and there is no need for me to do more than emphasise the importance of a small number of our recommendations. At the outset, I should express my appreciation of the contribution made by our Clerk, Anthony Willott, and our advisers, Professor Stephen Holgate and Rachel Newton. We could not have begun to do the job without their wonderful support.

This is the second debate within a couple of weeks on a report of a Select Committee where the Government’s response is that of the previous Government, not the coalition. I will press the points made by the noble Baroness who has just spoken about the need for the Minister, my noble friend who is to wind up this debate, to clarify by how far the present Government agree with their predecessors or indicate if there are significant differences.

I knew absolutely nothing about nanotechnologies until at a Royal Society soirée I visited a presentation on the subject by Cardiff University. When I introduced myself as the university’s former president, I was given some basic tuition and a rather magnificent rule that I am now holding, which helped clarify for me the scale of nanospace. On the left, I see metres, stretching through millimetres, micrometres, nanometres to picometres. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, indicated, there is also the atom, and I could add DNA somewhere in what is described as nanospace. I was also shown a picture of a well known Roman goblet which changes colour—an effect apparently caused by natural particles of nano size. In that way, I learnt that nanoparticles may not be the creation of brilliant or, as is sometimes implied, mad scientists, but can be a natural phenomenon. Quite early on in the committee’s study of the subject, we discovered that nanomaterials in food were not entirely a new event. Ricotta cheese has already been mentioned, as has the fact that chocolate and ice cream, as the result of the manufacturing process, usually contain nanomaterial.

However, scientists are now able to manipulate matter at the nano scale—a 1,000 millionth of a metre—so that it can exhibit new and unusual properties. This work may produce real benefits for consumers and manufacturers. We have heard some of them, such as better packaging, so food is fresher and lasts longer, and food with unaltered taste but lower fat, salt and sugar levels. Those are real possibilities. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, pointed out, there may be fertilisers that can be applied in smaller quantities—of real advantage to agriculture and the environment. The noble Lord explained that we decided to concentrate on food. Some of us were not entirely happy about this because health products, beauty products, sun creams and so on may all have similar consequences if misused. A number of the recommendations we make will need to be applied in due course to those kinds of materials.

Having accepted the potential benefits, I comment briefly on the possible risks and how we deal with them. We have heard that nanotechnologies may present new risks. They require risk assessment and regulation, and that is not an entirely straightforward process. Like many members of the committee, I was disturbed to hear of the limited amount of research looking at the toxicological impact of nanomaterials, particularly in the gut and, via the gut, into the bloodstream, nervous system and brain. Bluntly, we were not impressed by the evidence we received on the subject from the research councils. There are encouraging words in the previous Government’s response to our recommendations 5 and 6. The research councils’ sign-post notices have been issued, which apparently direct people in the right direction. A grant has been provided by NERC for work at the University of Birmingham. The research councils have carried out an independent evaluation of their nanoscience portfolio—I do not think it is a big portfolio so the evaluation cannot have taken them long. The Health Protection Agency has launched its National Nanotoxicology Research Centre at Chiltern and the Food Standards Agency has commissioned two projects. However, my understanding is that little additional research has been generated by these initiatives at this stage.

We need a clear statement from the Government about what is being done about proactive forms of funding for research and within the EU to ensure that member states effectively co-ordinate their research. My honourable friend David Willetts, giving evidence to the Science and Technology Committee earlier this afternoon, said that in British universities and research institutions there were a large number of small nanoprojects without any effective assessment of whether they added anything to the totality of research. We do not want something like that also happening in the European context, where it may well be that other countries are undertaking serious and valuable work on the subject.

Mention of the EU takes me to our recommendations 17 and 18, which have not been referred to in the debate, on the REACH regulations covering chemicals. I served on an earlier Lords committee on the introduction of REACH. The Government’s response recognises that some aspects of REACH were not designed with nanomaterials in mind. The committee was particularly concerned that the one-tonne threshold for considering the potential toxic effect of substances under the REACH regulations was not appropriate for nanomaterials. I do not get the impression that the necessary revisions are being pursued with adequate urgency. I welcome the fact that, alongside REACH registration, the previous Government announced that they intended to develop a scheme for the collection of information on both nanomaterials and products containing nanomaterials that are available in the UK. As this was described as a bottom-up approach, which I understand is exactly what the coalition Government favour in so many fields, I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that that activity will be pursued by the new Government.

Finally, I say how strongly we felt—this has been said by other noble Lords—about the importance of the industry being open about what it is doing and positive in its communication with the public. The evidence that we received was depressing. Large firms that should have learnt lessons from the GM disaster, for a variety of reasons, seemed to be continuing down the route that led to the disaster. If they do not trust the public, the public will not trust them. The New Scientist, in May, contained a report that stated that a Unilever spokesperson,

“won't say what nanofoods Unilever is looking into. Two other food multinationals, Kraft and Nestle, declined to talk about their research in the area at all”.

Nothing seems to have changed.

My honourable friend David Willetts, the science Minister who gave evidence earlier today to the Science and Technology Committee, made an interesting observation in his recent speech delivered to the Royal Institution. He was not talking about nanotechnology but synthetic biology. He said:

“The UK Research Councils had the foresight to hold a public dialogue about ramifications of synthetic biology ahead of Craig Venter developing the first cell controlled by synthetic DNA. This dialogue showed that there is conditional public support for synthetic biology. There is great enthusiasm for the possibilities associated with this field, but also fears about controlling it and the potential for misuse”.

Those words could be applied exactly to nanotechnology and the evidence we received from Which? confirmed it. My honourable friend went on to say that he was struck by a comment from a participant in the discussion on synthetic biology who said:

“Why do they want to do it? … Is it because they will be the first person to do it? Is it because they just can't wait? What are they going to gain from it? … The fact that you can take something that’s natural and produce fuel, great—but what is the bad side of it? What else is it going to do?”.

My honourable friend continued:

“Synthetic biology must not go the way of GM. It must retain public trust”.

I would add that nanotechnology must not go the way of GM; it, too, must obtain public trust. I hope that that message will be listened to by those in industry in this country and indeed abroad. If nothing else is achieved by this report but they listen and become more open and transparent, then our work will certainly have been well worth while.