My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and everyone who has taken part, in what is getting to be a fairly late night, for their detailed and forensic examination of this part of the Bill and the proposed amendments.
I do not think that I can add to the debate on Amendment 60 on the resources of the FSA, except to say that we could not possibly have had a better team of people who commented on that. Their concerns should be heard and listened to.
On what the Minister said about the precautionary principle, it is possible that the word “proportionate” in the description is carrying a lot of weight. The question is whether we are talking about proportionate to risk or to the impact on potential profits. None the less, I thank the Minister for his reassurance about the precautionary principle. I should warn him in advance that I suspect that I might quote those words back to him in the future.
I will start with my Amendment 58 on traceability. As the Minister was speaking, I was thinking about a small, independent baker I happen to know, who is based in Nottingham. She is very innovative and doing amazing, exciting work. I do not know this for a fact because I have not discussed it with her, but I think that I can take a reasonable guess that she will be very keen to ensure that she does not end up with any gene-edited crops in her products. She will want to make sure that that is the case so that she can keep a check on these things. We need the traceability,
because if things start to go wrong we need to be able to trace where they are going wrong. Traceability is crucial.
It is rather late, and this is something we will come back to. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is far more expert on the whole issue of skeleton Bills than I am so I will not attempt to respond, except to note that he is of course reacting to a highly respected independent committee of your Lordships’ House.
I suspect, particularly with Amendments 57 and 58, that these are issues we might well come back to, but in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 57.