Examination of Witness (Questions 540
- 559)
TUESDAY 18 JANUARY 2000
BARONESS HAYMAN
Chairman
540. Let me return now to the question of GMs.
You said that a meeting Joyce Quin hinted was going to happen
has now happened between organic farmers and SCIMAC.
(Baroness Hayman) Yes.
541. Were they able to find any areas of agreement?
(Baroness Hayman) I was not at the meeting myself.
I understand it was a constructive meeting. There was a conversation
about how we can bridge the gap because, as you said earlier,
the organic movement has talked about very long separation distances,
has been very concerned about every organic farmer within a wide
range being notified about what was going on, rather than simply
neighbours. I think it was a constructive meeting that started
talking about the things that Mr Jack was talking about: what
the results would be, why this information is important. Therefore,
what is the relevance and what should be the appropriate distances.
They did not reach a conclusion about that but they are going
to meet again to talk about it. Equally, the research issues that
people wanted to focus on.
542. Are they meeting again under the auspices
of MAFF, the government or independently?
(Baroness Hayman) Under the auspices of MAFF, yes.
543. Clearly, these talks have important implications
for putting separation distances on a statutory footing.
(Baroness Hayman) They do and they have important
implications for the organic sector which is one that MAFF has
supported.
544. All the evidence is really that the organic
sector regards GMs as the work of the devil and they cannot be
tolerated at all. There is an absolutism here, rightly or wrongly—I
do not pass judgment on that—and they feel that GM contamination,
even at very low levels, renders their organic produce non-organic.
Can the government credibly encourage both GM and organic sectors?
Is it possible to have a policy which actually meets the concerns
of both sides?
(Baroness Hayman) I was heartened by the report of
that meeting in that there was a willingness to try and recognise
the need for co-existence. There are very strong feelings within
the organic movement but equally a recognition I think that it
is not appropriate for government to outlaw the technology simply
because someone else does not believe in it and without a proper
basis for so doing in terms of protection of public health or
the environment. I hope that over time a modus vivendi
will be possible to work out.
545. If I am right, the European Union rules,
we are told by the Soil Association, for organic production were
revised last year to prohibit GMOs in organic production. I do
not quite know what that means in terms of thresholds or what
the definition of prohibition is but is there not a question here
ultimately—maybe your last answer suggests there is not—that
there are two incompatible crops here. Whose right should take
precedence?
(Baroness Hayman) I think we have to find a way of
a proper recognition of the interests of both sectors. There is
an issue of whether GM is different from other non-organic production.
The organic movement has to recognise and find a way of living
with adventitious contamination from conventional crops. It has
to find a way of dealing with spray drift; it has to find a way
of dealing with non-organic material in animal feed, of laying
down tolerances and working out what the criterion for calling
something organic is. They have taken a very clear view about
GM technology as being a very particular and more worrying form
of conventional agriculture than the norm, but we have to find,
as a society, a way of marrying up and determining what are the
legitimate aspirations of the different areas. I do not think
it is legitimate for government—whether that is because
of international obligations on trade; whether it is in terms
of simply dealing fairly with British agriculture or British industry—to
take action against a sector which is not based on scientific
evidence. We have to get that evidence and that is what the government
is trying to do, but you cannot simply ban something, to put it
crudely, because some people are very ideologically opposed to
it.
546. That is a very clear message to the organic
sector that they will have to be like Dr Strangelove and learn
to stop worrying and love GM.
(Baroness Hayman) Those are your words, not mine.
547. That is what you just said. The organic
sector must stop worrying. You will find a way of containing GM
and they can carry on and co-exist. That is not how most of my
organic friends see it.
(Baroness Hayman) I do not think I said that they
must learn to stop worrying. They want their concerns recognised
and I think government has to provide a forum in which this technology,
if it is developed, recognises and meets legitimate concerns.
Equally, they recognise that they do not have a veto over other
agricultural methods, whether GM or non-GM, just because they
are not the methods that they choose to adopt.
548. For whatever reason, the presence of a
GM crop or a GM foodstuff could have an impact on values; it could
lead to civil actions; there could be a question of liability
for financial loss. That question does exist. This question was
raised during the debate in Westminster Hall last week which your
colleague, Mr Meacher, answered, by Brian Iddon. He asked, "Will
liability lie with the companies that sell the products, the farmers
who grow the crops or with government who license the crops to
be grown?" Do you have an answer to that question? It may
even require legislation. Do you intend legislation to carry forward
liability lines?
