My Lords, I am grateful to those who have tabled these amendments. Before I reply to them, may I clarify a point I made earlier, as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, is in his place? When referring to CRISPR-Cas9, I was trying to respond to a point the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, made. That technology is fundamental to this Bill, and he was referring to where it took place. Of course, I meant to say that CRISPR will not be used on the farm. It is important to this Bill and will be used in laboratories that will have to be licensed under this mechanism.
Turning to the amendments tabled concerning changes to the parliamentary procedure for making regulations under certain powers in this Bill, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, for them, and I reassure her that these powers are administrative in nature and therefore do not require an increased level of parliamentary scrutiny.
Taking Amendment 26 first, the intended purpose of the power in Clause 4 is to prescribe details which are administrative in nature—for example, the types of persons who can be specified in a release notice, or the form such a notice needs to be given in. This is an important function as it will allow the Bill to operate as intended. Unnecessary scrutiny being applied to these administrative regulations through an affirmative procedure could delay the implementation of the Bill and reduce our ability to move quickly towards gaining the significant benefits the Bill has to offer. It would also make it more cumbersome for us to make technical adjustments to the requirements as to the form and
content of the release notice and any accompanying information, to reflect developments in technology and industry practice. We do not believe that debating such technical and administrative details would be a beneficial use of parliamentary time.
Turning to Amendment 33, Clause 11 is clear that an application will be required to include
“a declaration that the notifier does not expect the health or welfare of the relevant animal or its qualifying progeny to be adversely affected … by any precision bred trait”.
It is also clear in this clause that the application will have to be accompanied by
“an assessment of the risks to the health or welfare of the relevant animal or its qualifying progeny”
and an explanation of the steps taken to identify these risks. These key requirements are set out on the face of the Bill. The delegated powers merely allow Ministers to prescribe further details in relation to these applications, which will be more administrative or technical in nature.
Regarding the amendment to Clause 18, I reassure the noble Baroness that a list of matters which could be included on the register is set out in the Bill. This list includes, but is not limited to, information relating to the release and marketing notices, reports from the advisory committees and enforcement notices.
This clause therefore enables information on a wide range of matters relating to precision-bred organisms to be made public, in the interest of transparency and public reassurance. Specific details of the information to be entered in the register are an administrative matter.
7 pm
The power in Section 122 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which enables the Secretary of State to prescribe particulars to be entered in the GM register, is similarly subject to the negative procedure. While it would, of course, be open to us to take a different approach to the register of precision-bred organisms, I do not believe we need a greater level of scrutiny in relation to the information to be entered on the public register regarding PBOs than we have for GMOs.
I will further reassure the noble Baroness that the provisions in Clause 22(3), which enable the Secretary of State to designate a committee or other public body to fulfil the role of the welfare advisory body, are also administrative in nature and therefore warrant the negative procedure.
I want to address a point that was made on Monday and again this evening. It relates to the personnel on the relevant committee. The appointments to this advisory body would be made according to the principles in the Governance Code on Public Appointments. Appointments would be made on merit from a strong, diverse field of high-quality candidates, whose skills, experiences and qualities have been judged to meet the needs of the welfare advisory body. It is misleading to give the impression that somehow there are conflicts of interest when we choose under very prescribed rules of government that have been widely accepted as being fair and open. The rules will be laid clear in the measures that we apply; the Nolan principles and suchlike.
I would not want to restrict people who have had experience in industry and who have current experience in industry—as long as we are open about it. It is important that the people who know about this and can advise government in the best possible way are on this advisory body, but of course there must be transparency as to their connections. I hope we have nailed the point that there is some means in the legislation that would allow for unfair access to policy and the governance of these measures.
As noble Lords will know, we intend to bring the provisions of the Bill concerning precision-bred animals into force once the regulatory system to safeguard animal welfare is established. The power in Clause 22(3) ensures that we can designate to the role of welfare advisory body the committee or other public body that is most suited to this role, come that time.
The designation of the welfare advisory body itself is a straightforward administrative matter and therefore it is appropriate for the regulations to be subject to the negative procedure. By making the designation in regulations, we will ensure that it is made in a public and transparent way, and noble Lords and Members of the other place will have the opportunity to review the regulations and to enter a prayer if they wish to debate them. I hope that has clarified the position, because it is a really important part of our deliberations tonight.
Finally, I shall move on to the question of whether Clause 42 should stand part of the Bill. The policy set out in this Bill will need to be reflected in other legislation that is not amended by it, particularly secondary legislation. Precision-bred organisms are currently regulated by numerous legislative instruments relating to GMOs that will need amending to reflect the changes made by and under this Bill. There are also references to genetically modified organisms in numerous legislative instruments that will need adjusting, for the same reason.
This power enables the Government to make these reasonable adjustments. The power cannot be used to make stand-alone substantive legislative changes. This power is needed to ensure that the provisions made by the Bill, and regulations made under it, fit effectively within the existing legal framework at the time when those provisions are brought into force, or those regulations are made, as the case may be. In the main, this will either be to remove precision-bred organisms from the scope of that legislation in England, such as genetically modified food and feed legislation, or to maintain the current position by updating references to GMOs and GMO legislation that covers both GMO and precision-bred organisms. While the power here is broad, it is one that is commonly found in Bills and can be used only for limited purposes.
To address the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, about Scotland, we will of course continue to engage via the common framework. We have regular official-level engagement and there is ministerial engagement through the interministerial group. Of course, it is for the Scottish Parliament to decide what it wishes to do in relation to this legislation. I am sure it will be listening to a lot of stakeholders, such as the Roslin Institute, James Hutton and NFU Scotland, as it makes its deliberations. So I can absolutely
assure her that engagement, from my department and from the Government, will continue at all levels. I hope that I have reassured noble Lords on these points.