My Lords, it is an absolute pleasure to follow the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Krebs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I was privileged to be able to put my name to the amendment. It is the only time my name appears on any amendment, because I was not sworn in to your Lordships’ House until late June and I missed part of the early debate. I do not want to repeat points, but my experience is worth sharing with the House.
First, I want to make a topical point, which is that I was not impressed on Sunday by the BBC “Countryfile” programme, which dealt with this subject, nor by “Farming Today” yesterday. I will not go over the details, but they were not impressive examples of how to explain the technique to the public. It is a simple change to allow faster methods of plant breeding by access to novel gene-editing procedures. Such changes that take place would be the same as, but faster than, traditional plant breeding methods. Plant breeding is not politically sexy; it does not get a high profile in journals and on TV, and most members of the public would not have a clue about what goes on with the plant breeding technology we use.
As has been said, gene editing has nothing to do with genetic modification, because no foreign DNA is used. The European Union currently makes no distinction between gene editing and GMO technology, and that is the purpose of the amendment, although that might change. The EU regulations have emptied some UK laboratories, because people and companies left to work outside the EU. Companies abandoned first-class labs, one of which I visited in the Home Counties after I left the Government in October 2008, and it was tragic to see the empty space and the lost scientific opportunities.
Of course, new methods need handling with care for plants and consumers. I have got scars from 1997 to 1999, when I dealt with genetic modification. Going back to the previous debates, I was taken by what the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said about Monsanto. During that time, I met the man from Monsanto, and I explained to him that lectures to me and other Ministers about how we should grow our food from the company that gave us Agent Orange did not go down very well. Monsanto, of course, does not exist now; it is subsumed into the companies.
When I arrived at the Food Standards Agency, when I was at Defra the second time, from 2006 to 2008, it did not really figure. When I got to the Food Standards Agency in 2009 as chair, we had been charged by the Government with running an information campaign. In fact, we had started the process, we had appointed Professor John Curtice to chair some of the public meetings and deliberations. But it was ended. There was a reluctance from some groups to embrace any idea of new technology. The anti-science groups are still vocal and are clearly deliberately linking Amendment 275 to GMO technology. I have had hundreds of emails and notices, like everyone else, and I have actually read the standard line. It is more difficult to describe products
in a single plant species as Frankenstein food, so they do not do it. But the idea is to link the two together using the letter G, which is alleged to be the one that frightens people. It is precision breeding, nothing more nor less.
We need better productivity in agriculture and better resistance to disease and climate change. We cannot stand still while our competitors—the United States, Brazil, Australia, Japan—are able to use gene-editing technologies. It does not make sense. The EU, over the years, in my personal experience as a Minister and as a regulator, has moved away from the science as a result of lobbying by pressure groups, which are almost at a religious zealotry in terms of opposition to the technology. Unlike with GMOs, there is no reliable test to distinguish between gene editing and conventional plant breeding. Why should there be? It is the same plant. Nothing extra is added from another species, so I am not surprised there is no test.
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I appreciate that some see gene editing as the thin end of the edge, but I do not see GM technology as negative. We use it in imported products. Reference was made to tomato paste, which in 1997 was outselling non-GM tomato paste by two to one. It tasted better, it was fully labelled and it fulfilled all the conditions, but the minute that there was talk of Frankenstein foods, it was off the shelf quicker than you could say “tomato paste”. To use GMO technology as a means of attacking gene editing is backward and anti-science, and there is also a degree of dishonesty about it.
I finish with adding to the list of examples that we were given by colleagues as a result of some of the applications from a recent paper by the German institute. We are not just talking about England and the United Kingdom. Our science has a contribution to make to the rest of the world where it is more difficult to grow crops, where people cannot grow enough food, where starvation is the order of the day and where there is a lack of water. There is more likely to be a war over water than a war over oil if we are not careful. Crops that can exist with less water and are less prone to difficulties with the climate must be a gain. There could be wheat with bigger grains and a bigger grain weight, powdery mildew resistance in wheat and tomatoes, bacterial blight resistance in rice, reduced gluten content in wheat, drought tolerance in maize and wheat, and salt tolerance in rice.
Behind all those examples and some 40 others across the world, work is going on and products will come to market. Why should we not use our science when we know we can give a lead and take the public with us? It is very important that the contributions are handled publicly, and I hope that this debate will be part of that. The House of Commons did not have an opportunity to debate this amendment because of the way the Bill was truncated right at the end. I do not think that the all-party group’s deliberations had finished in time. There has to be a much wider opportunity than this Bill in terms of our food production, and the science of food must be explained and used to make the case to the public. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, organic farmers have nothing to fear from this. Indeed, they should embrace the science because it could be of great assistance to them.