House of Commons
Wednesday 3 February 1999
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Genetically Modified Food
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Pope.]
9.33 am
Ms Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent, North): I feel as if I have hit the jackpot because there are so many hon. Members here on a Wednesday morning. I welcome their attendance, which supports the call made in business questions last Thursday for a debate on genetically modified food. I am delighted to have an opportunity to discuss the issue.
Food is of fundamental importance to us all. It is obvious that public concern about food standards is extremely high. As well as opinion survey evidence, we can see for ourselves that our local supermarkets are stocking more organic produce--food produced by farmers working without chemicals. The organic food market's annual growth rate is estimated to be about 40 per cent. That growth is happening despite the premium that customers must pay to eat those foods, and demonstrates people's desire to eat healthy, nutritious food.
That concern is entirely understandable. Fifty years ago, many people grew food themselves on allotments or in gardens, and I have to declare an interest in that my family has an allotment. Farms at that time seemed more understandable and less mechanised. Many people worked casually in fruit and vegetable picking. Only the other week, when we had a debate about school terms, we were reminded of how the school terms were organised around the need for people to go and pick fruit and vegetables. We seemed closer to our food then and felt that we understood where it came from. Now, food production seems much more distant.
More than ever, we rely on big business to provide our food. It travels great distances, comes from huge mechanised farms and is sold by huge supermarkets, so people do not know exactly what has gone into it. Antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals are all used in growing food. People's uncertainty about how our food is grown and produced is driving the growth in the market for organic produce. I strongly believe that the Government have a role in making sure that all the necessary safeguards are in place.
Now, with technology moving on, the building blocks of food itself are being altered through genetic engineering of crops. People are concerned about that. A MORI opinion poll taken last June found that 61 per cent. do not want to eat genetically modified food. They want healthy food, produced in an environmentally
sensible and sensitive manner. It is those concerns that I am so grateful to have an opportunity to raise today. I owe it to my constituents to do so.
I bring to the attention of the House a letter that I received the week before last from a constituent from Middleport. She writes:
I want the Government to respond to the concerns of my constituents and those who participated in one ofthe first citizens' jury panels organised by Dr. Tom Wakeford. I am pleased to see here my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell), who last week chaired a meeting of the parliamentary environment group on the subject.
The time is right for this debate. The report of the inquiry of the House of Lords European Communities Committee into EC regulation of genetic modification has just been published and awaits the Government's response. The Cabinet enforcer has just announced the joint review of the framework for overseeing developments in biotechnology. There is still time for late submissions to the public consultation. We are also in the throes of setting up a Food Standards Agency. As a vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, I am delighted that the Government are making that move and I want this debate to take place in good time for it.
The reform of the common agricultural policy is likely to be agreed in mid-March, setting the future direction of EU agriculture. In February, Environment Ministers from 170 countries will meet in Colombia to sign the biosafety protocol. In researching and raising this issue, however, I have the sense that time is running out and that this is an 11th-hour attempt. I also have a sense of deja vu because I tabled an early-day motion in January 1997--two years ago--which set out my concerns.
Since then, much has happened that is regrettable and makes informed public debate much more difficult. For example, since GM soya beans were mixed with non-GM soya beans in America--Monsanto has persisted in its view that segregation is impractical--it has become impossible for consumers of many processed foods to know whether those foods contain GM soya. Some 60 per cent. of processed foods use soya. The vast majority of us have, therefore, already been exposed to those beans, whether we like it or not.
Many share my concerns. Sainsburys, for example, in evidence to the House of Lords, made a point of saying that it had tried unsuccessfully to persuade Monsanto and the American Soya Bean Association of the need to segregate genetically modified soya from the standard crop for reasons of consumer choice. This is a timely debate. Things can be done, but there needs to be an urgency about them.
