Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill

Committee (1st Day)

Clause 1: Precision bred organism

My Lords, I should advise the Committee that, if the following amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendments 2 to 9 by reason of pre-emption.

Amendment 1

1: Clause 1, page 1, leave lines 4 to 6 and insert— “(1) In this Act “directed bred organism” means a directed bred plant or a directed bred animal.(2) For the purposes of this Act an organism is “directed bred” if—”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment is to probe the appropriateness of the term “precision bred”.

My Lords, when this Bill was considered by the various powers that be in the House, including the Constitution Committee and the committee on the Bill itself, there was widespread concern from everybody who looked at it. They clearly saw that it was imprecise, not entirely intelligible and of a particular, difficult and complex scientific nature; I agree with that.

One of the problems I have in speaking to my amendments is that, to some extent, they must be probing, because my real problem is that the scope of this Bill is seen as one of the release of organisms into the environment. However, inevitably, the science behind that is of an essential aspect. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, is answering for the Government, because I felt that his response to me at Second Reading was very helpful; it would have been good to discuss some aspects of this Bill, which we may still have time to do before Report.

To start, one of the really big issues, which I dealt with to some extent in my Second Reading speech, is the nature of precision breeding. As I explained, there is no such thing as precision in biology. Biology is not like physics, and it is certainly not like chemistry. It is a constant response to the environment in a way that does not apply to the other aspects of science. One of the issues here concerns the definitions that we are dealing with in this Bill and, to some extent, in my various amendments—forgive me for my very poor sight but I need to read the numbers; I cannot see otherwise—including Amendments 10, 11, 13 and 14.

One of my problems—it is a problem that many scientists have—is the nature of what is seen as gene editing and a genetically modified organism. There are many different ways of modifying an organism, be it animal or plant. I mentioned in my Second Reading speech that the first time this was done was by the injection of DNA into the egg by Jon Gordon. As we know, that resulted in many mutations and abnormalities in the animals, which were quite horrific to see; to some extent, that is one of the reasons for one of the later amendments that I have tabled for discussion. Moreover, with all the other methods that have been used since—whether it is gene insertion using electro-poration or gene insertion via various other methods, such as using viral vectors and other vectors to carry the DNA into the nucleus—you get very big disruption of the genome.

Of course, one of the issues when we say “into a cell” is that we are talking about an animal at the beginning of its life. It is affecting not just the somatic cells—in the skin, brain, fat and muscles—but the germ cells. That means that any mistakes produced are heritable, and can be in completely unpredictable ways. This is one of the reasons for some of my later amendments, because heritability is clearly important as you want, first of all, to breed plants and animals that are free of risk. That is a fundamental difficulty in our discussion.

The evidence that CRISPR does not cause mutations is simply not clear. Often, the only way we can decide whether the genome remains “normal” is, in fact, by doing extensive research on the genome of that particular creature.

One of the other issues is that the Bill offers massive opportunity for better science. If we looked in greater detail at the way we manipulate plants and animals and funded it better, we would arrive at some useful conclusions that might help us with the genetics of a range of things, including medicine, gene therapy and all sorts of problems that affect the animal and plant kingdom. One of my concerns about the Bill is that we are simply releasing organisms but not studying them in detail before we do so or recording that. This subject will come up in later discussions on the Bill.

One of the issues dealt with in my amendments is the terminology, some of which is very strange. For example, in Amendment 13 I have suggested removing the word “stable”, because an organism’s genome being stable can mean various things. Does it produce progeny, or does stability mean that the genes function in a constant way, generally expressing the requirement you need? One of the problems we have with all genetic alterations is that, when you change the position of a gene in the genome or how it is printed, there is a risk that you may change expression. That is one of the reasons why multiple copies are sometimes included, an issue which is also addressed in the Bill. Sometimes, that will extend the gene’s effect—for example, increasing growth or, in some cases, decreasing it. That is one of the issues addressed in Amendment 13.

In Amendment 14 I have suggested removing the word “no” from Clause 1(5). This is partly to tease the Minister: I am changing just two letters, but arguing that that completely changes the whole paragraph in a way that does not make it at all accessible.

My real criticism, which we have discussed and which I do not want to go on about at great length at this stage—there are many amendments on the Order Paper—is the lack of clarity on some of the issues. I do not think people understand what is being done, and they need to.

One of the biggest deficiencies that I hope the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, will take on board—it is not an amendment at this stage, by any means—is that we are not trying to get the public with us. Over 30 years ago, we saw a catastrophe for this kind of science. It affected so much science, which was brought into disrepute by the sudden release of genetically modified organisms, as people felt they would be dangerous to their health. Indeed, they might well be, and Members will be talking about these issues later on in the Bill. That resulted in a complete negation of GMOs, which were given a bad name. Of course, we are still producing GMOs, in effect, but in a slightly more precise, although not completely precise, way. The risks are still there, and we need to consider them.

Finally, the problem with propagation is that once you propagate organisms, you end up with all sorts of effects on the environment that you really do not expect. That will obviously come up later, and it is one of the concerns addressed in the amendments I have put down today. I beg to move.

My Lords, I draw to the attention of the Committee that in the amendment we are about to discuss, the Marshalled List says,

“leave lines 4 to 6”.

I believe it should say “leave out” and that is what I propose. If I am wrong, I hope somebody will shout.

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and, indeed, our very acute Committee chair. I will speak to my Amendments 11 and 86 in this group. It is a great pleasure to follow the House’s acknowledged expert, who set out very clearly the major problems with this Bill and, indirectly, made the arguments for the two amendments I am presenting here. It is perhaps worth starting with my Amendment 86, which amends the Short Title of the Bill, leaving out “Precision Breeding” and inserting “Genome Editing”. I am very happy to debate whether that should be “gene editing” or whatever, but I think the noble Lord, Lord Winston, clearly set out the reasons why we should not be debating a Bill called “Precision Breeding”. As he said, there is no such thing as precision in biology.

There are many areas of science in which “precision” is appropriate and extremely useful. We think about elements of physics and mechanical engineering, say, and talk about going down to millimetres, micrometres, nanometres. We can look at how those might change when the temperature changes, for example. All of those things will be eminently, entirely predictable. That is true of physical properties, but it is not true of biological properties, as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, clearly set out.

I covered this issue extensively at Second Reading, so I am not going to go into it at great length, but essentially, precision breeding is an advertising slogan; it is not a legal description. I do not believe that an advertising slogan should have a place in the title of a Bill. Interestingly, when it was put to me that I should seek to amend the Short Title, a technical expert said to me, “You will never get that through the Clerks”. In fact, it went through without a murmur. I think there is a real awareness that this Bill is not properly titled.