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[MR. MICHAEL J. MARTIN in the Chair]
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Michael J. Martin): I have a statement to make. On the list of manuscript amendments some hon. Members may have in their hands, the amendments are
numbered 1 to 4. On the Chairman of Ways and Means' provisional selection of amendments, the manuscript amendments are listed as amendments Nos. 9 to 12. The Chair will ensure that hon. Members will know which amendment is before the Committee when each debate starts.
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
7.15 pm
Mr. Baker: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 25, after subsection (1), insert--
'(1A) The Controller shall each year make a report of his activities to Ministers, who shall lay a copy of every such report before Parliament.'.
The amendment relates to the accountability of the controller of plant variety rights. I shall not take up too much of the Committee's time, because we had the substantive debate on Second Reading and now we want to concentrate on minor, technical points.
I am grateful to the Minister for having said earlier that he recognised the need for the public to have confidence in the food safety system. He also recognised the need for openness in that system. Given the concerns that have been expressed, not only by Liberal Democrat Members, but, to a lesser extent, by Labour and Conservative Members, I hope that he will look favourably on the amendment. Given the uncertainty in some people's minds about the direction in which those matters are progressing, it is an important safeguard for openness in food safety that, once a year, Ministers should have to lay a copy of such a report before Parliament. That is also in line with the Minister's thinking, so I hope that he will accept the amendment.
Mr. Rooker:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his amendment. If a report on the activities of the controller were not already to be published, I would have accepted the amendment; however, what the hon. Gentleman is asking for already happens.
The decisions that the controller proposes to take or has taken are required to be published--and are published--monthly in the Plant Varieties and Seeds Gazette, of which I have obtained a copy for my better information. An annual edition of the gazette is published each year and provides details of all grants of rights in effect at the time of publication and information showing, for example, the name of the variety, who holds the rights and when they expire. The gazette is publicly available. Other information in applications for rights and rights granted is held on the registers in the plant variety rights office. Those may be inspected by members of the public during normal office hours and copies of entries on the register are freely available on request.
A substantial amount of information is therefore already published. More information is in the public domain and may be inspected or copies obtained on request. The amendment is therefore unnecessary. I have been told that no part of the work of the plant variety rights office is not already published and available. Accountability to the House is therefore ensured.
Mr. Baker:
I am grateful to the Minister for listing the ways in which members of the public and Members of Parliament can obtain information about the activities of the controller. Perhaps the amendment was badly worded; what I sought to achieve was that, each year, Parliament would have an opportunity to debate those matters, rather than the information being published in a form that required hon. Members to bring the matter forward in a different way. However, I am grateful for the Minister's response and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Baker:
I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 42, at end insert
Thank you for selecting my amendment, Mr Deputy Speaker.
This is a testing amendment, to which I hope the Minister will respond in a positive manner. There is anxiety about the fact that, with plant breeders' rights, it is possible to annex something that occurs naturally and claim it as a "discovery"--which is a word that is used in clause 4(6)--and thereby to market it and claim credits, and remuneration, for that.
The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) mentioned a species or variety of apple. I can understand that sometimes a naturally occurring plant--fruit, vegetable or whatever--may be developed in such a way as to constitute something that has been added on and so would qualify for some sort of intellectual right. However, I am anxious to prevent it being possible for something that has always occurred naturally to be "discovered" and for benefit in financial terms to be accrued from that "discovery".
There is a dangerous precedent, which I hope that the Minister will address, regarding relations between the north and the south. If this principle were written into the Bill, something that has been growing for a very long time, to the benefit of farmers in the third world in particular, might be "discovered" and written into legislation in Europe. If that were the case, that could be to the detriment of those who were perhaps, dare I say it, simple farmers in the third world, and to the benefit of those who understood how laws worked and were able to exploit that knowledge for their own purposes.
That is the purpose of moving the amendment. I hope that the Minister can give an assurance that he understands that.
Mr. Rooker:
I hope to satisfy the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Baker) again.
If a breeder discovers a plant growing in the wild, he must carry out significant selection and re-crossing to establish distinctness, uniformity and--most important--
stability. Wild plants invariably lack uniformity and stability, so it is not just a question of discovering something that is in the wild; the breeder must develop and do something about it. It is for that reason that clause 4(3) provides that:
The hon. Member for Daventry, who mentioned the apple in New Zealand, said that, having discovered the apple in the wild, it took that family 15 years to bring it to the market; it was not a question of picking something up and commercialising it.
I hope that, following that assurance, the hon. Member for Lewes will withdraw his amendment.
Mr. Baker:
I will withdraw the amendment, but I draw to the Minister's attention the fact that, in clause 4(6), the word "discovery" is present and the word "develop" is not. That was why I moved the amendment. I am now happy to withdraw it.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Paice:
I beg to move amendment No. 9, page 3, line 21, leave out from 'above' to end of line 22.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
With this, it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 10, page 3, line 23, leave out from 'may' to end of line 24 and insert--
Mr. Paice:
I do not wish to detain the Committee long, but the two amendments are specific.
I should like to press the Minister on why he has decided to insert in paragraph (h) of clause 6(1) what most of us would describe as a catch-all phrase. It is additional to the wording that appears in the European regulation, so we are seeing, not a direct transposition of European law into British law, but what, under the previous Government, would have been termed "gold plating"--the habit that some people have of taking a European regulation and not only transposing it into law but adding bells and whistles, with the often undesirable consequential effect of overburdening those whom it affects.
The purpose of amendment No. 9 is to persuade the Government that they do not need paragraph (h) because the EU regulation in the other items covers all the possible acts. If the Minister is convinced that he needs that catch-all phrase, I should be grateful if he would give the Committee some examples of the type of situation in which he envisages that the phrase will need to be used.
Amendment No. 10, which, like amendment No. 9, stands in my name and the names of my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), would introduce a requirement that due regard be given to the balance of interests of those beyond the plant breeding industry, which would benefit the whole of the agri-food industry without restricting plant breeders' rights. It stems from the belief that some protection is required from the potential abuse of unrestricted rights, which is detrimental as it stands.
', but no variety which occurs naturally in the wild shall be the subject of a grant of plant breeders' rights.'.
"the person entitled to the grant of plant breeders' rights"
in respect of a wild plant
"is the person who . . . discovers and develops it"--
not just discovers it. I cannot accept the amendment because it is both unnecessary and unworkable.
'impose reasonable conditions or limitations when giving authority for the purposes of subsection (1) above.'.
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