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Oral evidence Taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on Wednesday 29 October 2003 Members present: Mr Peter Ainsworth, in the Chair __________ Memorandum submitted by Defra Examination of Witness Witness: RT HON MICHAEL MEACHER, a Member of the House, examined. Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for coming. You are no stranger to this Committee and we are grateful to you for once again coming and giving us your time. Could I kick off with a question about your own approach to this. Since leaving Government you have been an outspoken critic of the whole GM process. Is it true to say that you devised the farm scale trials as a way of buying time for those who wanted to make the case against GM crops? Mr Meacher: In 1998/89, which is when the farm scale evaluation trials were being mooted, it is the case of course that there was very considerable unrest. I can certainly remember it was virtually impossible to open the newspapers without finding half a page of concern being expressed about this and clearly it was a matter which the Government, having to make a decision about whether or not to allow commercialisation because the industry would be pressing for this, had to take a decision as to how to deal with this. The decision was taken, not directly by me, that perhaps the best way out of this was to give more time for consideration. You used a particular phrase, to buy time, and that is one way of expressing it but to use that time to undertake some serious, thoughtful research, which is probably a world first in this area, to examine an area of concern, namely the impact on the environment, which had never systematically been discussed. That, I think, is the origin of it. Q2 Chairman: Was it your suggestion? Mr Meacher: No, it was not my suggestion but it was an idea which I rapidly concurred with. I have to remember exactly what did happen four years ago and there was a regular discussion. If you ask me - which is probably your next question - who did think of it, I do not actually know the answer to that. It emerged in discussions which I had with my officials but I do not think it was directly my idea. Q3 Chairman: Thank you. The Defra website currently says that there is no cultivation of GM crops in the UK other than those planted under licence for experimental purposes. Do you regard that as true? Mr Meacher: Well, unless you have evidence, which your question might suggest you possibly have, as far as I know it is true. It is certainly intended to be true. We had a voluntary moratorium with the industry from the start of the trials, i.e. that the industry would not plant any GM crop outside of those three which were being examined within the trials and would not plant any of those three crops until the results of the trials were known, which is in effect spring of next year. We have had, of course, the results being provisionally announced - I say provisionally, they are pretty final but the results of the last sowing still remain to be examined, but there is no reason to suppose that that will be any different from what went before. Q4 Chairman: You are not concerned? There were 14 cases, were there not, where GM oilseed rape was being found to be grown on an unauthorised basis? Mr Meacher: Ah, you are referring to that. Yes. That, of course, should not have happened. It was not a deliberate sowing. From my recollection what happened - and I think there were 25 fields where this happened, 14 in one case and 11 in another, in batches - they were all separate fields but in the case of 14 there was some examination made of what had happened. The other 11 were ploughed up before the Department was able to make an examination. It was actually 25 but 14 examined and what happened here is that there was a new GM product in the seed which had not been suspected, which should not have been there, which was not licensed and it was an illegal or inappropriate growing of a partially GM crop, that is true. But that is not where the Government had agreed that there should be - Q5 Chairman: No, I appreciate that, but you do not think there is any change, that there is anything out there now that Defra is not aware of? Mr Meacher: Well, as far as I know, no. Chairman: Thank you very much. Q6 Mr Challen: Good afternoon. Could I ask you, how did you decide which questions these trials should attempt to answer? Mr Meacher: That was not decided by me. It was decided, as far as I can recollect, by SCIMAC, which is the extraordinary name of Supply Chain Initiative on Modified Agricultural Crops. If you wanted to have an unsexy acronym I suppose that it is, but it is the plant breeders and the biotech industry. Having taken the political decision that this was the way to proceed - which I was involved in, I did give my consent to that and I still think that was the right decision to take at the time - the actual scope, structuring and design of the trials was left basically to SCIMAC, though no doubt with considerable discussion with key members of my staff, by which I mean my officials in CB division. Q7 Mr Challen: During that process did you have a particularly hands-on kind of engagement or was it simply receiving reports from them? What I am trying to ask is, do you think the list of questions really was long enough? Were they extensive enough or was it a minimalist approach which had been recommended? Mr Meacher: That of course is a very relevant question because I was not involved in the design of the trials, as I have indicated, and it is certainly true that the trials were based on a very narrow remit, namely, as everyone now knows, an examination of the effects of differential herbicide management. That did not include, for example, an examination of the impact on soil bacteria, soil residues. It did not include an examination of gene flow, trans-gene flow, although I did raise that with the Department. I pressed it very strongly. I wanted it included but the view was taken that there was enough material already known from other studies. That is, I think, true but I still think it would have been helpful if it had been validated in this study. It did not include, for example, an enumeration of bird populations, which we were very concerned about because the number of farmland birds has plummeted in the last couple of decades, although it did include looking at a proxy, which is the availability of food which birds eat as an indication of the impact on bird population. It did not include - and this is a very crucial point - an examination of commercial yields as opposed to environmental impacts because for farmers in the field there is a tension between those two. These trials were about environmental impacts and maybe as our discussion proceeds I can say a little bit more about the way in which it was, in my view, very much oriented towards minimising environmental impact in a way which is not real because that is not how farmers would behave in the field where their prime concern, understandably, would be about commercial yields. I therefore think to a degree these farm scale trials, in the way they were devised by SCIMAC, did not realistically assess what would actually happen in the field. Q8 Mr Challen: Were critical voices about that raised within Defra at the time? Mr Meacher: I have to say, and this is probably a failing on my part, I did not raise the latter point. I did raise two particular points where I wanted the trials to be done differently. One, as I have already indicated, is over gene flow. The other was over making a comparison with organic. The comparison has been made with conventional crops, which of course should be done, but I also wanted included in this a subset in terms of the impact on organic and that whatever the criteria there should be an evaluation of GM on the one side and organic on the other. I regret that that was not done. Q9 Mr Challen: Just looking at the composition of the Scientific Steering Committee, I think that some NGOs like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace complained that they were excluded from membership of that. How was that decided upon? Mr Meacher: Again, it was not decided by me, but I am not sure that is wholly a fair criticism because I think Brian Johnson from English Nature was a member of that. In answer to your first question, Chairman, it immediately comes to mind that I think with him probably more than any other single person was where the idea of the trials originated. Obviously there was discussion but I certainly think he was pressing strongly. He is from English Nature, he has got a very good track record, a very good environmental track record and he is on the Scientific Steering Committee, as also is a representative from RSPB, who I think is Mark Avery. I think there were six members. This is not to be decided on the basis of counting heads or votes but there were two representatives who I think could reasonably be expected to look at it from an environmental point of view. Q10 Mr Challen: Who actually did appoint that committee? Mr Meacher: As always, the list of names would be drawn up by officials. I have no complaint about that because Ministers' knowledge of the range of relevant persons in the field is almost certainly less than the officials. It may well have been put to me, I honestly cannot remember, but if it were - it was chaired by Professor Pollock, I certainly knew that and I knew these two other names - my view is that it was a reasonably balanced committee and I was satisfied with it. Q11 Mr Thomas: If I could just follow up on a couple of points there which the Chairman also raised. As we know, the agreement was a voluntary agreement between the Government and the SCIMAC Committee to more or less postpone any commercialisation of GM planting until we knew the results of those farm scale trials. You made the point that we will not really know the results until next spring though we have very strong indications of where that is going. What now is to stop the industry actually pressing ahead either in terms of a legal challenge or in any other way with the commercialisation of any GM crop in the United Kingdom? Is there anything stopping that, in your opinion? Mr Meacher: There is nothing to stop the industry proceeding with the sowing of GM crops once we reach the final end of the voluntary moratorium, which I think is the spring of next year, nothing legally to prevent them. However, the legal process has to be gone through and that legal process requires that permission be obtained through Brussels for the growing of a GM product. It must not only pass the approval of the UK competent authority, which is the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment together with my ex-department Defra, but whatever that decision is, it is then passed to Brussels, who communicate to all the other 14 Member States both the nature of the application and all the supporting data and the decision (in the UK case if we are the country that the biotech company has approached the first time) of that country's competent authority. That is passed to all the others. They then have 60 days within which to decide whether or not to agree it. If everyone agrees it, it goes through. If they do not agree it then the Commission has to decide whether or not the ground on which disagreement is made is valid under the relevant EU legislation, which is Directive 2001/18, and they would decide whether it is justified or not. Normally that is an argument about the validity of a claim under Article 16, which is, as Austria has used in the past, that this is a risk to human health or the environment. That is the process. I might also make it clear that there are four particular tests which have to be passed, not just one, under different items of legislation, which includes pesticides and seeds directives as well as the releases to the environment. All of those four items of approval have to be passed by every Member State. If at the conclusion of spring 2004 the industry decided to press for any of these it could do so. The only constraints, I would then say, are two. One is that there is still in place, as far as I know, a de facto moratorium so that this process would be aborted by the refusal of 8 Member State to process those applications. Secondly, of course, arising out of the FSEs the view (which the industry will hold just as well as anyone else) that the environment (I use that in the wider sense) is not entirely appropriate for proceeding with this. There would be intense public resistance. But that is the legal process as I have spelt it out. Mr Thomas: Thank you for that clarification. It is useful. Q12 Chairman: Thank you very much. Just before we move on, going back to the points which Mr Challen was raising, you were satisfied in the end, were you, that the whole process was fair and above board? You have referred to the pressure on Ministers' careers, the intensity of enthusiasm in certain parts of Government and you are even quoted as saying, "Corruption is a very strong word but there is no doubt that scientists are influenced." Mr Meacher: I am not sure where that quote comes from or what it exactly refers to because I am not suggesting that the Scientific Steering Committee were in any way influenced to reach other than the results they did. Q13 Chairman: Or that the questions were framed in such a way as to reach certain conclusions? Mr Meacher: No, I do not think that. As I say, I am not exactly sure, Chairman, of the reference you are referring to but what I was saying was that in this area (namely biotechnology), as in other areas like the chemical industry, the nuclear industry, the motor car industry, there are very powerful vested interests and the advisory committees which have been set up by Government to give what purports to be independent advice to Government about difficult current problems and how they might be dealt with I think are committees where we need to be extremely careful that the people we appoint are not subject to influences which could affect that judgment. I think that either current or recent financial or industrial links are one area, if that is known, where however elevated the individual is that person should be excluded. Q14 Chairman: But you are satisfied that in this case the process was fair? Mr Meacher: In this case I do not think it applies. I am being given the exact quote. Perhaps I could just see that. This is Midland Independent Newspapers, the Birmingham Post, Simon Baker. Yes, I do recognise that now. I was talking about the position of scientists in general, I was not talking specifically about the Farm Scale Evaluations. Q15 Chairman: So you were taken out of context? Mr Meacher: Well, if it is applied to the Farm Scale Evaluations it is taking it out of context. I was asked a generalised question. It may have been, for example, to do with the Science Review Panel, which was set up by the Government, chaired by Sir David King, where there were two members, Andrew Stirling and Carlo Liefert, who notoriously were pressured into resigning or felt obliged to resign and the reasons behind that were because they felt that their funding would be cut off or their careers damaged if they persisted. It was that kind of influence that I was referring to, but I in no way believe that that affected the result of the trials. Chairman: I am delighted that we have managed to clear that up. Q16 Mrs Clark: If we could actually come back to the sort of rather narrow remit which Mr Challen referred to earlier about the farm scale trials, in addition to that they were actually set up to answer some very definite and specific questions about the effects of very definite and specific crops. Could we actually apply the findings and results of these to other GM crops or are we going to have to actually look at it as a trial on a crop by crop process? Mr Meacher: I think it has to be specific to these crops and indeed I think that is accepted by everyone. Officials here and in other countries I visited, for example New Zealand, who were contemplating exactly the same situation, lifting the moratorium, were all agreed that it has to be on a case by case basis. Q17 Mrs Clark: Therefore, accepting that, we could have years and years of these trials on individual crops going on ad infinitum before reaching a decision or taking a decision on a crop by crop basis? Mr Meacher: Yes. In the case of each crop, as far as I know the industry accepts and certainly the Government takes the view that there would have to be a decision on a crop by crop basis and indeed what I think is very significant and which has had hardly any attention is that if you read the small print of these Farm Scale Evaluation trial results they are very interesting because they do show massive differences in biodiversity impacts between different crops. If I could just give one example of that, beetles, I quote, "An average of 1707 beetles over a year were collected" - this is in these trials - "in conventional beet fields marginally ahead of the 1576 found in GM beet fields." But the key point and the reason I mention this is that that is more than double the number of beetles found in GM or conventional maize and 50 - 60 per cent more than the number found in oilseed rape. That is not a result which anyone expected. I do not think the scientists expected it and I think it is a very interesting result because it does show that there is an awful lot of knowledge that we do not yet have and before we take a decision which is potentially irreversible we should collect that information. But that does mean that it specifically must be on a crop by crop basis. Q18 Mrs Clark: So if we then go back to the voluntary arrangement, as we have agreed, the SCIMAC arrangement and agreement with Government, would this hold or would it in fact collapse if Government were to very properly, as you suggested, insist on specific farm scale trials for each crop? What do you think? Mr Meacher: I am saying that that is the necessary process. Whether that actually happens of course depends on industry deciding to press the matter. Of course it is entirely a matter for them but it would seem to me, in the light of these latest results, that it would be very surprising if the industry were to come forward with new applications because the environmental testing has been totally unexpected - I do not think the Government expected it, I do not think the industry expected it and I certainly did not expect it - and if we had further trials I think we are open to a great deal of uncertainty, together with the fact that public opinion, if anything (and there is evidence again if you look at the trials and the GM nation debate), over the last four or five years has hardened against GM rather than softened, contrary to what many people expected. Q19 Mrs Clark: If we did have any further trials, if it was decided to do so, who in fact would pick up the cost? Mr Meacher: Well, in my opinion the answer to that should clearly be the industry. The Government paid for the research costs of this trial because the Government initiated it for their own purposes to find out the environmental impacts. I think that is reasonable. The cost was something like £5.5 million, which is quite a lot of money but I think it had a result which is well worth the money expended, but I do not think the Government should continue to do this and if industry wished to press the matter with other crops then I think they pay, either on the basis of an industry levy or, it seems to me much more likely, on the basis that each industrial applicant pays for its own research. There are other parallels for that in industry in other areas, for example chemicals. Mrs Clark: Thank you. Q20 Gregory Barker: Am I right in thinking that the issue of accurate crop yield measurement was not incorporated into the design of Field Scale Evaluations? Mr Meacher: You are correct. Q21 Gregory Barker: Why was that? Mr Meacher: I do not actually know the answer to that because, as I have indicated, I was not responsible for the structuring of the trials but I can venture an answer, which is that I think SCIMAC were responsible for the design of the trials and that was not something which SCIMAC would have wished to include. Q22 Gregory Barker: So do you think, for example, that the failure to have an accurate measurement of sugar content in the GM sugar-beet could be obtained when the crop was harvested prematurely to avoid problems with British Sugar was a major flaw or, for example, how could the consultants assess the quality of the maize crop for making silage based only on height when dry matter and cob brightness are also important elements in the making of silage? Mr Meacher: Well, you are raising very significant technical questions which I cannot possibly answer but if you ask is that important, I think it is important. I think before we go down the track of commercialisation of GM crops we need to explore exhaustively the impacts, the potential impacts upon the environment in every aspect and on human health. So I agree that this kind of further research should be done. I am not saying that we should endlessly prepare and research PHDs for someone to carry through. In the end if you are going to take a decision we need to be sensible about this and decide how much information is necessary, but I do not think anyone can say that the range of information in these Farm Scale Evaluation trials, even though they were conducted well and even though the results are very interesting and actually quite surprising, is yet sufficient. Q23 Gregory Barker: With the benefit of hindsight are there any particular environmental impacts which you would have wished to put into the criteria in the trials? Mr Meacher: I did indicate this earlier and I certainly think that the most important issue which was excluded is this question of yields. You need somehow to devise a test where farmers are seeking to maximise what they would naturally do in a marketplace situation, in other words that they are seeking to maximise the yield, and on that basis we look at what are the environmental impacts because if we had a result where the environmental impacts were pretty minimal or nothing to worry about but the yield was only half of what the farmer thought he might be able to get or would need if he were going to make it a commercial proposition I think that trial is worthless. Until he is getting a commercially reliable result using techniques which he might reasonably adopt to maximise the yield I think the trial is not realistic. Q24 Gregory Barker: Were the biotech companies able to have any influence here, for example were they more concerned about the biodiversity implications than the yield at that stage? Mr Meacher: In so far as I believe to be the case, that SCIMAC had a major influence over the structuring of the trials, I think almost certainly it was not total or unique. I am sure they discussed it with my officials in the Department at that point and may well have discussed it with the independent research contractors. But I do think that the industry had a major role to play here. It was certainly they who found the farmers, of course, who provided the fields to grow and paid them, I believe, a certain sum to agree to participate. So the industry had a major influence and over the maize trials I do believe that Bayer crop science - and it was that company which was particularly concerned with maize - it had certainly been reported to me that they advised or instructed (whichever word you think appropriate) farmers who were sowing GM maize to have only one spraying by glufosinate ammonium, which we will no doubt talk a little more about later, and of course the effect of only having one spraying is that the weeds then do come up again. If the weeds do come up again that minimises the environmental impacts in terms of biodiversity because there is food for the invertebrates and the other creatures to eat. Gregory Barker: Thank you. Q25 David Wright: When the scientists and the panel came together to model the structure of the trial clearly they had a view about the number of sites that they were going to use across the UK, the farm sites. It is my understanding that the number of sites which eventually were used was less than those originally planned. Do you think that that has compromised the modelling work in any way, particularly when, as the Chairman said earlier, there were already some breaches in protocol throughout the process? Mr Meacher: I think what the Chairman was referring to were not Farm Scale Evaluation trials. I think I am right in saying that. Q26 David Wright: But do you think the modelling was breached by the fact that less sites were used than originally envisaged? Mr Meacher: Let me start off by saying the number of sites was, I think, 283 for the three crops, something between 90 and 100 for each crop. I do not believe that that has compromised the results. I do not think the number of trial sites is the reason why we should have any doubts about these results. I think they have a wider validity, for the other reasons that I have questioned. I think that is the relevant point. It is true that quite a large number of sites were vandalised, were partially or in some cases completely destroyed. I utterly repudiate that. I think that is absolutely the wrong way. I completely reject that kind of violent action. However, it did - and I can certainly remember discussions in the Department - get near to the point at which it could have affected the results but the argument which was put to me, which I accepted, was that there was still a sufficient number of fields not to interfere with the general validity of the trials and I think that is correct. Q27 David Wright: Just to push you on that, to be very clear what you are saying is that you had some advice from scientists in the Department to say that the trials were still valid, that there was not too much breach, if you like, of the original proposals? Mr Meacher: Correct. There was not a breach of the validity at all. There was a significant amount of damage done but that was not sufficient to breach the statistical validity of the trials. That was the advice given to me and I have no reason to doubt it. Q28 David Wright: Following on from that, during the period of the trials there was a lot of coverage about progress on separation of crops. There was quite a considerable amount of t.v. coverage about revising the separation distance between GM and non-GM crops during the trials. Do you think that the distances which were used in the latter part of the exercise protected the interests effectively of organic and GM-free cultivation, particularly taking into account your comments when you were in Saskatchewan recently, I understand, where