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Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): And their pesticides.
Joan Ruddock: And their pesticides, as my hon. Friend notes from a sedentary position.
The apparently simple genetic modifications made to GM crops to ensure tolerance to their brand chemicals or the expression of insect toxins are quite unlike conventional breeding, contrary to what the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale) said in his opening remarks. The constructs that create genetically modified organisms are designed to cross species barriers. They introduce foreign DNA, parts of bacteria and viruses, and often carry antibiotic resistance markers. They are inherently unstable, and are expressed in every part of the plant without the control mechanisms that affect the plant's natural genome.
Yet, despite the obvious differences, the biotech industry has based its safety case on the concept of substantial equivalence—that is, that the GM product is substantially equivalent to the non-GM product. My hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment spoke about the peer review process, but there is no question of peer review in the substantial equivalence dossiers, as they are produced by the companies involved in GM.
I shall give an example. Last week, the Government voted in the EU Agriculture Council for a marketing consent to be given to GM sweetcorn Bt11 on the basis of substantial equivalence. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson), last month told European Standing Committee C that the sweetcorn had undergone rigorous safety tests. However, Government scientists had not seen the complete
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scientific dossier—supplied, of course, by the biotech company—and there is no public access to the data provided.
Crucially, the testing of the Bt toxin was based on the natural bacteria and not the GM plant itself, even though unconnected insect trials have shown no adverse affects from Bt bacteria, but serious damage from Bt plant toxin. Furthermore, no details could be provided on allergenicity, despite increasing evidence of allergic reactions to GM products.
For example, in the US, a Bt maize called Starlink, which was designed for animal feed, got into the human food chain. Fifty people reported allergies, some of which were serious, and the company lost $1 billion in recalled food. In Germany, a pro-GM farmer fed his cattle Bt maize. Some of the cattle fell sick, and 12 died. Again, the company paid compensation, but denied liability.
Do the Government propose to continue to support the marketing of new GM foods in the face of such evidence, on the basis of substantial equivalence? My hon. Friend the Minister said that there is ongoing independent research into food safety. If so, why are approvals being given before we see the results of those ongoing experiments? I shall table a parliamentary question asking him to prepare a list of all the experiments that he says—and I believe him—are taking place.
Has there been any follow-up to the one study—at Newcastle university—in which human volunteers ate GM, and in which the GM material entered the gut bacteria of at least three people after only one meal? It is vital that we know what the follow-up experiments were. Frankly, I want to know what the Food Standards Agency is up to, because I am not convinced that it has carried out its public duty to protect public health in that respect. If it is carrying out further independent research, why did it say that the dossier provided under the novel food regulation for sweetcorn Bt 11 was satisfactory?
I turn to the environmental issues that are the direct responsibility of my hon. Friend the Minister. I give him credit for responding to the many concerns that we have raised with him and I give his Department credit for initiating the field-scale evaluations. Of course the trials have value in themselves, but the Environmental Audit Committee pointed out that
"the scope of the trials was very narrow and the results cannot be regarded as adequate grounds for a decision to be taken in favour of commercialisation".
The experience of commercial growing of GM crops in north America and Argentina reinforces that statement. Argentina's experiment with GM is proving a disaster. That was highlighted when a toxic cloud, caused by farmers using a cocktail of powerful chemicals in a desperate bid to control the weeds in their GM soya, enveloped a rural village. It is worth repeating what the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford said—that throughout Argentina GM farmers are now using twice the level of chemicals that conventional soya farmers are using. GM farmers are also resorting to the pernicious pesticides paraquat and atrazine to control herbicide-resistant weeds.
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A similar pattern of increasing chemical usage has emerged in Canada with GM canola—or oilseed rape, as we know it. Contamination of non-GM crops has wiped out the organic canola industry and 95 per cent. of conventional canola seed is now contaminated by GM.
The lessons for the UK are clear. Experience to date indicates that GM crops do not fulfil the promises of less chemical use or consistently higher yields, and contamination of non-GM and organic crops and seeds is the norm. The Minister mentioned cotton and the reduced chemical use, but that has been the pattern of all other GM crops—an initial reduction in chemicals used, then year-on-year increases. There have also been spectacular failures of GM cotton crops in some developing countries. GM cotton does not have a clean bill of health.
The challenge for the Government, in the face of their willingness to permit the growing of even one GM crop in this country, is how to guarantee consumer choice. Can the Minister guarantee that Britain's growing organic industry will not only be protected, but expanded? Can he guarantee the purity of seed stocks? The key issues are liability and co-existence. Rules must be enshrined in statute, as the Agriculture and Environment and Biotechnology Commission has made clear, because voluntary agreements will not work.
Most importantly, who will be liable when non-GM or organic products are contaminated with GM? The biotech companies have said that they will not pay, and the insurance companies have said that they will not insure. How will the Government's commitment to sustainable farming and the organic action plan survive if GM crops are planted commercially? The Minister said that maize will be safe because it does not cross-pollinate and its seeds do not survive the winter. But we know that contamination occurs through farm machinery, in transport and in other ways. Nothing is safe unless we have adequate separation distances and a proper liability regime.
