My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of a family farming and growing business, as listed in the register. Perhaps I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, that that is exactly what the amendment is about. It is about a consultation—it is about talking about the issue and trying to get some sense around it. I usually like to hear what the noble Baroness has to say but I found what she said today terribly negative and almost backward-looking.
At the heart of this is a consultation on a future regulatory status for new precision breeding techniques such as gene editing. I think we all agree that there is no foreign DNA involved in gene editing. It offers an enormous step change in the speed and precision of breeding crops and livestock. Therefore, it opens up significant opportunities for scientists, breeders, farmers and growers to keep pace with demands for more productive and sustainable production systems, with improved resource-use efficiency, more durable pest and disease resistance, improved nutrition and resilience to climate change. That is all to the good, I say.
The amendment has attracted widespread support, and not just the support of science. It will also ensure that our small and medium-sized breeding companies have the same access to these promising new techniques as the very large multinational companies, which the noble Baroness, Lady Young, mentioned. For example, down the road from me in Spalding is Elsoms Seeds, an independent, family-owned business that recently celebrated its 175th anniversary. The company wrote to me to express its support. Why? Elsoms works with a wide range of different crops, including small-scale vegetable crops and speciality crops. Having access to these techniques in a proportionate and enabling regulatory environment would be a game-changer for the company and the growers it supplies, not least in helping the fresh food sector to cope with the challenges of pests and diseases when so many chemical products are, probably rightly, being withdrawn from the market.
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As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, said, the main advantages of gene editing are speed and precision. One compelling example of how gene editing could transform future prospects for British farmers was presented at the recent meeting of the All-Party Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture, which has been active in pressing for this amendment. It relates to sugar beet. We grow beet ourselves so I have an interest in the solution to a problem that all beet growers have to live with, which noble Lords can see on “Countryfile”. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, yellows virus is a real problem. While integrating these novel sources of resistance into elite beet varieties using conventional breeding could take 10 to 12 years, with gene editing it could take as little as two to three years for these varieties to be available to growers. These are game-changing technologies that could mean the survival of beet growing in this country.
The potential to help our plant scientists and British-based seed companies to address global challenges such as food and nutrition security, climate change and sustainable development means that we should adopt this technology. What the amendment suggests, and what I believe is correct, is a real and practical opportunity to have a public debate about reframing our legislation on gene editing and to help develop a post-Brexit food and agricultural sector driven by science-led and evidence-based policy.