(Baroness Hayman) It may involve legislation and it
may involve legislation at an EU level rather than a United Kingdom
level. It is one of the areas where we would want the Commission
to bring forward proposals so that that can be determined on an
EU basis, because we might have a situation where the approval,
for example, or the regulatory body was in another country. It
is not something that you can simply do on a United Kingdom basis.
It is one of the areas where we are pressing the Commission to
take action.
Mr Jack
549. In your evidence in paragraph 12, you talk
about, "With the cooperation of the Canadian and US authorities,
a list of suppliers and distributors of non-GM soya was therefore
published and placed on the Internet by MAFF in 1998", and
you then go on to comment about what US grain handlers have offered.
Has anybody from MAFF or another government department been through
the chain of supply which is reported by this Internet site to
examine its methodology for achieving separation and the integrity
of its results?
(Baroness Hayman) I know that there have been visits
to, for example, South America, looking at sources of supply of
non-GM material. The precise nature of the evaluation of the supplies
that were put on that website—I think it is clear on the
website that there is a need to check the integrity and for individual
suppliers, people who are using the supplies, to assure themselves.
I think it is an information base, rather than a verified source
of supply.
550. The reason I ask that question is that
we have had evidence from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors,
who consider that the whole matter of segregation should be a
seamless protocol, as they describe it, from plough to plate.
On the other hand, SCIMAC have a different view. They have a baton
approach where one person in the chain passes the responsibility
to another. I wondered whether MAFF, in looking at perhaps two
different approaches, had from an objective and scientific point
of view evaluated whether they both worked. Could one say with
confidence that if you follow that route A or B it would maintain
the integrity of segregation whatever the methodology or were
there any watch points, because people will often turn to government
as an independent source and say, "If we are going to have
systems of segregation, have you studied them? Are there potential
breaches or are you happy that if you follow methodological approach
A"—either the chartered surveyors' or the SCIMAC approach—"you
have an evens chance of getting a segregated crop from the beginning
of the process to the end".
(Baroness Hayman) I think this is part of the work
that needs to be done in the definition of "GM free"
because obviously it is at points throughout the supply chain
where there is risk of contamination and there are a large number
of points between farm and fork, where you need to look at the
hazards of identity preservation. I do not think we have come
down on one method or another but within the European context
of defining "GM free" that is where the debate about
the appropriate methods of identity preservation has to be. In
terms of what has to be labelled as containing GM and the one
per cent threshold, that applies only to things that have been
sourced as representing themselves as non-GM. It is not something
where there has not been any attempt to verify whether this is
GM or non-GM.
551. The reason I am probing this is that there
was a hint in some of the oral evidence we had that people may
not always stick to the rules. There may be people who would cheat
and say, "This is a segregated, GM free crop" within
the terminology you have just described, but it turns out that
it is not. I can imagine that if that occurs one of the partners
who will be brought in to help adjudicate and deal with such matters
is the government. You talked about SCIMAC's approach as one—and
there are others—almost saying, "It is up to the commercial
market place to sort out a system that will work and the customer
should have confidence in what the supplier is sending; it is
not a role for us." Do you have a view as to who should determine
what these protocols should be, the baton approach or the all-encompassing?
Do you think that MAFF has a role in putting some basic ground
rules in that people should observe, good practice, or are you
strictly in the stands, watching the game on the pitch?
(Baroness Hayman) I think there is an issue and it
is the issue between what it is essential and statutory for people
to label which is containing GM. Government has a responsibility
for a definition of that—that has been done now at the EU
level—so that that can be verified; so that it can be tested
by a Trading Standards Officer. Equally, I drew a distinction
about the claims that may be made. The claims for GM free will
take you through the supply chain and identity preservation issues.
No one has to claim something is GM free or label it as GM free.
If they do, it will be covered by the general rules of not being
misleading and then it will be again for Trading Standards Officers
to look at whether the particular product fulfils the definition
of GM free. That is why I come back to the importance of the EU
having a level playing field here so we all know what we are testing
against if someone makes that claim.
552. You are quite content that the various
points at which you objectively establish something that can be
measured and defined are sufficient checks for you to be happy
that there will be a diversity of approaches employed by commercial
suppliers and buyers when it comes to them getting their GM free
crops from wheresoever they get them?