you said that if you cannot control flows across the Prairies how are you going to do it in small scale farm trials in the UK? Mr Meacher: That is my view and you have rightly quoted it. I think there was a very real problem about coexistence, which is the jargon word for what you are referring to, how you can create a framework to prevent cross-contamination mainly by pollen but actually contamination of seed is another source of this as well as contamination of farming equipment. So it is not just pollen but pollen is probably the main one. The problem, of course, is that pollen does have an unfortunate capacity to blow around and on a windy day it can blow a long way and there are plenty of trials and plenty of research which show that it can blow miles. We also know that bees, unfortunately, do not take account of Government diktat and have a tendency occasionally to fly three or five miles and on the way back to forage. So it is a very difficult issue, genuinely. All that I would say is that the separation distances used in the trials were again decided by SCIMAC. Government was really presented with these as being adequate. They varied between 50 and 200 metres and again it is true, as I understand, that something like around 99 per cent of the pollen will probably fall within those separation distances. The problem is that 1 per cent of pollen is still a large number, several thousands or even tens of thousands of pollen, and on a windy day that can still go considerable distances. Now, in Canada, where they introduced commercial GM in 1996, we have a laboratory which we can examine after seven years. I did speak to the members of the Canadian NFU, who were gung-ho for GM in 1996 because they had been told by Monsanto and others that this would increase their yields, it would reduce the use of herbicides and contamination containment could be reasonably easily dealt with. All of those, they told me - and do not take my word for it because you can get evidence from them - were now not believed by their farmers, that yields had actually gone down, that herbicide use was more than the companies had said it was going to be, at least twice spraying and sometimes three times, and that containment was a very real problem, as you have just said, in terms of the Prairies. My argument is that if you have got the Prairies with these colossal open spaces and you cannot protect organic canola or organic oilseed rape then how will you do it in these tiny islands where there are 60 million of us and farms jostling very close? Q29 Chairman: With the greatest possible respect, you actually signed off on those separation distances and you agreed to a 1 per cent tolerance rate for cross-pollination and there are people who suggest that a 1 per cent tolerance rate is like agreeing to being 1 per cent pregnant; it is enough! Mr Meacher: Well, I do understand that argument. The problem is, if you do not wish to be pregnant that is fairly simple. We know what to do in order to secure that. It is rather more difficult in terms of getting down to 0 or whatever fraction of 1 per cent you choose. My own preference would certainly be 0.1 per cent. That I think is about the level of detectability and I think one part in a thousand would probably be accepted - although this has never been tested, despite my wish for it to be tested - by the British public. I was told, when I did question this, that this was SCIMAC's view, this was what SCIMAC had agreed and, "If, Minister, you wish to challenge that then you will have to introduce regulation." The opportunity of introducing regulation would probably have destroyed a voluntary moratorium and there would have been all the general difficulties of getting agreement across Government. So I agree with you, it is not ideal, it is not satisfactory but in the circumstances it was probably the best that could be secured. Chairman: Thank you. Q30 David Wright: Was there any other pressure upon you to take that decision or was that a decision you took solely on your own? Mr Meacher: There was not any pressure upon me. The arguments were put to me, as I have just explained, "If you don't like 1 per cent, if you think it too high, if you think the separation distances should be greater," my officials will tell you I was constantly arguing for greater separation distances but, as I say, there were two problems. If you do not make it 200 metres what do you make it? If you make it 500 metres it is still the case that some will get beyond 500 metres. If you make it 10 miles that is absurd. Where do you draw the line in between? There is no absolutely authoritative definitive line which you can draw in the messy world out there in agriculture, that is the problem. David Wright: Thank you. Q31 Paul Flynn: Do you accept that some industry organisations have said that as a result of these demonstrations there is a case for saying that if GM is managed sensitively it could actually turn out to be beneficial for the environment? Mr Meacher: I think you may be referring to a quotation that I recall, possibly in the Western Morning News, is it? If that is a quotation, or wherever it comes from, I do find that absolutely extraordinary because the evidence given in the Farm Scale Evaluation trial results seems to me overwhelming and compelling and it is perfectly clear that the balance (at least in the case of oilseed rape and beet) is overwhelmingly that the biodiversity impact of GM is worse, that there is harm. In the case of maize, which we may come on to in a moment, it is arguable. But to suggest that there is benefit to the environment in the case of the other two crops I just think is absurd; it is risible. Q32 Paul Flynn: The figures which you quoted about the beet fields where there was 1707 discovered in the non-GM crop and 1576, I believe you said, in the other crop, the difference between those two is about 7 or 8 per cent, possibly not significant. The difference between those crops and the maize and rape of course were 50 per cent, there was more than double in the one. Does it not suggest that the differences between the GM and non-GM are far less significant than the differences between the various types of crops? Mr Meacher: Yes. Q33 Paul Flynn: Is there not an unintended conclusion from this, a very valuable one, that what is important for wildlife and the diversity of wildlife is to vary the crops? Mr Meacher: What you have said is perfectly fair and indeed I myself have taken exactly your own point, that the differences between the crops is more significant. Contrary to what anyone had thought before, contrary to what the scientists or anyone expected, the differences between the crops is significantly greater than between GM and non-GM. However, whilst you are right that in the case of beetles, in the case of beet, the differences are relatively marginal, there were other differences between GM and non-GM which I think were in the extreme case 5 to1, in many cases 1.5 to 2. So I think it is significant. I do not want to overdo it but I think it is significant. I was asked to comment on your quote that if sensitively handled it could actually be beneficial to the environment. That seems to me a perverse interpretation of the results as we have them. Q34 Paul Flynn: Were views on GM a significant factor in your leaving the Government? Mr Meacher: That is a rather wider question. Q35 Chairman: That is a Newsnight question! Mr Meacher: Well, Mr Paxton always keeps the best until last! I think you would have to ask the Prime Minister that since, perhaps not surprisingly, he did not tell me and many people have surmised about that and I have thought about it. I do not know. It is certainly true that my views were outspoken. They were outspoken in Government. There was a period of four years when my views were perfectly clear and perfectly well known to the Prime Minister and everyone else. Why at this point I should have been dropped, as I say, I do not know. GM may well have had something to do with it but I really do not know. Q36 Paul Flynn: Could I say finally, do you think the results of these trials, including the unintended consequences which came up, have wider lessons for us all in the way that we look at the biodiversity in agriculture and using break crops and so on? Do you think there is a valuable lesson to come out of these trials? Mr Meacher: I do and I think that if we are looking for a more sustainable agriculture it is not just a simple question of GM or not GM, I think it is a much more varied, diverse kind of agriculture, such as indeed was recommended by the excellent report from the Currie Commission, which Defra is now trying to implement. So I do think there are very much wider results and we should not get absolutely hung up on the question of GM. It is a very important issue but it is not the only issue. Q37 Mr Savidge: The GM herbicide tolerant crops in the farm scale trials were measured against crops under conventional herbicide management. Did I understand you to say in response to a question from Colin Challen that you felt that their performance should have been measured also against organic or low intensity herbicide regimes and if so how would you respond to the industry's argument that that would have been inappropriate since it was never the intention to replace organic crops with GM crops? Mr Meacher: First of all, you are correct in saying that I did believe there should have been a comparison with organic or low intensity farming, that part of the spectrum of conventional farming. It is the first time I have heard this, what you say is the industry argument, that there was no intention of replacing organic by GM. I agree, that never was the aim, but that is not the point. That is a singularly irrelevant point, it seems to me. One is talking about the introduction of GM on a commercialised basis where it could be grown anywhere and the possibility, which I think is a very strong likelihood, that it would cross-contaminate organic and in effect wipe it out like organic canola has been wiped out in Canada. That seems to me the issue. Q38 Sue Doughty: We come on to the issue of the trials of GM maize and the cultivation which included the use of atrazine, which of course as we know is about to be banned. What impact does the use of that herbicide have on that particular trial? Is the trial still valid? What are your views on it? Mr Meacher: Well, I think it is invalid. Atrazine was, as you say, used in the Farm Scale Evaluation trials in respect of non-GM maize even though it was already banned in the Netherlands and Germany and it was known that a ban was being considered in France and, as we now know, God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform and when the EU banned this throughout the EU a fortnight before these results came out I think that is a remarkable coincidence. But that is exactly what happened. So the fact is that atrazine will not be used in future. It is going to be phased out once the regulation has gone through, within the next eighteen months. It is going to take a bit of time but that is always the case, but it will not be used in this country or in any other country in the EU and therefore a comparison in terms of the biodiversity impacts with non-GM maize using a chemical which will not be used in future clearly, it seems to me, is invalid. If you want to have a valid comparison it must be using a chemical which will actually be used in future and my surmise - and it is no more than that because no one knows and we are all in for a lot of surprises here - is that if you used what presumably must be a less toxic chemical, one which is not going to be banned by the EU, then you would find very similar results in the case of maize to the other two. Glufosinate, which is the chemical weedkiller used in respect of GM maize, is itself a pretty toxic chemical. It is a neuro-toxin, it is a teratogen, which means it can harm embryos, and it is a very powerful chemical. I think if you had a less toxic chemical for non-GM maize than atrazine you would get, as I say, very similar results, namely that in respect of non-GM maize the biodiversity impacts were better. There is a further point which I could make, which I do not think has been made and which I think is important, that Liberty (the brand name given for glufosinate) was used on GM crops throughout the Farm Scale Evaluation trials when it was known, I think, to ACRE and to SCIMAC that Liberty would not be used on its own in any future commercial growing of Chardinel L(?) or any other GM maize varieties because in order to be effective it has been used in the United States in a mix which is Liberty ATZ, i.e. it involves a significant proportion of atrazine, which I think the manufacturer recommends to be something of the order of 32 per cent but which American research, and I quote Professor Mike Owen of the Iowa State University, who said that the atrazine percentage in the Liberty ATZ mix is probably nearer to 90 per cent. So that also is going to change dramatically in future. So for both of those reasons I think we clearly either have to accept that in the case of maize, as with the other two, we should not proceed - I think there is a logical case for that - or that at the very least there have got to be further trials using chemicals which do not include atrazine. My last point is that it must be a commercial yield trial, not with the industry influencing the number of sprayings which take place. If we had new trials on that basis I think they would be worthwhile doing. Q39 Sue Doughty: This leads on to the fact that the Scientific Steering Committee argues that enough of the trials were comparing GM cultivation with traditional herbicide regimes which did not include atrazine so that the overall results are still valid. From what you are saying there are some queries altogether about the maize trials? Mr Meacher: As I understand, the large majority of the maize trials did involve the use of atrazine. I accept not all of them, but I equally make the point which I have just made that marketplace situations in the United States where farmers are concerned about yields also involve atrazine heavily involved in a Liberty ATZ mix. So for both sides of the equation I think we need new trials which do not on either side include atrazine. Q40 Chairman: Did anyone at any point say to you, "Oh, by the way, atrazine could be banned at any minute and the whole thing could go down the chute?" Mr Meacher: No. Q41 Chairman: No one ever said that to you? Mr Meacher: No. Q42 Sue Doughty: Were they aware of that fact, in your opinion? Mr Meacher: Well, it is difficult to say unless you specifically ask someone about it. My own belief is that officials and representatives of the scientific community and of course members of the industry, who keep a very close eye on these things, I think probably did know and the very fact, which I did not know until recently, that atrazine had already been banned in the Netherlands and Germany and a ban was being considered in France certainly indicated the way the wind was moving. Q43 Sue Doughty: So we are in a situation where we think they knew, they let it go ahead and just sat on the information and now we have a trial which really has large queries about the validity because of the different points you have made about the percentage of atrazine in the other herbicides? We have got a problem, therefore, where it is really not at all valid and yet all this investment has gone into this trial to produce a result which is extremely, extremely questionable? Mr Meacher: I think you are correct. I think there was evidence that atrazine was being "fingered", could quite likely be banned, was involved in the use of Liberty or glufosinate and that therefore if you wanted reliable trials you should exclude it at the start and I do regret that that decision was not taken. Q44 Chairman: I think you said earlier that industry was aware that there were problems with this particular herbicide. It is quite hard to understand how industry knows more about whether or not it is going to be banned than Government. That is the implication of what you are saying? Mr Meacher: Well, I am saying that I believe that the interface with the industry, the industry representatives, SCIMAC are in constant discussion with officials in Defra. That, I think, is perfectly proper. I think there should be a continuous flow of information. So it is not one or the other. I think it was probably known to both. Why a decision was not made to pull the trials on this basis or to insist that the trials should go ahead, as I think they should have done, but not using atrazine, I do not know. Q45 Sue Doughty: So we have a situation now where it was not pulled and the Scientific Steering Committee thinks that the results are sufficiently valid for them to go ahead. Do you actually think that GM maize is likely to be commercialised given this situation? Given the fact that the Scientific Steering Committee does not seem to be as concerned as you certainly are, and I think as we are, given the context of those trials, do you think it will go ahead? Mr Meacher: That of course is a decision for Government, for which I no longer speak, but I would be extremely surprised if the industry or indeed if Government tried to proceed with the commercialisation of GM maize in the light of the very real questions about the validity of these maize trials for all the reasons we have been discussing, and secondly in view of the intense and probably growing degree of public opposition. Q46 Sue Doughty: So possibly the decision will be deferred more on the basis of public opposition, possibly, which may bail them out of the fact that we have got very dubious science going on here? Mr Meacher: The fact is that of course the public's view has been known for a long time and Government has taken a view, in particular the Prime Minister has taken the view, that this should be decided on the basis of science. I think that is a perfectly reasonable view because those who are nearer to the detailed technical data may have a better understanding of the facts than many members of the public, who may well misunderstand. However, I think the degree of opposition in the democracy which now exists is so great that it cannot be swept on one side. But the real point about these trials is nothing to do with the public's attitude, it is to do with the science, and that is why they are so significant. It is the science which is saying that in the case of oilseed rape and beet we should not proceed. The Government said explicitly, I said over and over and over again, that if these trials showed harm to the environment we would not license GM crops. They have shown damage to the environment and therefore logically we will not proceed, that would be my conclusion, with licensing these particular crops. In the case of maize, as we have said, it is more complicated although I still think that the evidence points strongly in the same direction. Q47 Sue Doughty: Just one final question and really this is on the farm scale trials as a whole, together with the other strands of research and investigation of GM crops. Do you think really they are providing an adequate basis for the Government to make a decision, leaving aside the public opinion but on the science, particularly on the other crops? Do you think it is giving them an adequate basis about the acceptability, at least in scientific terms, of GM food? Mr Meacher: My conclusion on that is that in the case of oilseed rape and beet, for the reasons I have just given, there is sufficient evidence to reach a decision and that is a decision that we should not license those GM crops. In the case of maize, as I have said, it is more complex and either you reach the conclusion that there is no basis to proceed on the grounds that if you used a less toxic chemical weedkiller than atrazine you would very likely get the same results - but if anyone or the Government wishes to confirm that then the only way to do that is through further trials. I would also say that before the Government proceeds to license any GM crops for cultivation in this country there are three further issues which need to be settled. One is the health impacts of eating GM food, which has never been systemically investigated and my view is that having done environmental trials for the first time in the world and got some extremely unexpected results it is very reasonable and desirable to do the same tests over health because we might well get the same kind of surprises. Secondly, it would be irresponsible and improper, in my view, to proceed with any cultivation of GM crops until a framework which guaranteed coexistence and protection of organic crops is in place and that must also include a statutory liability provision to protect organic farmers. Thirdly, I think it would be wrong to proceed with GM crops until there is a basis on which the consumer - and thousands of them wrote to me when I was a Minister and said, "We don't want you to commercialise GM crops but if you insist on doing so at least you must give us the basis on which we can eat GM-free foods" - and the current labelling and traceability thresholds now being introduced in the EU, which are a huge improvement on what went before because nothing went before in terms of labelling, is a 0.9 threshold. After all the haggling that goes on it is an absurd threshold but it is 0.9 per cent. But that does not tell you, if you go into a supermarket and you see a packet or a jar and it has no label on it, whether it is GM-free or contains up to a maximum of nearly 1 per cent GM and until there is a provision which tells you that it is GM-free I do not think it would be right to introduce GM crops. So I think those are three further criteria which need to be met, but I do not even think we are near that point. I think the evidence of these Farm Scale Evaluation trials is decisive in itself alone. Sue Doughty: Thank you. Q48 Mr Thomas: You will be aware the Chris Pollock, a good Aberystwyth man who is chair of the Steering Committee, has said that these results are applicable throughout the EU, that they can be taken from the UK context and read across the European Union. What effect are you aware that has had in other European countries, because you earlier outlined this complicated and convoluted process by which of course all EU countries have to decide on these matters in order for one to go ahead? Mr Meacher: Absolutely. I think the EU implications are very great because, as all members of the Committee will know, the EU is currently subject to a case before the WTO on the grounds that the de facto moratorium is illegal. What the Farm Scale Evaluation trials show is that there are legal grounds upon which the cultivation of GM can be resisted, namely that they do constitute harm to the environment. Q49 Mr Thomas: Are those legal grounds just for these crops or legal grounds for a continual moratorium on all GM crops? Mr Meacher: No, I am sorry. You are quite right to make that caveat. I think we do proceed on the basis of each particular crop but with the exception of wheat, which Monsanto is extremely keen to introduce GM harm red spring wheat, particularly in Canada and North America and then of course through Europe, these are the three main foods. So it is not 100 per cent of GM crops but these are the main ones. I was only referring to these three. I do not think we can extrapolate automatically to other crops. But in respect of these three, I think the EU has the evidence upon which they could mount a perfectly defensible and effective resistance to the US claim because Article 16 does say that a country can refuse cultivation, can refuse an application to grow a GM crop if it constitutes harm to the environment and for the first time that evidence is now available. Q50 Mr Thomas: Just to briefly return to the UK context and press you a little further on the biodiversity aspect of this because the Government, you will remember, had a biodiversity action plan for the UK. Although these Farm Scale Evaluations noted the biodiversity impact, it does not seem to have linked in with that action plan or even with some of the headline sustainable development indicators, for example on songbirds, which the Government has. Was that something which should have been done, or more importantly do you think that Defra is doing that now and taking those implications of these trials on board in terms of a more general effect on a wider range of Government policies on sustainable development? Mr Meacher: I think it would have been useful if those comparisons had been made, but to be fair the point of the trials was to look at the differential biodiversity impact of each half of the field depending on the chemical weedkiller used, GM and non-GM, and that is all that did need to be done. Again quoting, there were 4,000 visits made, one million plants analysed, three-quarters of a million seeds and one and a half million invertebrates caught in traps and sucking machines. It is on a pretty substantial scale and it is the sheer range and depth and I think the integrity of these trials, which I would praise, which I think makes them so effective. It would have been useful to have linked it to the biodiversity action plans but I do not think that is essential. Q51 Mrs Clark: Obviously you were the Minister of State for the Environment at the time the trials were initiated and set up and indeed almost right until the end of their duration. I would really like to ask if you actually had such very, very strong reservations about the value of the trials at the outset. I think today nobody who has heard you speaking about it would be in any doubt as to what your views are and I would like to say I think they have been admirably clear, but I do remember a time earlier on when, for example, you were interviewed by this Committee along with Dr Jack Cunningham on the topic of GM and that was fairly early on at the sort of height of the furore and I do not remember you being quite as forthright and clear about what the downside was at that time. So what I am going to say next is, were you actually constrained when you were Minister of State for the Environment on this? You were interviewed at a very, very sensitive time and the Dail Mail was screaming on every page, as you have referred to earlier on, "Frankenstein Food, Frankenstein Food," Dr Cunningham was clearly very, very uncomfortable on that occasion and I am just wondering, did Alistair Campbell say something like, "Come on, Michael, this has got to be dampened down. It's damaging the Government day after day after day. Hold the line"? Mr Meacher: I am very glad to tell the Committee that Alistair Campbell did not say any such thing to me. As far as I can recall, I never had any discussion with him or with the Prime Minister or with anyone else in the Prime Minister's entourage about GM foods so there was no direct influence brought to bear. You have made an important point that my views have become sharper over time and that is undoubtedly true. The reason for that is not because I was either suppressed by external dark forces or because I just chose to keep my light under bushel, it is simply that, like everyone else, this had been an oddity. When I took this job in 1997 GM to me probably meant Greater Manchester. I did not have any knowledge of the genetic modification process at all. Like everyone else, I had to find out what it was and I was a gradual learner and like everyone else who has approached this I was a sceptic - a sceptic in the best sense of the word, I did not have a set view, I was neither for nor against. But it is also true that as time went on and as I did understand more my views have become clearer and sharper, not for ideological reasons but simply my own judgment applied to the greater knowledge as I gradually acquired it. Q52 Mr Savidge: Following the same line to some extent, how far do you feel Ministers could come under pressure to facilitate the commercialisation of GM by the extent of public investment in biotechnology and GM research during the 1980s and 1990s? Mr Meacher: Again, I cannot answer that. I had one meeting with SCIMAC shortly after I came to Defra and I think a few meetings when I was still at DETR and no meetings after that. I have always imagined that they went more directly to Number 10, although I have no evidence as to what they did, but they did not talk to me. I certainly am aware, of course, that biotechnology is a very important industry, a very important industry, and I will be the first to say so. This area for the advancement of science is an absolutely key one and everyone is in favour of it in terms of its application to pharmaceuticals and drugs. It is just its application to the nation's food supply and the perception of the British public that this was an attempt to corner the world's food supply for their own commercial gain which I think has produced such very strong and bitter resistance. But I do not think biotechnology or the research involved in that is a bad thing, quite the opposite. The Prime Minister often says he is in favour of science. So am I. I am even more in favour of science. I want to see more scientific testing perhaps even than he does. So I think biotechnology is a thoroughly good thing. It is the application that we need to be concerned about. It is of course true that Monsanto, who have gone into the food aspect of this, have invested colossal sums and, as everyone knows, have very close relations with the White House and it is alleged, but I cannot give any validity to this, that there are discussions between the United Stated and Britain at the highest level on this matter. I cannot confirm that or disconfirm it but it may well be the case because huge investments have been put into this and of course they want their return. My own view is that they should learn the lesson that the EU is not going to budge and that they should cut their losses and change direction to areas which are likely to be more lucrative in future. Q53 Mr Savidge: I wonder if I could just ask you to amplify that last line of thought. How far do you feel the British Government could come under pressure from the United States either in the WTO or through other ways? Mr Meacher: I think in the WTO the Farm Scale Evaluation results, as I have said, provide far and away the best and most solid evidence for the EU to resist US pressure in terms of the moratorium. I have to say the UK has not been in favour of the moratorium. There are 8 Member States. They do involve the other three of the big four (if one can use that word), Germany, France, Italy and another five states, so it is actually a majority of the states but that does not include the UK. I think the view taken in the UK, which I understand and which I have accepted, is that if there is a due legal process, which we after all agreed to, 2001/18 - I was the Minister who took that through and I believe I was absolutely right to do so - we should abide by due legal process under EU legislation which we have agreed. My view was that we should resist on a totally different basis, namely the use of the precautionary principle on the grounds that we did not have, neither we nor any other EU Member State, the evidence upon which to take a profound long-term and irreversible decision about impacts on the environment and human health until a lot more systematic investigation had been done, particularly on the health side, which is still not done. Those were my grounds. I agreed with the objective that we should not proceed but not with the methods which were used by the other Member States. Mr Savidge: Thank you. Q54 Mr Chaytor: Could I pursue the question of the absence of research into the health impacts. I know that you have looked carefully at what happened in Canada and the United States and the preparations for the introduction of GM there but are you saying there are no studies of the impact upon human health at all? Mr Meacher: My understanding is that what happens is that a biotechnology company introducing a new GM product looks at the comparator of its non-GM counterpart in terms of nutrients, in terms of allergens (the substances which cause allergies), in terms of toxins and if they are broadly similar or very similar, I am not quite sure which it is, then it is regarded as substantially equivalent and deemed on that basis to be safe. I think that is absolutely unsatisfactory when we are dealing with the long-term food supply of a country. I think that is not adequate. A substantial equivalent is not a scientific concept. The word "substantial" is totally anti-scientific; it either is or it is not and you measure it until you know or you do not know and you continue to replicate the work until you have a clear answer. You do not say it is broadly similar or a substantial equivalent. That has not been done and as far as I know - I stand to be corrected but I have said this publicly many times and I think if they knew of other evidence they would have come forward with it - I do not believe there have been any independent studies, with one exception that I am aware of, which was a study done in Newcastle University last year when GM soya was fed to a sample of people. Ironically, this was set up by the Food Standards Agency, who thought that they were going to confirm the scientific view that the gene would not transfer into other organisms or rather parts of the organisms and contrary to what the scientists thought that is exactly what happened in half the sample; it did jump into the gut bacteria. Now, that was a real shock and I have publicly regretted the fact that the Food Standards Agency's response to that was that there was nothing new in this. That is patently untrue; it was a shock result. Secondly, that it was no risk to public health. That, again, I think is not correct because if that were to happen it could compromise antibiotic resistance in a person. So I think that their response was a sad one and an improper one and what they should have done, if they disbelieved it, was to say, "We would like this to be checked. We're very surprised at this and before we confirm it we are going to replicate it with a whole series of other tests." If that had been done, which is the normal scientific process, that would have been perfectly correct, but they did not do that. Q55 Mr Chaytor: To the best of your knowledge nobody elsewhere in the UK or North America is pursuing this kind of research? Mr Meacher: As far as I know, they are not. Of course there have been animal tests, the notorious Pushtai test where rats were fed potatoes which had lectin, which had GM, and what he found was that there were moderate to severe stomach lesions and other impacts. Now, large parts of the academic establishment led by the Royal Society came down like a ton of bricks on him. Again, I think that was a very sad day for science. What they should have done was to carry out further tests to see whether it was replicated or not, but that did not happen. All that I can say is that it is certainly clear that the level of allergies in the population has increased both in this country and in the United States and of course if you do introduce a genetically modified organism into a person, a mammal or a creature that is of course a novel product and it will in some cases - and we do not know exactly how or why or how you predict it - produce allergic reactions. That is how the body protects itself against that kind of introduction. We do know the number of allergies has doubled in this country, according to the work done by the York Nutritional Laboratory since GM was introduced. We also know that the official US disease centres, or centres for disease