House of Commons - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Eighteenth Report

2 CONDUCT OF THE DEBATE

7. The initiation of a public debate has been described as "a highly innovative experiment in participatory democracy".[13] It is clear that "many people were keen to try this new form of participation".[14] As many as 600 public meetings were held, and the GM Nation? website was visited by nearly 25,000 people (there were 2.9 million hits in total).[15] In all, around 37,000 feedback forms were returned during the debate. By any measure this was an impressive response. Professor Grant has been quoted as saying that the debate stimulated a "remarkable level of response".[16]

8. It is easy to criticise the debate on the grounds that it engaged only those with already determined views. GeneWatch UK told us that "many of the people who participated were those who had already thought about GM foods and crops and formed opinions".[17] In its evidence the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (abc) draws attention to analysis in the GM Nation? report of the feedback forms received, which says that 47 percent of feedback forms indicate 'implacable opposition' to GM, and 32 percent are from those 'somewhat opposed'. Only 12 percent reflect 'no fixed position'.[18] The abc uses this data to claim that "only 12 percent of [the feedback forms] received could be considered to be from people with no fixed views on GM".[19] It also says that it estimates that 70 to 80 percent of attendees at public debate meetings were opposed to GM and "many were members of organised campaign groups".[20]

9. Professor Grant's response was that he had no evidence that the proportion of participants in the debate who were members of campaigning organisations was as high as 70 percent.[21] Nevertheless, he pointed out that it would have been surprising if campaign groups had not attempted to influence the debate. He also told us that he would not dismiss opinions held by people who have thought about the issues, even if they "are now engaged in campaigning stances on either side".[22] Indeed he argued that "these are important opinions to listen to", and that many of those concerned had not felt like the Government had listened to them before.[23] He said that "people had appreciated being asked to be involved in a major, controversial area of public policy … I would not underestimate that as a positive outcome of the process".[24] Professor Grant argued that the debate had been "a highly symbolic exercise in public trust in government".[25]

10. We will return below to the degree to which the debate engaged with the wider public. But it would be wrong to pretend that the debate did not have a positive side. Underpinning the public debate was the laudable aim of engaging the public in policy-making about a controversial issue. Launching the public debate was imaginative and innovative. Many people did engage with the debate, and, even if the views of a large proportion were unshakable, giving them the opportunity to air their opinions in a formal setting was worthwhile. Any criticism that we make elsewhere in this report of the conduct of the debate must be seen in that context.

NARROW-BUT-DEEP

11. One aspect of the debate was of particular interest. Alongside the open debate the PDSB commissioned group discussion exercises to try to examine attitudes to GM amongst those who had not taken a conscious decision to participate in the debate. Ten groups were established, their members chosen

to exclude those either working in or campaigning for or against biotechnology and GM,

to reflect a range of ages and socio-economic groupings, and

broadly to represent the geographic areas of the country.[26]

The groups met once to be introduced to the subject and the debate, and were then asked to think, research and talk about the subject before reconvening after two weeks. At the second session participants reported what they had discovered, and debated the issues considered most important.

12. The 'narrow-but-deep' process was generally viewed favourably. The abc told us that the narrow-but-deep groups "are the only methodologically sound results from the GM Nation? process".[27] Another witness told us that the groups "provided some valuable evidence of the way in which the general population might approach GM".[28] Professor Grant claimed that it was an "enormously rich methodology".[29] The work conducted in the 'narrow-but-deep' groups was valuable, and its outcomes very interesting. We commend the PDSB for commissioning the groups. Any criticism that we make of the debate in this report does not extend to the 'narrow-but-deep' work.

Concerns

TIMING

13. It was always intended that the public debate would be underpinned and informed by scientific and other information. Crops on Trial called for independent assessment of the science surrounding the cultivation of GM crops,[30] a recommendation subsequently endorsed and added to by us.[31] In May 2002 the Secretary of State commissioned a review of the available science, led by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Sir David King. She also announced an economic assessment of the costs and benefits of GM crops, undertaken by the Strategy Unit. Both pieces of work were intended to contribute to an "open and informed debate about all these issues".[32]

14. One of the principal sources of scientific evidence relevant to the public debate was the farm-scale evaluations (FSEs). From the outset the AEBC was concerned to ensure that the results of the FSEs were available prior to (or at least during) the debate. Thus it envisaged that the debate would "run on to Autumn/Winter 2003, after the first set of results from the FSEs is published (in Summer 2003)". It said that "a programme of debate that did not encompass the FSE results and other relevant information could look as if it had been designed to end somewhat prematurely".[33]

15. The Government initially required that the PDSB report its findings in June 2003, although the date was later moved to September. As a result the debate formally ended on 18 July 2003. The Strategy Unit's economic report was published seven days before the end of the debate; the GM Science Review Panel published its first report three days after the debate; and the results of the FSEs were reported in October. It is not clear why the Government did not accede to the AEBC's original timetable for the debate or why, once it became clear that the science and economics reviews and the FSE results would not be available to inform the debate, it did not set a later deadline for the PDSB's report.