Mr. Cynog Dafis (Ceredigion):
The issue of segregation is very important. I know that farmers in my constituency feel increasingly obliged to ensure traceability, which imposes considerable additional cost
Ms Walley:
I could not agree more. The hon. Gentleman has exposed the myth that genetically modified food is somehow in all our interests because it is cheaper.
My first request of the Government is for the Minister to give careful consideration to announcing a moratorium on the planting of GM crops. That has been requested by a wide range of groups, from the Government's official advisers on wildlife, to the wholefood trade, environmental groups, consumer groups and organic farmers. The reasons for such a request are numerous.
Despite reassurances that the products are rigorously tested and safe, unexpected incidents of illness have, apparently, been caused by such products. In the worst case, I understand that a United States epidemic of eosinophilia myalgia syndrome--EMS--affected about 5,000 people. An estimated 37 died and 1,500 were left permanently disabled with sickness.
I understand that the outbreak was traced to a batch of food supplements produced by genetically engineered bacteria. Dr. Michael Antoniou, senior lecturer and head of a research group at one of London's leading research hospitals, pointed out that that illustrates the difficulty that,
As well as the safety issue, we must consider the environmental impact of the products. I am delighted to bring to the House's attention the fact that the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I sit--I am pleased to see other members of it present--has decided to inquire into and report on the issue.
Farms cannot be isolated; cross-pollination inevitably occurs. I attended a meeting only last week at which fear was expressed to me, especially on behalf of beekeepers,
who are concerned about cross-pollination. It could result in weeds inheriting resistance to weedkiller, raising the spectre of so-called superweeds. Other effects, such as plants generating their own insecticide, could lead to insects developing immunity to the toxins.
The impact of GMOs on wildlife is of great concern to organisations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, whose views I value. Along with other organisations, it suggested that the Advisory Committee on Releases into the Environment--ACRE--does not have a broad enough membership. ACRE's chairman, Professor John Beringer, suggested in oral evidence to the Lords inquiry that there are holes in the regulatory system, whereby no Government advisory committee is currently looking into the impact of agricultural practice on wildlife population. All such issues deserve the House's urgent scrutiny.
Furthermore, there are fears that the introduction of plants that are resistant to specific weedkillers will lead to farmers using more such weedkillers on their fields. Given that the Government's wildlife adviser, English Nature, is linking the major decline in farm wildlife with intensive farming, that cannot be a sensible way to go. Indeed, English Nature is so concerned that it has issued a statement declaring its support for a moratorium on the commercial releases of GM crops. Its GM adviser, Dr. Brian Johnson, said:
"I just want to say that we as a family do not want genetically altered food, and I don't know many who do. Perhaps you could pass this message on".
My message to my constituent is that I am passing on her words to Parliament. I do not apologise for doing so because this is the one place where GM food needs to be discussed.
"Even in simple cases such as bacteria, where genetic modification can be carried out with some precision, unpredictable disturbances in bio-chemical functioning with disastrous outcomes can occur."
He comments that it is
"not surprising . . . that unexpected toxins and ill effects have been documented in more complex genetically modified organisms such as plants."
There are questions, too, about the testing of GM products. I have been sent a series of letters on the testing of GM soya, which raises concerns. In one, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food officials confirmed that animal feeding studies were carried out when testing the safety of GM soya beans. In a subsequent letter, the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes confirmed that the feeding tests
"were considered in the context of the evaluation and safety of human food use of the soya. They were indeed relevant".
However, in the final letter, the Minister, who I am pleased is present, told us that
"the information from feeding studies is . . . not considered . . . to be of much value to novel food assessments."
If information from such tests is really of little value, it is surely a matter of concern that it was a relevant part of the testing procedure. I hope that the Minister can expand on that point in his reply.
"There is plenty of evidence that our farmland wildlife has suffered a major decline in recent years. The environmentally untested introduction of GMOs could be the final blow for such species as the skylark, corn bunting and the linnet, as the seeds and insects on which they feed disappear."
I very much welcome the work that the Government, especially the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, have done on indicators. We could be undermining all that brilliant work.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |