My Lords, I am grateful for Amendment 19, which raises the importance of ensuring that what we do has a public benefit. Across government we are undertaking a range of what I believe is really exciting work to deliver public good and we want to see precision-breeding technologies complement this work to improve our food system and the environment.
On my phone I keep some crucial lines from the Agriculture Act, because when I meet farmers and they say that this Government no longer mind about food production I remind them that right at the front of the Agriculture Act, in Clause 1, it says:
“In framing any financial assistance scheme, the Secretary of State must have regard to the need to encourage the production of food by producers in England and its production by them in an environmentally sustainable way.”
That is a declaratory statement right at the front of the Act. What we are seeking to do in terms of environmental land management goes through the heart of that piece of legislation and this piece of legislation fits very firmly within that.
As noble Lords are aware, the UK is privileged in its scientific position and researchers across the country are already delivering exciting research that contributes towards public good in the field of precision breeding. In the other place, the John Innes Centre gave evidence about the vitamin D tomatoes that its research group is developing, striving towards improving the food we eat for the benefit of our health. Another notable example is from researchers at Rothamsted who are exploring ways to increase the lipid content of grasses. This could help improve the quality of animal feed and has the potential to reduce methane emissions in livestock. I think we are all proud of the work taking place in this country and I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is particularly proud of Rothamsted.
This amendment, I fear, might hinder the important research in this area by placing restrictions on and creating significant uncertainty for critical field trials for researchers and breeders attempting to make new varieties of precision-bred crops. While I understand the intention of this amendment—and it is an intention I applaud—it would not be appropriate to restrict technologies used in breeding, nor do we have any evidence that suggests developers are doing anything other than creating better and improved varieties or breeds.
Of course, it is important to note that these technologies are not a silver bullet, and we want them to be part of our innovation toolkit to improve our food system. Delivering public good is what I did say earlier, and I am very glad I did—and it has been underlined by other noble Lords. It is what we strive for across government and we are fully committed to developing a more sustainable, resilient and productive food system.
Noble Lords quite rightly referenced the Government’s food strategy and, building on Henry Dimbleby’s extraordinary, in-depth piece of work, we have set out a plan to transform our food system and ensure that it is fit for the future. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned sugar beet. This is a crop where there is an application which might be of huge benefit, and not just in terms of the food that we produce. Being able to develop a strain resistant to virus yellows would mean that we would not have to seek noble Lords’ permission through secondary legislation for a derogation to allow the use of neonicotinoids to control virus yellows. More importantly, we could have a crop that was not only able to produce more sugar for our producers here but would require us to import less sugar from abroad, thereby lowering the carbon impact of that crop.
There are counterfactuals in everything. Trying to improve the home-grown element of our food, while reducing the impact that failing to produce it at home would create by having to import that food, sometimes from far away, needs to be factored in. It is fundamental to our food strategy.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Winston, for his Amendment 21, which would require the genomes of precision-bred organisms to be sequenced before they can be released into the environment, regardless of whether or not an organism with the same genetic changes had previously been assessed and classified as precision bred. It also stipulates that the genomic changes resulting from the use of modern biotechnology have to be recorded, that no unprecedented changes can be present in the plant or animal, and that this must be reported to the Secretary of State.
I assure noble Lords that the criteria for defining a precision-bred organism, as set out in Clause 1, consider both intended and unintended changes to the genome. This means that any changes resulting from the use of modern biotechnology, whether intended or unintended, must be able to occur through traditional breeding or natural transformation for a plant or animal to be considered precision bred. It also means that unintended changes will already need to be assessed as meeting these criteria before any precision-bred organism is released.
The noble Lord’s amendment would mean that plants and animals could not be classed as precision bred if they contain unintended genomic changes. Unintended genetic changes occur during the traditional breeding process. Some of these may be removed during that process and others not, as will be the case with precision-bred organisms. As I expect the noble Lord is aware, many recent gene-editing studies about animals have reported no incidences of unintended genomic changes when using CRISPR-Cas9. Having assessed this evidence our expert advisory committee, ACRE, has also advised that unintended genomic changes occur significantly more often during the course of traditional breeding than they do as a result of precision breeding. This is also the view of the European Food Safety Authority, which advises the EU. Consequently, while we expect developers to ensure that any unintended changes are within the range of what can occur naturally, the scientific advice we have received suggests that it is not appropriate to prevent plants or animals with unintended genetic changes from being classed as precision-bred organisms.
We are committed to taking a proportionate approach, requiring only the information that fulfils the regulatory requirement at the appropriate time. It is for this reason that the Bill distinguishes between requirements for research trials and marketing applications of precision-bred organisms. This amendment is likely to add regulatory burden, without adding value to the process. For example, developers would be required to submit a release notice to Defra, confirming that the founder organism they intend to release for research trials meets the criteria in the Bill. They would have generated genomic data to confirm that this is the case.
However, requiring whole-genome sequencing would be disproportionate, given the specific, targeted nature of changes being made. I assure the noble Lord that breeders who release an organism modified using modern biotechnology that does not meet the criteria outlined would be subjected to sanctions under existing GMO legislation. This is a strong deterrent against releasing organisms that do not qualify as precision bred. That also goes some way to answering the point that the noble and right reverend Lord tried to pick up from the previous group, which was not moved. However, we are clear about the sanctions that we want implemented.
Developers will have to submit an additional notification to Defra should they wish to market their precision-bred organism. Breeders will need to provide fit-for-purpose information to demonstrate that they have met the requirements that I have outlined. The technical details will be developed with the advisory committee appointed to advise the Secretary of State on the regulatory status of these organisms.
For marketing approvals, assessments will be carried out on a case-by-case basis. The full genomic sequence of an organism may not be required in addition to information on intended and unintended genomic changes to determine similarity to traditional breeding or natural transformation. As a result, we do not feel it necessary to include a provision that specifically requires whole-genome sequencing.
Finally, to address the noble Lord’s point that the DNA of all progeny of a precision-bred organism should be sequenced before release, if a “founder” organism has met the criteria laid out in the Bill—specifically, that the genetic changes made by modern biotechnology are stable and could have arisen naturally or through traditional breeding—we have been advised that the regulatory status of its progeny does not have to be assessed. This is because the changes made are stable and in line with those that occur naturally.
To address the noble and right reverend Lord’s point about this being a public good, I hope I have set out why the Bill fits in with the Government’s food strategy and how environmental sustainability will be enhanced by it if we get it right. Perhaps the greatest public good will be if we are able to adapt to and tackle elements of climate change that affect not just these islands but countries all around the world. It could benefit some very challenged environments, so we owe it to them to make sure that we are regulating this correctly, making it accessible not just to large multinational companies but to smaller businesses and—to use the rather pompous word I used earlier—democratising it, ensuring that its benefits can be felt far and wide. I hope this provides the assurance that noble Lords need not to press their amendments.