I will not speak for too long, but I want to address a couple of the amendments and some of the issues affecting the Bill overall.
I will start by being extremely critical of the European Commission—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Indeed. Most of us in this House think that science is broadly a good thing, or certainly at least neutral; it is a case of what we do with it. One of the things that has irritated me most about part of the Commission over a 20 or 30-year period is its knee-jerk objection to science in this area and the idea that there can be a moratorium not just on the application of knowledge, which is an issue, but on the very knowledge and research in the first place. That troubles me greatly. We should weigh all issues up and make wise, evidence-based decisions.
On the one hand, I welcome the Bill and I certainly welcome and support science-based approaches to technologies such as genetic modification and what the Government refer to as precision breeding. They have the potential to deliver a major improvement in productivity and on the environmental front, reducing the impact of farming. Genetic modification can have a positive impact by allowing us to address pest and disease pressures on crops and farm animals, and so reduce our reliance on fertilisers and pesticides; that helps more broadly in the
fight against climate change. Genetic modification also provides opportunities for us to meet global need, including the food requirements of the global poor. However, there are problems with the Bill, and reasons why I would support the Government being more open to amendments from the other place, and especially to amendments 3 and 4 tonight.
Let me mention some areas in which the Bill is weak. It does not solve the intellectual property and commercial issues surrounding genetic modification technology. If we allowed science to be better used in farming, for the reasons we have set out relating to the environment and the quality and scale of production, but ended up making farmers, particularly tenant farmers, entirely beholden to the commercial interests of large, multinational agribusinesses, that would be an outrage. That is not what farmers in this country want; they want science applied, and they want freedom. They do not want to be pawns in a multinational game. That major area of concern is not addressed in the Bill.
The Bill is also light on the details of the new regulatory requirements for crops and animals. I accept that animals should be in the scope of the Bill, but we are transitioning from a very high regulation system to a relatively low regulation system. The lack of detail on how the new system will work makes it hard to support the Bill.
Amendment 12, tabled by the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), would prevent the Secretary of State from authorising a new product if scientific evidence indicated
“that the precision bred traits are likely to have a direct or indirect adverse effect on the health or welfare of the relevant animal or its qualifying progeny”.
Lack of detail on those kinds of situations makes it hard for us to go into the Aye Lobby and support the Bill this evening. Editing a pig’s genes could, for example, make it resistant to disease—that would obviously be a welcome advantage of this technology—but the Bill must not be a shortcut that allows pigs to be reared in less hygienic, more crowded conditions. Again, that issue is not covered. Animals’ welfare must not only continue to be protected but be continuously improved.
We do not want all the effort that has been put into the high standards in British farming to be wasted as a result of a back-door watering down of standards; but if there was such a watering-down, it would be part of a pattern, I am afraid. It would fit the pattern of the trade deals that are being designed and agreed to. The deals with Australia and New Zealand in particular basically throw away the high standards we have developed. It is not only that it is morally right to have those standards; they make the provenance of our produce important, make it high-quality, and give it high ethical value. What a desperate shame that free trade, which is a good thing, should be done so badly that our farmers are thrown under the bus, have their livelihoods threatened, and cannot take advantage of the benefits that free trade ought to provide. If the Bill is part of a deregulatory framework, or part of an agenda that seeks to unfairly disadvantage British farmers or throws the standards that they have developed under the bus, that is unacceptable. Unamended, the Bill forms part of a pattern of this Government throwing our farmers to the wolves.
Farmers do not benefit from the application of science envisaged in the Bill if they do not survive the transition from the current payment scheme to the new one.
Reshuffle upon reshuffle has followed on from great uncertainty, which the Government introduced in September when they indicated that they might be prepared to rip up the environmental land management scheme. There are many problems with that scheme, by the way; the fact that only 1% of eligible farmers have applied for the sustainable farming incentive shows how poorly the Government are rolling out a scheme that most Members agree with in principle. The worst thing the Government could do is rip it all up; the best thing they could do is invest in protecting the £3.5 billion supposedly ringfenced for ELMS and allow the process to take place, so that farmers survive. Farmers will be in no position to protect our environment, produce our food or apply the science that the Government want them to apply if they do not survive.
In short, we strongly support the principle underlying the Bill, but we strongly urge the Government to consider the amendments before us this evening, and those that will undoubtedly be tabled in the other place, to improve regulation, safety and animal welfare, and protect farmers from the damage that could be done to them if they end up being the pawns of multinational global enterprises. I would hate the United Kingdom to end up a mirror image of the European Commission, which regulated to such an extent that applying science was impossible. Alternatively, the Government may deregulate to such an extent that it is hard to defend the science, and that would be a real shame for all of us who genuinely care about the application of science in farming.
7.45 pm