surveillance I think they are called, have also found in the United States the number of food-related illnesses has doubled since GM was introduced in 1996. That is not of course a causal connection, it is a correlation which needs to be followed up, but I think it is sufficiently indicative that it should be followed up. Q56 Mr Chaytor: In terms of any future research on the health, given the quantity of GM material in the organism is going to be so small anyway is it possible in your view to conduct statistically reliable surveys on the health impact? Mr Meacher: Well, I think it is. Q57 Mr Chaytor: Or will we have to input so much GM material that it would be quite abnormal and equally unreliable? Mr Meacher: I can see the difficulties that you are referring to but it does seem to me that scientists are very good at designing tests to isolate a particular variable even in an environment which means that it is difficult to concentrate on that one variable. There are ways by which one can do this. I have no doubt that it can be done if we chose to do so, or we can get very close proxies, but I believe it could be accurately done and that people could be fed over a period of time under strict surveillance GM food and a matched sample who would eat normal, conventional food and we could see over time what the consequences were. I appreciate that one of the problems over this is that things take a long time to come out. As we know, notoriously over BSE it did take years before it became apparent. But we need to do the scientific tests as rigorously, systematically and as persistently as necessary in order to get the best results we can at this time and continue to replicate those in future. Q58 Mr Chaytor: Finally, the question of timescale and the trials and the impact of gene transfer over time. The Defra website contains a short piece referring to the identification of gene stacking in Canada. Do you think it was a flaw in the trials here that we were not able to or decided not to consider the question of gene transfer in this way and is there an issue of the cumulative effect of sowing year after year after year which has not been trapped in this current trial? Mr Meacher: Of course these trials were about particular fields, which in most and perhaps all cases were isolated throughout the whole of the British Isles. So there was not a critical mass with the effects of cross-pollination being quite normal and occurring all over the place. These were very isolated trials in these individual fields so it is highly unlikely that gene stacking would be picked up in the course of these trials. But once you commercialise GM it will happen very quickly because volunteers, that is plants which are not harvested and which fall back after the harvest into the soil and which grow up - and this is an interesting point from Canada - not necessarily just the next year but any time, they may lie in the soil for five years or even ten years and then grow up and because there is a rotation of crops it might have been an oilseed rape plant but when you are growing whatever it is, maize, either the next year or two, three or five years later it becomes a weed. So you have to get rid of it but you cannot use glufosinate or whatever you used originally because this plant is resistant to it. So you have to use other chemicals and sometimes you will have plants which are resistant to two or three of these chemicals. That is what is meant by gene stacking. My Department's answer when I raised this was that we would consider this very carefully when applications were made for new GM products or any applications to cultivate in this country and it will be part of the application process. I must say, I have always regarded that as a rather tenuous kind of argument against the likelihood of gene stacking occurring. I think if we were to commercialise GM crops in this country gene stacking would almost certainly arise and very quickly. Q59 Mr Savidge: Just very briefly, I was rather surprised at what you said in relation to Dr Pushtai's experiments because it was my impression that three separate independent studies by scientists indicated not just that they did not find his results persuasive but that in fact some of the experiments he claimed to have conducted he had not conducted, according to the people who were working with him, and that in fact he was a man of considerable expertise but he was actually working outside his own area of expertise and possibly in ways which were not really legitimate. I am a little surprised that you should seek to base anything on those tests. Mr Meacher: Well, I do not wish to make judgments about Dr Pushtai. I was not aware that he was accused of carrying out trials which his colleagues said he did not. I cannot speak one way or the other on that. The fact that he may have been working outside his normal area of expertise, again I am slightly surprised at that, but even if he were what matters in science is the quality of the result, not whether it happens to be in the area in which you have conducted most of your research. But the important thing is that it was peer reviewed in six journals, five of which accepted that the work needed to be treated as a serious contribution to science. Q60 Mr Thomas: Just to return to this interface between the public health and the public perception of GM crops, the counter-argument to some of the things you have been saying this afternoon is to point to America and to say: well, look, here is the most litigious country in the world which sues everything that moves, which has been eating GM crops for six years and no problems have arisen. Does that not suggest that all we are talking about here is public perception, not real health risks but just public perception? How would you respond to that claim and also how does that then reflect on what the Government is doing in this country in terms of public perception? Mr Meacher: My response to that is that there have been no epidemiological trials to validate that conclusion and therefore no one, in my view, actually knows the answer to it. The fact that there has been allegedly, according to the official US disease monitoring centres, a doubling of food-related illnesses over the last seven years does suggest there is more there to be investigated than just an assumption that it has not had any effects. People say it has had no effects because allegedly no one has died from it and I do not think anyone, even the greatest sceptic, is suggesting that GM will probably kill you. It is much more subtle than that - its impact on the immune and endocrine system, its impact on organ development, particularly in young babies, its impact on metabolism, its impact on gut flora and from animal tests its impact on stomach lining. These are all things which would not be immediately or rapidly noted even by the person concerned until perhaps years later and it might be attributed to completely different causes. It is a very difficult issue to be sure about but I think bland assurances that there is no evidence and therefore it must be all right - the fact is, we have not looked for the evidence. I was repeatedly being told that there is no evidence of any greater risk from GM than from the non-GM counterpart and that seems to me an extraordinary phrase to use when no one has checked to find out whether it is correct. No one has looked for the evidence to justify it. I passionately believe, particularly after these environmental trials, if someone had said three or four years ago, "You know, there are significant differences between the effects of the use of chemical weedkiller, between GM and non-GM," people would have said, "I don't really believe that." The nil hypothesis was what was expected, that there would be little or nothing between them. That is what everyone expected. That is what the scientists expected, I am sure that is what SCIMAC expected, but it turned out not to be true and I think when you are dealing with human health you do not take risks. I think it is utterly irresponsible to take risks. If this was the only thing we had to depend on, if you were dying of a disease, you would take a new drug which had not been as fully tested as you might like because you are going to die anyway, but most of us are not in that situation. We do not need GM for our food, it is not necessary, it certainly is not going to feed the starving masses of the world, as is claimed. We have lived 150,000 years on this planet without GM. It is not necessary. I am not opposed to it if there are genuine benefits. There are no consumer benefits at the present time. The producer benefits are all strongly disputed. Why, therefore, do we do it? That is the argument of the British people and I think they are extremely sensible. Chairman: Well, on that note, thank you very much indeed, Michael. It has been a fascinating and stimulating session, and all without a brief! So thank you very much indeed. |