(Baroness Hayman) My responsibility and in future
the Food Standards Agency responsibility will be to ensure that
there is a definition that is verifiable and that consumers are
not misled. I am not sure whether it would be our responsibility
to say the actual process in which someone who makes a claim ensures
that it is appropriate. We have to make sure that it is testable.
Mr Todd
553. Could I refer you to paragraph five of
your Department's submission on the issue of the Novel Foods Regulation,
particularly the reference to the requirement for specific labelling
where a food may give rise to ethical concerns? What do you think
that means?
(Baroness Hayman) This comes from the Novel Food Regulation.
Chairman
554. I am giving a lecture in Evesham in April
on the ethics of genetic modification so I am very anxious to
have a good response to this, Minister.
(Baroness Hayman) It is based largely on the Polkinghorne
Report of 1993, which refers to genes from animals of religious
significance, animal genes in plants or human genes in food. I
think it is dealing with potential for the future, not with what
is happening at the moment, that is the possibility suggested
to transfer such genes between species by genetic modification.
Mr Todd
555. That was the origin of it. What do you
think it means? In other words, that is where that particular
item stemmed from but when one introduces the concept of an ethical
concern about food obviously that opens up far more than just
the narrow report as being the origin of it.
(Baroness Hayman) This is about an ethical concern
in a GM food, so that is very specific. It is not, for example,
about animal welfare, issues that might be characterised as ethical.
556. I was not seeking to spread it from that.
What I was suggesting was that the use of GM technology to produce
a food in which GM components are absent but the process involved
the use of GM might be seen as an ethical matter to many consumers.
Would you agree with that?
(Baroness Hayman) I think that is stretching what
this is about. I recognise that some people are interested in
the use of a GM process as well as whether there is GM material
in the finished food. That comes into how we define whether something
uses the phrase "GM free" rather than how we demand
that something is labelled as containing GM material. This was
very specific around concerns that were expressed that, for example,
some people might have no worries at all about a form of maize
that was herbicide resistant. They would see that as an advance
on conventional plant breeding and not of concern. If at some
point in the future—and this is not happening now—someone
wanted to take a gene from one species, an animal species, and
put it into a plant, there were people who would have ethical
concerns about that and who would want to know. That should be
appropriately labelled.
557. As is my wont, I look at this in a slightly
different way. A lot of this debate is about science, but when
you introduce the issue of ethics into it that becomes a matter
of individual judgment and morality, does it not? If the EC and
this government wishes to recognise the right of an individual
to have their own moral choice over both the process of the food
production and the food that they eat, is that the intent of the
government, to provide that choice within a labelling regime?
At the moment, as I think we have conceded, you are saying that
takes it a bit too far. It does not do that. Someone who has an
ethical concern about the GM process per se would not be
satisfied with the current labelling regime because it would not
indicate that that process was used.
(Baroness Hayman) There are two levels of decision
making that have to be taken. We cannot cover on labelling physically
all the concerns that a wide variety of consumers might have about
a food because those are many and various. The whole of the packet
would be taken up with them. There has to be a decision statutorily
about what does have to be included and what there is no choice
about. Equally, because there is a range of things people are
interested in, there are lots of possibilities opened up by technology,
for example, of finding out a great deal more about what a food
contains, what processes have been used, so that the enquiring
consumer with a particular interest can find out more about a
particular product. One of the things I think is interesting in
food labelling for the future is the possibility that you will
be able to take something, take its bar code, take it to a scanner
in a supermarket and find out a lot more about it, which is much
more tailor made to your particular concerns.
558. It will show you the beast that it came
from.
(Baroness Hayman) Realistically, because we are all
individuals and have different concerns, you cannot provide that
for everybody on everything.
559. I understand that but the point I am trying
to draw out is perhaps it was rather incautious to introduce this
concept of ethical concerns into what has otherwise been a debate
about the scientific safety and environmental impact of the product,
because it does introduce a wider potential agenda of concerns
on the labelling front. You are conceding that the government
at the moment sees no reason to respond to one particular ethical
concern about the process of GM technology.
(Baroness Hayman) This was obviously in the minds
of European legislators at the time, probably sparked off by the
Polkinghorne Report, and by particular concerns on the potential
of transgenic. A hazard of legislators the world over is that
they will take an issue of particular concern and we all know
that that can happen and it may not be comprehensive. I have not
looked at the debates on why it was included, I am afraid.
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