Genetically Modified Organisms (Deliberate Release) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022

Motion to Approve

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 20 January be approved.

My Lords, this instrument before us today seeks to use existing powers under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to simplify the process of research and development in plants that have been produced by genetic technologies such as gene editing, where the resulting genetic changes could have been developed using traditional breeding methods.

Over the past 30 years advancements in genetic technologies have been rapid and have led to the development of a range of beneficial outcomes such as disease resistance. But the regulation has not kept pace with our better understanding of the risks and is now seen by scientists as restrictive and outdated. Genetic technologies such as gene editing include a range of breakthrough approaches that provide a precise way of introducing genetic changes such as disease resistance, making the whole breeding process more efficient and responsive. Field trials do currently take place; however, uptake has been low, with estimates suggesting that no more than two field trials for plants happen in England each year. Leaving the EU has provided us with the opportunity to adopt a new, science-based, proportionate regulatory approach.

This instrument, in practice, will remove certain technical barriers for research and development such as processing applications, advertising and post-trial monitoring of genetically modified plants that could have been produced by traditional breeding. It will simplify the need for the Secretary of State to give consent on an individual basis before propagating plant material is placed into the soil.

I hope it will be useful to provide noble Lords with an example of how gene editing could be used. Virus yellows are a group of viruses spread by aphids affecting major crops such as sugar beet. These viruses can cause yield losses of up to 50%. They are currently controlled using a range of pesticides. Over the past four years, a study funded by UK Research and Innovation has identified several promising sources of genetic resistance against virus yellows. Using gene editing to give resistance to virus yellows would reduce the need for pesticides and help protect crops against the virus, helping to protect the environment, increase food production and reduce costs to farmers.

Moved by

Leave out all the words after “that” and insert “this House declines to approve the draft Genetically Modified Organisms (Deliberate Release) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022.”

My Lords, this amendment asks the House to decline to approve this statutory instrument—for total clarity, what is generally known as a fatal amendment. I thank the Minister for his very clear introduction to some of the scientific aspects of the SI and for clearly setting out the differences between gene editing and older forms of GMO technology. I thank all noble Lords who have joined us at this late hour. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, commented earlier, we so often do very important things very late at night. I am sorry about that, but that is not my choice—nor indeed that of most Members of your Lordships’ House, I think.

The Green Party’s position against genetically modified crops and animals is clear, but I will not make any arguments about that tonight. The argument I am making is that this statutory instrument is scientifically muddle-headed, unclear and most likely to create a legal tangle. The fact is, though, that noble Lords do not have to listen to me on that; they can listen to your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. We have to give great thanks for the tremendous work it does slogging through so much material. Its concerns about this statutory instrument shine through very clearly from the length and detail of its report. In the earlier debate, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I think put scare quotes around the term “technically flawed” and suggested that that was a particularly grave insult in your Lordships’ House. I am afraid that I think this statutory instrument is technically flawed.

The basis of the statutory instrument is that plants that could have been produced naturally or by traditional breeding methods could be planted out in field trials without the current requirement to produce a risk assessment or to seek government approval for non-marketing purposes, as the Minister said. But there is as yet no guidance as to what scientific or regulatory criteria will be used to determine what fits the definition of “could be naturally occurring” or “by traditional methods”, which produces what is referred to as a “qualifying higher plant”.

Noble Lords might say that those conclusions are drawn from one side of the argument, but I point them to the Institute of Food Science & Technology, which called the Government’s approach “overly simplistic”. The Microbiology Society said it was “purely philosophical”. The Roslin Institute found it “exceptionally challenging”. The British Veterinary Association referred to it as “fundamentally flawed” and to the way the consultation was done as “leading, misleading” and “likely driven by industry”. The Universities Federation of Animal Welfare suggests

“the use of traditional breeding methods as a benchmark for what is and what is not acceptable is neither useful, nor scientifically logical.”

Finally, the FSA’s Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes said that a yes/no answer on this question was just not realistic:

“it is first necessary to have clarity on what constitutes ‘traditional breeding’”.