DURATION

16. The tightness of the deadline for completing the debate meant that it formally lasted for only six weeks. Professor Grant made plain the PDSB's uneasiness about the duration of the debate, saying that it "had not wished for six weeks but we were working … against an iron cast requirement from the Government that we should report by the end of September".[34] Several of our witnesses complained that the debate was simply too short. For example, the National Consumer Council said that "this time period was woefully, and unnecessarily, inadequate to ensure the kind of local level engagement, really reaching 'ordinary' citizens that was originally intended".[35] And Professor Grant's assessment was stark: he told us that "six weeks was too short".[36] In his evidence the Minister accepted that Government best practice for consultations on legislation and other matters is three months - that is, twice the duration of the public debate.[37]

BUDGET

17. The Government agreed (in the end) to provide £500,000 as the budget for the public debate, and also to pay the management fee of the Central Office of Information. Professor Grant emphasised that the true cost of the exercise - taking into account the time and hard work of members of the PDSB and the monies expended by the Central Office of Information - probably ran to more than £1 million.[38] The GM Nation? report says that £650,000 was spent on the public debate programme and on support costs.[39]

18. That figure must be compared, first, with what was asked for by the PDSB. Originally the Government had granted a budget of £250,000. In due course the PDSB decided that such resources would not be adequate, and asked for additional money.[40] Professor Grant told us that at this stage the Central Office of Information had prepared a "menu of possibilities" which ranged from £0.5 million to £1.2 million.[41] In fact the Government eventually offered £500,000.

19. A second useful comparison is what has been spent in other countries. Professor Grant reported that in New Zealand a Royal Commission had considered the matter.[42] Its total costs had amounted to around £2 million.[43] A similar amount had been spent in the Netherlands. We note that the populations of each country are respectively one-sixteenth and one-quarter of that of the United Kingdom.

20. Professor Grant told us that the budget meant that the PDSB was "very severely constrained in what we could do. Our publicity budget was running on empty the whole time".[44] He said baldly that the money allocated to the debate "was not satisfactory",[45] and that, compared to other countries, "the UK has had a public debate for half a million. I have to say were you to ask me would I do it again I would say absolutely not. With those constraints I would not do it".[46]

Consequences

21. The public debate was constrained in its timing, its duration and its budget. Our witnesses identified three significant consequences of those constraints.

THE PDSB WAS OBLIGED TO APPOINT THE CENTRAL OFFICE OF INFORMATION

22. Several of our witnesses were critical of the decision to appoint the Central Office of Information to manage aspects of the debate on behalf of the PDSB. The criticism was on two grounds. First, it was suggested that the COI was not up to the job:

the Consumer Association told us that "information from COI was always vague and non-committal...We became increasingly alarmed that COI did not have the expertise to deal with such a wide-ranging exercise";[47]
the National Trust asked whether the COI "was a suitable organisation to run the debate … [it] had no previous experience with large-scale public engagement exercises";[48]
the Five Year Freeze campaign said that "although COI competently delivered certain elements of the debate ... there were other areas, particularly the design of the open deliberative element of the debate, where their lack of experience showed";[49] and
GeneWatch referred to the "poor quality work of the COI".[50]

23. We are not in a position properly to judge the abilities of the COI, and so defer to the judgement of Professor Grant. He refuted some of the criticism levelled, saying that in fact the COI did have experience of managing large-scale events, and that it had a research capacity "that was tremendously useful to us".[51] He also said that it faced a "very difficult task", and had to travel "a very significant learning curve".[52] Nevertheless he was clearly critical, telling us that PDSB members ended up "doing a lot of the detailed operational work rather than standing back and steering. What we wished to do was steer a highly professional delivery of the operation and we had to do, to my mind, too much detailed management".[53]

24. The second area of criticism centred on the perception of some that the COI was not sufficiently independent of Government to be involved in delivering the public debate. The Five Year Freeze, for example, said that the appointment of the COI was "controversial … because of the acknowledged need to carry out the process at arm's length from Government".[54] The AEBC at an early stage questioned the independence of the COI.[55] Although there seems to be little evidence that the COI did not in fact operate entirely properly,[56] concerns persist about its perceived independence from Government.

25. Professor Grant conceded that "the COI issue is a very difficult one".[57] He told us although the PDSB had been aware of the criticisms to which it might be exposed by appointing the COI, it had little choice. At the time that the decision was made the PDSB was working to the June 2003 deadline. Professor Grant described work at that stage as "trying to get together a coherent debate against an impossible timescale".[58] Putting the work out to tender according to European Union rules would have been too time-consuming: the COI has a special status under the rules which meant that work could be commissioned without delay.[59] He also cited the financial advantages of using the COI.[60] Professor Grant said that the fact that the PDSB had not been able to choose freely meant that there had been a "degree of coercion" in the appointment process.[61]

26. In its evidence Defra accepted that the appointment of a prime contractor might have been handled differently. It told us that "had there been more time clearly it would have been better just to have an open tender with anyone coming forward as the prime contractor".[62] Whether or not the performance of the COI significantly affected the conduct of the debate, given the criticism surrounding its appointment it is unfortunate that the PDSB was not able at least to consider other contractors. The fact that it was not able to do so is the direct result of the constraints placed on the PDSB by Government - principally, in this case, the deadline set for completion of the debate. Those constraints meant that the PDSB was perhaps not able to appoint the best contractor, and the perceived independence of the debate was jeopardised.

NOT ALL INFORMATION WAS AVAILABLE

27. As we have said, it was intended that the public debate was to be informed by the scientific and economic reviews, and by the outcome of the FSEs. In the event this "essential information" was not available, "due to the inadequate timeframe for the public debate".[63] Several of our witnesses have commented that it was "unfortunate that neither the science review nor the economic review strands of the public debate were available during the formal part of the public debate".[64] It has been argued that the public debate should have been extended "until after the publication of the FSEs, in the Autumn. This would [also] have allowed more time for public engagement with the information produced by the Strategy Unit and science review".[65]

28. The fact that the debate was not informed by the outcomes of the economic and scientific reviews, nor by the results of the FSEs, is highly regrettable. Without this information - some of which was commissioned specifically to inform the debate - the likelihood that the wider 'public' would be informed about GM as a result of the debate was much reduced. We recommend that the Government now explain why the deadline for the debate was such that the two reviews and the FSEs could not be used to inform the process, and why, once it became clear that the debate would end too soon, the Government did not ask the PDSB to extend it.

THE WIDER PUBLIC WAS NOT ENGAGED

29. There is considerable evidence that the debate was able to engage with only a limited cross-section of the general population. The report of the debate itself says that the open part of the debate "reflects the views of people who are regularly engaged in politics and current affairs".[66] The report describes this as a "self-selecting" group.[67] The Understanding Risk team told us that "two-thirds of respondents claimed to have a degree, compared to one-fifth of the [general] population, according to the 2001 Census"; thus "these events were often dominated by discussions characteristic of a knowledgeable and an experienced engagement in the GM issue" .[68]

30. Professor Grant conceded that the debate "fell short" in engaging the wider public in the process: he told us that he had hoped "that we would have been much more successful in formenting discussion and debate amongst other social groups".[69] He said that although the debate was "hugely attractive" to those already interested in GM, "much more would need to be done" to reach a wider constituency.[70] As we have discussed above, the problems were a lack of time and a shortage of money, which Professor Grant described as placing "constraints" on organising the debate. He told us that "in order to attract a much wider range of people in the discussion you need a much bigger publicity budget and also I think a much more developed methodology for engagement with those groups; more networking, more time, more opportunity".[71] The Minister, however, questioned whether additional money spent on "publicity material would generate more involvement and participation".[72]

31. We agree with Professor Grant. Whether or not the 'public' in general would have become involved in the debate, the inevitable consequence of insufficient resources being available to publicise and promote it was that it did not engage the wider population. It would have been helpful if there had been an opportunity to employ a range of techniques to encourage public participation. Moreover, time was an important factor: with more time a greater amount of work could have been done to reach out more widely. It is profoundly regrettable that the open part of the process, far from being a 'public debate', instead became a dialogue mainly restricted to people of a particular social and academic background. The greatest failure of the debate is that it did not engage with a wider array of people.

32. We have been given tantalising hints of what might have been achieved with more time and more money. Even with limited resources for publicity the debate was covered both in the news media and in episodes of the Archers and the Moral Maze. Professor Grant told us that given more time "we would have developed the relationship with the media that we needed to".[73] We would have liked to have seen and heard many more informative or argumentative programmes on television and on radio. A primetime television debate, such as has been held in relation to the monarchy and hunting, would have been welcome.[74] To engage with the wider public the debate needed to go into their living rooms, rather than be conducted in the village hall. With sufficient time and money to publicise and promote the debate, we have little doubt that it would have been possible to do so.