| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
5.24 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): I thank the Minister for bringing forward the legislation urgently. It is extremely important in terms of our international obligations. I see the former Minister of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) nodding, and I think that all hon. Members would agree that we owe it to other countries to act swiftly in ratifying agreements. Perhaps the Minister could explain to the House the great difficulties that we would have faced if the legislation had not been introduced before the summer recess.
The problem is that genes are no respecters of borders. When the European Union decided earlier this year to admit imports of American maize that had been genetically engineered for resistance to insects, the European consumer affairs commissioner, Emma Bonino, admitted concern that the decision had been taken "under conomic pressure". The silos of Antwerp and Lorient were already bursting with produce when Washington threatened a trade war.
The previous Government set up the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes--an independent body of experts chaired by Derek Burke, former chancellor of the university of East Anglia--to assess the safety of genetically modified foods. The ACNFP compares those foods with their conventional equivalents using analytical and toxicological tests. That procedure was endorsed by the World Health Organisation.
Processed products of the genetically modified maize, which is resistant to the European corn borer and tolerant to the herbicide glufosinate-ammonium, were tested in precisely that way. The ACNFP compared the modified maize with conventional maize and concluded that the products were toxicologically and nutritionally equivalent. The EU directive on novel foods and ingredients came into force in May this year. The regulation is designed to establish a Europe-wide system for approving any such foods before they reach the market. It covers foodstuffs that contain, or have been produced from, genetically
modified organisms. Their safety will be assessed using the ACNFP's established procedure. Under the regulation, foods that pass the safety test and go on sale will have to be clearly labelled.
As the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) said, Luxembourg and Austria have recently imposed their own bans on genetically modified maize. Some people with farming interests in Britain would like to do the same.
First, what is the Government's reaction to that proposal, given the pressure from America? Our trade relationship with the United States is very delicate and Governments are unwilling to override existing arrangements. However, it is a vital matter of principle and perhaps it is time to make an interim statement.
Secondly, we must ask whether we are rapidly losing the genetic diversity of our crops. That is a highly charged issue in a constituency such as Linlithgow where potatoes are the staple crop. It is even more important in East Lothian, which is famous for its seed potatoes.
There is the problem of whether we are leaving our crops too prone to pest and plague. The former Minister with responsibility for agriculture in Scotland, Lord Lindsay, thought that the position was perhaps misleading on the potato situation and blight--this is blight phytophthora infestans, which rots the crop. Agriculturalists accept that the genetic diversity of blight strains has increased with the appearance of the A2 strain of phytophthora infestans in Europe and north America, and that it is more aggressive in causing disease.
Greater freedom of trade and increased imports over the past 20 years have contributed to a significant increase in the number of blight strains, from one to about 15 in the United States. There have been alarming blight outbreaks in the US and Canada, but that alarm is partly a result of the new, aggressive strains producing blight disease where there was none before.
The situation was not helped by growers and agronomists lacking practical experience of controlling the disease over about the past 25 years. The north American authorities apparently did not give sufficiently high priority to breeding late-blight resistance into potato cultivars, and this has exposed commercial crop production to the disease. The strain P infestans US-8 has proved a major problem in parts of New England, but there is little evidence that it is more pathogenic than other strains.
Agriculture experts in Britain believe that the US-8 strain can be controlled by blight fungicides, provided that they are applied accurately and at the right time. There is no evidence that US-8 is resistant to the range of new fungicides now available.
Internationally, farmers have responded vigorously to the challenge posed by the new blight populations, and are investing effort and resources on a number of fronts. I am told that a number of international initiatives are being developed through the international programme for potato late-blight control in Mexico. The International Potato Centre in Lima, Peru, is co-ordinating a global initiative to combat the disease.
Central to a strategy for blight control is the need to increase the level of resistance in new varieties of potato that are now being developed. As I have said, I have moved on to my second question. I wish to know exactly what is being done to prevent a tragedy over the level of resistance, and when I talk of tragedy, I speak with considerable constituency feeling.
Tens of thousands of my constituents are the descendants of those who came from Ireland during the 1840s and 1850s as a result of potato blight. Bearing that in mind, the idea that blight could occur again is appalling. The Bill is supposedly non-political, and so may it be, but when one thinks of the political and demographic consequences of the potato blight in Ireland in the middle of the previous century, one shudders at the thought that it could ever happen again. That is precisely the issue that we are discussing.
I do not want to rabbit on for too long, but I have a third and final question. It concerns very much the same matter that was raised properly by the hon. Member for Lewes. The issue relates to Monsanto and genetically modified seeds.
When I receive a briefing, I believe in making it clear to the House from whom I have received it. A series of questions has been asked of me by Dr. Tom Craig from Hyde in Cheshire, who is most concerned about the news that 60,000 bags of oilseed containing the "wrong genes" had been let loose by Monsanto in Canada. Dr. Craig quotes the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch", which states that Monsanto, which is based in St. Louis--it is a chemical and biotechnology giant--last month announced that it had recalled "small quantities" of a genetically engineered canola seed containing an unapproved gene that had got into the product by mistake.
The briefing continues to explain that the recalled canola seed was "Roundup ready", meaning that it had been genetically engineered to withstand dousing with Monsanto's herbicide, glyphosate, which is marketed under the trade name Roundup.
The presence of the unapproved canola gene in a commercial product revealed at a minimum that Monsanto's quality assurance programmes failed in that instance and that the biotechnology regulatory system in Canada is ineffective. The regulatory system in the US is more lax than in Canada, but what is our regulatory system like? Are we better than the Canadians?
Mr. Tim Collins (Westmorland and Lonsdale):
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for letting me catch your eye and make my maiden speech. I understand that it is the tradition in a maiden speech to pay tribute to one's predecessor, to say a few a few words about the constituency, to make a brief reference to the subject of the debate and then to sit down quickly before taxing too much the indulgence of the House. That is exactly what I shall do. I do so most willingly in paying a tribute to my predecessor, Michael Jopling, now happily transferred--since last week--to another place as Lord Jopling.
Michael Jopling became the Member for what was then the constituency of Westmorland back in 1964. He carried on serving for the subsequent constituency of Westmorland
and Lonsdale, following boundary changes that were implemented in 1983. Michael is well known to the House and much liked by hon. Members. He is enormously admired in what was his constituency as a diligent, able and effective representative of his constituents' interests. He first became a Member at my age of 33. As he is now 66, right hon. and hon. Members will understand that he spent precisely half of his life to date representing people in Westmorland and Lonsdale, and did so extremely ably.
On the national scene, Michael Jopling was the Government Chief Whip during Lady Thatcher's first term in office between 1979 and 1983. He played a critical role then in holding together a fractious Conservative party and in contributing significantly to the success of what I believe was an extremely effective, important and revolutionary time in British politics.
Subsequently, Michael served as an effective and long-serving Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in the 1980s. More recently, in the present decade, he played a role in the Jopling reforms, which I think have won widespread acceptance and, indeed, enthusiasm among right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, in that they introduced civilisation to the working hours of this place.
I think that the impish sense of humour and sense of style that is characteristic of Michael Jopling was summed up by an incident that occurred when he was Minister of Agriculture. He was due to arrive at a significant agriculture show--I believe that it was in the north of England--and, at the time when the Minister was due to appear, there appeared instead a large, leather-clad gentleman on a powerful motor cycle. That produced enormous consternation among the various officials, who instructed this gentleman to depart forthwith because a Cabinet Minister was due to arrive. At that, the gentleman on the motor cycle removed his crash helmet, said that he was the Minister of Agriculture, Michael Jopling, and would they please get out of his way.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |