I am not making a blanket statement in that way. I am saying that if a whole load more safeguards were built into the Bill and if it were not based on a set of definitions that are being criticised by the scientific community, I would have rather more confidence in it than I do right now.
As we have heard, several learned organisations have challenged the Governmentâs creation of this hypothetical class of GMOs that could have âoccurred naturallyâ or could have been created using traditional breeding. The Institute of Food Science & Technology has called the approach âoverly simplisticâ, and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics was
ânot convinced that this is either the most proper or most popular framingâ.
The Roslin Institute found it âexceptionally challengingâ, while the Royal Society of Biology said:
âNo clarity can be achieved using this principleâwe would not recommend using it as the basis for regulation.â
In response to last yearâs public consultation, there was a clear view that this is a fundamentally flawed and unscientific basis for regulation.
Turning to transparency, there are no provisions in the Bill for the labelling of genetically engineered or so-called precision-bred food, despite this being what a majority of the public want, as the Government consultation made clear. In that consultation, 85% wanted genetic technologies used in farming to continue to be regulated in the same way as other GMOs. There are significant concerns over the commercial drivers of genome editing in farmed animals, for example. This makes labelling really important, not least if Ministers want citizen and market trust, and buy-in to any new regulatory regime. The public register idea is welcome, but it needs to be accessible as well as comprehensive, and it should include all genetic engineering events and organisms used in UK agriculture. Reduced data collection is worrying. Data that is not collected cannot be analysed. Ministers are simply assuming that risks are non-existent or vanishingly slight, but there is nothing scientific about such wishful thinking.
In conclusion, we need a national conversation. Regulation and innovation need not be at odds, but products of agricultural genetic engineering, including newer techniques, should be subject to a robust and transparent regulatory and governance framework. This must include a strong traceability and labelling scheme that protects the interests of organic farms and allows consumers to make a choice in the supermarket. This legislation lets down consumers, farmers, the environment and animals. Rushing ahead with a badly conceived and designed Bill because the Government are simply desperate to claim some kind of success on post-Brexit deregulation is unacceptable, and I urge them to bring back something better.
6.27 pm