The key issue here is the problem of lack of definition. We come back to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which regrets that the Government have said that they intend this SI to be the first step in a process, with broader changes to GMO regulations, but provide no details of the context in which this instrument can be considered. The committee noted that, were this to be primary legislation, there would be no doubt that your Lordships’ House would be trying to introduce definitions into a Bill, as we cannot in an SI. The committee concludes that, with broader legislation, that would be the appropriate approach.

We find ourselves in a remarkably similar situation to that with the economic crime Bill, which we have just been debating. There, we are rushing through one thing with the promise of a second stage later, except that with the economic crime Bill, we all know why we are rushing through that stage; there is good reason for it and people have agreed to it. We have no explanation of why we need this rush here.

I just briefly mention broader concerns about the guidance, which is to be produced by the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, a government advisory body. All the members of that committee have professional interests in biotechnology, and only one has expertise in ecology. None appears to have expertise in environmental toxicology.

There are many other concerns I could raise, but I shall come to a final point, which was raised by the Minister: these are regulations for England and, as Defra told the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, both the Welsh and Scottish Governments have made it very clear that they do not wish to pursue equivalent action in Scotland and Wales. This raises an issue, because seeds are not subject to border control. In his introduction, the Minister, as did the government press release, explicitly mentioned sugar beet, which is, of course, wind pollinated and has the potential to spread over many kilometres and therefore crossbreed with wild or cultivated relatives. It is interesting that this crop is focused on so often, given its destructive environmental and public health outcomes.

I am aware that we do not very often pass fatal amendments, but this is a crucial issue. Yet again, as we have seen in other cases, we are encountering an ideology of cutting red tape. As we have seen in so many instances, such as the terribly tragic case of Grenfell, red tape is the rules that help keep us and our environment safe. As the Minister also said in his introduction, the Government are looking for purposes for Brexit and sees this as a possible one.

It is important that we have clarity on everyone’s position on this SI. We are not voting—and I intend to call a vote—on GMOs; we are voting on whether this SI is an appropriate instrument. I beg to move.

My Lords, I am a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and I can assert that the committee is supportive of the purposes of this statutory instrument. However, the committee has been critical of the presentation of the instrument, as indeed it has been of the presentation of a large number of instruments. I find the objections of the anti-GM lobby to this statutory instrument to be wide of the mark. Its specific objections to the instrument may be disposed of readily as can its wider objections to genetically modified crops.

The main objection that has been raised against the instrument is that it gives no justification for the claim that a genetic modification effected by gene editing could have occurred naturally. In fact, the statement has a very precise meaning. It means that nothing is introduced into the genome by editing it. Only the genes already present in the organism—or crops, which we are actually talking about—will be subject to the editing. The crops will have at least two copies of the gene and, in many cases, there may be more copies. Wheat, for example, has three copies of its genome. Some of the genes may be of a wild variety and others may be of a cultivated variety. The purpose of gene editing would be to ensure the plant has a homogeneous genetic endowment of the cultivated variety. The presumption is that this will lead to a more fruitful crop.

A project aimed at homogenising the genome via selective breeding might take many years and is liable to be time-consuming and expensive. It bears repeating that the process of gene editing will not introduce any alien material into the plant. This fact serves to negate one of the wilder alarms of the anti-GM lobby, which warns that alien genetic material will be introduced into other plants by inadvertent pollination. There are, in fact, no such alien genes to be guarded against.

Another false alarm of the lobby is that genetically modified crops might propagate rampantly, thereby despoiling the natural environment. The truth of the matter is that cultivated crops are largely incapable of self-propagation. This is surely true of cereal crops, which require threshing to release their seeds. Other crops, if they do succeed at reproducing without human intervention, are liable to die out after one or two generations. I believe that we can confidently dispose of the objections to this instrument. It proposes the alleviation of some burdensome restrictions, which have been impeding research programmes in plant science and agricultural science.