Examination of Witness (Questions 200
- 219)
TUESDAY 23 MAY 2000
RT HON
NICHOLAS BROWN,
MP
Chairman
200. Minister, thank you very much. Now I would
like to conclude briefly by asking you if there is an update you
have on the issue which was obviously raised in the House last
week about your unintended large-scale trials of GM rape.
(Mr Brown) You are right, this should not have happened,
and it was an accident.
201. There were a number of questions raised
in the House, and you gave a number of answers some of which,
by necessity, were holding answersthe legal position, for
example. There is some doubt about what actually happened, such
as was it mixed in Canada as grain, was it cross-pollinated, was
it mixed outside Canada in transit? I think there were several
versions given.
(Mr Brown) The cross-pollination almost certainly
took place in Canada, because of the proximity of two elements
of a GM product, one used to cross-fertilise the other which was
sterile. What we believe happened is that that process cross-contaminated
conventional oilseed rape which was being used to produce the
seeds that were sold into the market place. That is what we believe
happened.
202. Could I ask you one question about process?
(Mr Brown) Incidentally, I put a technical note that
explains this in the Library.
203. Thank you, yes, we have it.
(Mr Brown) I hope you appreciate my difficulty in
trying to explain that.
204. No, it was almost as good as the Japanese
description of multi-functionality and the diagram on multi-functionality,
so we are very pleased about that. Can I ask you about process?
You said in your statement that the Government's advisory bodies
had looked at the issue and said there was no risk. When you say
"looked at", just tell me, did they meet as a body,
or were the individual members e-mailed or telephoned? What was
the process and what was the question put to them?
(Mr Brown) You see, I am not the Minister directly
involved in this.
205. I appreciate that.
(Mr Brown) Let us be quite clear about this. Responsibility
for ensuring the food safety issues now lies firmly with the Food
Standards Agency and the Secretary of State for Health. Responsibility
on the environmental issues lies firmly with the Secretary of
State for the Environment. I am not quite sure what sort of inquiry
you want to conduct, but if you want to ask about what happened
with individual government departments, you really should ask
the Minister responsible. I am quite happy to answer for Government
as a whole, but if you want to get into specifics, you really
must get the appropriate answer from the appropriate Minister.
206. As you know, this is obviously of topical
interest, and we do want to give you the opportunity to bring
us up to date.
(Mr Brown) Surely the crucial point is this. Nobody
is saying that there was a public health danger. The advice is
very clear, and nobody is asserting otherwise. That is the starting
point. On the environmental questions, the advice to Government
is that there is no danger to the environment, and that is the
advice to Government.
207. If the offending rapelet us leave
it in those terms at the moment, for shorthandwere collected
and processed into oil, would the amount of GM adulteration still
be likely to leave the resulting oil as being capable of being
classified as GM free because it would be under 1 per cent?
(Mr Brown) This has actually happened, of course.
There were two sellings, and with the first one it had been collected
and processed, and of course there is no discernible difference
because of the nature of the product and the nature of the process.
208. So the answer is yes?
(Mr Brown) It is completely indistinguishable, absolutely
indistinguishable.
Mr Drew
209. The question I raised with you on Thursday
on the statementand I have thought more about it sinceis
that we have got the possibility now of the North Americans perhaps
even talking about a carousel of action against the EU on the
basis of bananas and hormones in beef, and yet they cannot, because
we have now proved it, segregate their GM from their non-GM. This
was what you would term "a tragic accident", but some
of our report shows how difficult it is to segregate. Is it not
about time we gave them the message that they are picking on us
in terms of risk assessment, but we need to be picking fault with
them, and if they do not get it right we will have to take measures?
(Mr Brown) On the long-running banana dispute, nobody
has tried harder than the UK Government to bring it to a resolution.
On the beef hormone issue, the advice that we have here domestically
is different from the view taken by our European Union partners,
and we have stood robustly by the science, because we believe
that is the right way forward, and to be threatened with carousel
retaliation is completely unacceptable.
210. But the parallels are there with their
inability to trade fairly.
(Mr Brown) We have no selfish interest in it at all.
We do not grow bananas, we consume them. The reason we are doing
that is to try to help the people in the Caribbean.
211. To me, Minister, the parallel, I suppose,
is their willingness to engage in unilateral action on the basis
that they clearly do not trust the way in which we are working
in those two sectors, and yet we have to rely on them to say they
are capable of segregating their GM from their non-GM, and they
cannot do it.
(Mr Brown) There is a clear need for international
agreement in this area, and the advice I have is that we are close.
You are absolutely right about that. My officials are in communication,
and I am going to be in communication, with the other Ministers
from France, Germany and Sweden who are also affected by this.
We will be expecting the Commission to take the issue forward.
212. But the Americans made it absolutely clear
to us when we were there on the Select Committee visit that they
had no intention of signing the Montreal Bio-Safety Protocol,
they just see that as a pure irrelevance.
(Mr Brown) Yes. Frankly, you are right, that is not
the way forward.
Mr Paterson
213. You have just stated that the food aspect
of this question is the responsibility of the Food Standards Agency?
(Mr Brown) That is correct.
214. Then you whizzed the ball down to the Deputy
Prime Minister on the question of the environment.
(Mr Brown) I would not put it quite like that, but
his department has the responsibility, and that is how it should
be.
215. Yes, but in this field, what are you are
responsible for?
(Mr Brown) Agricultural production and, as the Chairman
has pointed out, any agricultural production of GM product in
this country that there is, and for seed integrity.
216. Can you elaborate on "seed integrity"?
(Mr Brown) The seed listing system is a responsibility
of my department, and of course it is now quite a controversial
area because the seed that came into the country was not as described.
Mr Öpik
217. Given that organisations and environmental
groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have highlighted
exactly this kind of danger as one of the reasons why they have
been against our involvement even at the current level, what would
be your response to them and also to the public, given that it
does definitely compromise many of the reassurances that were
given not by you, but by certain representatives of the Government
in the past?
(Mr Brown) Fortunately, because of the nature of the
GM cross-pollinationin other words, the GM product is made
sterilethere is not an environmental danger in this country.
The Governmentand it is the Department of the Environment
who are in the leadare introducing testing of seeds that
come into this country, and that will be in place from 1 June.
218. We were lucky this time, but it could happen
again, surely? That is the big worry, is it not?
(Mr Brown) Nothing that has happened is in any way
damaging on food safety grounds, nor is it damaging to the environment.
Mr Marsden
219. I think the public accept that there is
no danger to health. I think they are maybe still a little bit
sceptical about the issue of the impact on the environment, but
over and above all that it is still a public relations disaster
in terms of the way it has hit the Government, the way the media
will of course run and run and run with it. Do you not think,
though, in these circumstances, that it would have been the right
course of action to take quicker action to be able, for instance,
to destroy the crops to reassure the public that there was no
danger? If you therefore say no, because you are still convinced
that there is no danger to health and the environment, and you
still believe that there is no danger to the environment in the
future, then why not simply step back and say, "Let's open
up these trials", because clearly there should not be any
further impact that the public need to worry about?
(Mr Brown) The products that are being trialled, the
agricultural commodities that are being trialled, are not the
same as the oilseed rape product that was inadvertently released.
Because of the nature of the product, the advice that I have is
that there is no damage to the environment. That now seems to
be accepted by most responsible commentators on this, although
of course there are those who are opposed to GMs in principle,
who object because it is an objection to the family in principle,
but that is not quite the same thing.
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