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Mr. Brown: That issue is probably at the heart of the debate and we might as well get it cleared up now. The important new development was the continuing legal advice that was coming to me and other Ministers. Once we had established the legal position, we acted immediately to put the best advice we could give to farmers into the public domain.
Mr. Yeo: People will not draw much comfort from the fact that it took five and a half weeks for the lawyers at MAFF to discover whether a law passed in 1990 was being broken.
Mr. Yeo: I have given way once. The Minister will get his chance. [Interruption.] I have repeated exactly what the Minister said. I shall give way in a moment, but I wish to establish exactly what happened during that period.
During the four-and-a-half week period of silence after Advanta contacted MAFF on 17 April, we know that the Minister did not consult English Nature. We know that he
did not call a meeting of ACRE. As agriculture is a devolved issue, it might have been thought that the time was used to consult the Minister's Scottish and Welsh counterparts, especially as even MAFF might have realised that planting of the crop was still taking place in Scotland after 17 April. However, apparently, the Scottish and Welsh Ministers were not informed until 15 May, four weeks after the Ministry in London had learned the truth, and just two days before Parliament was told. Whether the Minister will now tell us that he needed legal advice before informing the Scottish Minister is something that I expect he will explain later in the debate.
Mr. Brown: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Yeo: No, the right hon. Gentleman will have a chance in a moment. The Scottish Minister for Rural Affairs told Members of the Scottish Parliament of his deep anger and annoyance at being kept in the dark. He said:
- I'm even more annoyed there was a total lack of communication between MAFF and ourselves . . . We are writing to them to make it clear that this is unacceptable.
Mr. Yeo: As far as I know, the FSA was consulted, although I do not know on exactly what date.
What is certain is that, after 17 April, some farmers who had purchased contaminated seed from Advanta in good faith proceeded to sow it. In a letter to The Times on 25 May, the Marquess of Lansdowne made it clear that the contaminated seed was sown on 65 hectares in Perthshire two weeks after MAFF knew that it had been sold to farmers. He wrote:
- It must be asked why those who had purchased the seed were not informed immediately and, secondly, instructed by the ministry to destroy the seed (or the crop, if it had already been planted) to ensure GM plants are contained in research environments only.
Apart from the Minister and his civil servants, the company was alone in knowing about the contaminated seed. It knew to whom it had been sold, so why did the company not contact its customers after it had contacted the Minister? If it had done so, it might have been able to minimise its liability.
Last Friday, the general manager of Advanta, Mr. Mike Ruthven, told me that the company would have liked to warn its customers. The only reason that it did not do so was that it was asked by MAFF officials to keep the whole matter secret. [Hon. Members: "Cover up."] When Advanta went to the Government to make a clean breast of its blunder, it was asked not to say a word about the matter to anyone else. It was MAFF advice to Advanta, and nothing else, that ensured that farmers were kept in the dark after 17 April. It was the Ministry's advice that allowed farmers to go on planting GM seeds in Britain in the period after 17 April. That makes a complete mockery of all the assurances from Ministers that commercial planting of GM crops would not take place.
What on earth is the point of all the carefully monitored crop trials when, knowingly and willingly, MAFF allows the planting and growing of GM crops on sites that are not even identified, let alone monitored?
Mr. Brown: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. There is a clear obligation on Advanta to tell its customers that it had sold them a defective product, as soon as it knew that it had done so. It received no advice from Government not to tell its customers what had happened.
Mr. Yeo: I hope that documents eventually will prove who is right in this matter. I noted that the general manager of Advanta last Friday said to me exactly what he said to a reporter from The Guardian, as a report in this morning's newspaper confirms.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Elliot Morley): It does not confirm that.
Mr. Yeo: From a sedentary position, the Parliamentary Secretary says that the report does not confirm that, so I shall read it to the House. Mr. Ruthven states that MAFF told him
- that they would want to make some tests themselves and not to say anything about it until they had sorted that out. I took a lot of comfort from that and as a result did not take any action to inform farmers or seed merchants.
Mr. Yeo: The Minister appears to be saying that what Advanta told The Guardian last night is inaccurate. If so, I am surprised that officials from MAFF or DETR did not also give a quote to The Guardian, as they were invited to.
Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater): The Minister appeared to choose his words carefully, but of course every employee at MAFF is part of the government. Would it not be interesting to know whether the Minister is seeking to absolve Ministers from responsibility by isolating officials and trying to hide behind them, and whether any public body was involved in the advice given to Advanta?
Mr. Yeo: My right hon. Friend makes a most important point. The way in which this matter is developing means that the documents, notes and records of the meetings that took place--even those involving only Ministry officials and the company--must be placed in the public domain.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): I, too, was struck by the candour of the quotation from Mr. Ruthven. Is it possible that the civil servants to whom he refers belong to DETR and that the Minister is answering only for his own officials? It seems clear that wholly unhelpful advice was given.
Mr. Yeo: The hon. Gentleman is right. It is possible that the officials who spoke to the company belong to DETR. I understand that the first meeting took place at DETR, with a MAFF official also present.
I suspected that the Minister might take this line of response, so I attempted to speak to Mr. Ruthven before coming into the Chamber for this debate to make absolutely sure that The Guardian had reported what he said accurately. Unfortunately, he was not available, but I have no doubt that we will get to the truth of the matter shortly.
Given the Labour Government's appalling record of secrecy and media manipulation over GM issues, many people will suspect that MAFF may have hoped, on 17 April and during the days and weeks of silence that followed, that the issue would go away, that no one would find out and that an embarrassing problem could be covered up.
The Minister has had six and a half weeks to think about the matter. He owes the public a full and detailed explanation of what happened and why, and this afternoon's debate gives him the chance to start that explanation. We know that he understands the seriousness of the issue now, because two weeks ago he told the House:
- To knowingly corrupt seed products is of course an offence in this country, as is knowingly releasing them into the environment.--[Official Report, 25 May 2000; Vol. 350, c. 1099.]
From reports in the press now, it appears that at first the Ministry's officials may not have realised the full gravity of the situation. However, it staggers belief and strains credulity that it should take five and a half weeks for civil servants to find out the true seriousness of the problem. Not even civil servants at MAFF or DETR could be as incompetent as that.
I hope that the Minister will explain precisely what advice his civil servants gave to Advanta. I hope that he will publish the minutes of the meetings that his civil servants had with Advanta. I hope that he will tell the House when he first knew that GM seeds had been planted. I hope that he will say when he first realised that an offence might have been committed. I hope that he will explain what the tests were that his officials told Advanta that they wanted to carry out. Will he now publish the results of those tests?
On 18 May, the Minister told the House that officials had been in continuous contact with the company. When did he or his officials warn Advanta that the situation was even more serious than was first thought?
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