My Lords, I apologise for my late arrival. I set off from Scotland very early this morning, but, as noble Lords might imagine, flights have been heavily disrupted. I would be grateful to contribute, if that is allowed.
I thank the Minister for his reassurance about gene drive and that that will still be subject to GMO regulations—this was a concern that I and others, including the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, had at Second Reading.
I turn to this group. I very much welcome the inclusion of animals in the Bill. This is a valuable adoption of modern technology. It can be a game-changer in the way we control and prevent diseases in animals, and will have positive welfare and environmental benefits. In this debate, we really need to weigh up the benefit-cost ratio. There are certainly lots of downsides to conventional breeding, which we have used without demur for many years.
Regarding environmental benefits and controlling disease, we know that, if you can control enteric worms in ruminants—for example, sheep—with drugs, you can decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 10% per unit of productivity. There is every reason to believe that we are going to be able to achieve that and more, without the use of drugs, by targeted genetic selection in breeding.
We know that, in the control of diseases, while vaccines are a wonderful invention, there are still many important infections that we do not have effective vaccines for. Avian flu is a very good recent example. Of course, we use genetic manipulation all the time in developing the vaccines that we then inject into people and animals.
Drugs have their inherent problems. Although they have been a fantastic advantage for us—particularly antibiotics, to prevent animals and people dying of infections that we could not control before the 1940s and 1950s—they have downsides as well. In many cases, we have drug resistance. Release into the environment has environmental consequences, as with other chemicals—parasiticides, for example. Environmental pollution of the aqueous environment is currently a matter of considerable concern.
These genetic technologies obviate those downsides of our current technologies. We have known for many years that susceptibility to disease is determined by a number of factors but that genetics is a major factor. However, we have failed to make substantial use of that knowledge, because it is too slow by conventional breeding and too difficult to determine and achieve the results we seek. I emphasise the point made earlier by my noble friend Lord Krebs: natural or traditional breeding involves huge uncertainty, so one’s intended consequences may be extremely difficult to achieve. Conversely, unintended genomic consequences can and do occur, as my noble friend Lord Cameron of Dillington mentioned.
We discussed the wording in the Title of this Bill—“precision”. We can all agree that the techniques that we are discussing are certainly more precise than
traditional breeding, in which we have no control whatever over the multiple mutations that occur when we hybridise animals. I therefore strongly support the inclusion of animals in the Bill, but I share a lot of the concerns about animal welfare and health. It is important for public confidence, as well as for the future monitoring of animal health and welfare consequences, that we monitor for adverse events post the achievement of the breeding of such animals, as we do for new drug introductions. That will be discussed later.
Finally, I will address the welfare issues which have been eloquently articulated. I do not want to repeat what I said on Second Reading, but we have laws governing the welfare of farmed animals. If we think there are problems now—as a number of people clearly do—the solution is to properly apply and enforce the laws we have. We do not need to invent new welfare laws because of a particular technique or technology that is coming along. Welfare laws, I would maintain, are already there; but if we feel they are insufficient, we should strengthen them, and that should apply to conventional and natural breeding as well as any modern technology.
5.45 pm
In conclusion, I support the inclusion of animals, and I note the timetable would delay the introduction until a number of the safeguards in the Bill have been addressed for animals.