Are the Government deaf to the wishes of consumers, 86 per cent. of whom have said that they are not happy with the idea of eating GM food? How can we ensure choice? GM can be detected at the level of 0.1 per cent. and that is the current benchmark used by supermarkets for their GM-free products. To guarantee future production to that level, seed purity must be maintained. Do the Government intend to support the EU proposal for 0.3–0.5 per cent. seed purity, which would jeopardise all future attempts to meet the standard 0.1 per cent. that is now accepted for the end product?
In only a few minutes, it is impossible to do justice either to this subject or to the comprehensive briefing materials that have been supplied by Friends of the Earth, Five Year Freeze, the Soil Association, GeneWatch UK and the Consumers Association. The Government have had the benefit of a huge amount of advice from their many experts, but none of it is conclusive. The science remains uncertain, the economics unproven and the public hostile, and the myth that GM will save the starving is well on the way to being exploded, yet Ministers constantly vote in European Councils for marketing consents for new GM foods to be sold in this country and were rescued from
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their desperate decision on the commercialisation of GM maize only by the company's decision to pull out of the UK.
I appeal to my colleagues to think again, to use the time that is now available for truly independent research on GM, to support the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) and to establish a statutory framework for co-existence and liability that will guarantee consumer choice and a future for sustainable farming and safe food.
6.16 pm
Andrew George (St. Ives) (LD): It is always an honour to follow the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock). She has taken a consistent approach and always asks responsible questions on this subject. Debates on GM in the Chamber are always richer for her contribution.
As the Minister rightly said in his opening remarks, the GM debate has been characterised by extremes, although they are not represented in the Chamber; neither the scientific cavaliers nor the blinkered Luddites have appeared in any GM debate in which I have been involved in this place, although there may be different perspectives on how sound the science should be before decisions should be taken. That is very much the nub of the issue that we are debating. Some people may be less cautious about progress on the issue, but no Member who has taken part in the debate has taken either a blinkered or a cavalier approach, which is encouraging.
Beyond A-levels, I make no great claim to have significant scientific qualifications that would enable me to pontificate on the subject, so I speak as a non-scientist. In the context of the decisions that have to be made, the scientific focus seems to be on the environmental consequences rather than those for human health, although questions have been put about the human health aspects.
We might consider the US population as a pilot study for the impact of GM on human health. There are many Cornish émigrés in the USA and I have many family connections there. I love the place and the people tremendously, although I do not share their life style or their political view of the world. We must assume that their current political viewpoints are not the result of eating GM food, so we need other evidence to prove the risks to human health.
We already know about the possible environmental risks due to the release of GM, so it is appropriate that there should be robust scientific evidence to prove that a GM product would not have an adverse affect on biodiversity or the wider environment. The Government have largely accepted that approach.
The Minister knows that I remain extremely unhappy with the way in which the Government have handled such debates in this, the pre-eminent debating and scrutiny Chamber in the United Kingdom. I have put my views on record on many occasions, and the cross-party motion that I sponsored—motion 25 on today's Order Paper—certainly emphasises the point that hon. Members in all parties wish the Government to be a little more transparent and open in engaging with such debates in the Chamber.
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We suggest that the Government table a substantive motion, with a vote, for debate on the Floor of the House, so that all hon. Members can take part and express their views about the Government's approach not just to GM crops and GM foods, but to the whole GM issue, as it affects this country and the decisions that the Government—or at least Government agencies, such as the Food Standards Agency— have to make on our behalf. Such a debate would allow us to give the Minister evidence of the Government's inconsistent approach to GM.
I have raised the issue at business questions, but on 29 January the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford received the following answer from the Leader of the House:
"as soon as we are in a position to do so we are committed to having a debate. I am sure that there will be no question of proceeding with any decision until the debate has occurred."—[Official Report, 29 January 2004; Vol. 417, c. 398.]
That clearly indicates that we were due to have the debate before the decision was made, not after the statement to the House on 9 March, and I protested about that to the Secretary of State.
Although I am sure that the Minister is tired of hearing me say this, I must emphasise that, on that issue and that of the statement on single farm payments, it is simply not good enough for DEFRA Ministers to come to the House to treat the Chamber as a notice board, rather than a debating chamber. Some of us largely support the approach that the Government are taking in both respects, and they would find the debate far better and more consensual if they were able to bring such issues to the House, engage with it and allow open scrutiny, rather than treating the House as a notice board for an hour during a statement.
Despite what the Minister told me earlier, the statement is the only time that the Government have given to the issue. All the Adjournment debates, all the scrutiny in the Select Committees and all the European Standing Committee debates on the issue have resulted from other Committees and Back Benchers bringing these matters to the Government's attention. I am sorry to labour that point, but I hope that I am driving it home, so that the Minister and Department take it on board and do not make the same mistake again.
A number of issues were raised in the statement, and the Minister has dealt with some of them to an extent. The Government have decided to accept that Chardon LL maize can be grown in the United Kingdom. They expected that it would be grown from the spring of next year, but the Secretary of State said in her statement of 9 March that Bayer would need to submit fresh evidence if it wanted to renew the licence from October 2006. At the time, I asked—I do not think that the Minister has answered this—why it would be acceptable to grow that maize in the spring of 2005, but not in 2007. There was a further question about the weight of evidence. Given that new evidence will be required for Chardon LL GM maize to be grown in the UK from October 2006, will new evidence be required for other types of GM maize and, if so, what evidence? I do not wish to pre-empt the outcome of the consultation, but do the Government believe that, although the industry has made it clear that
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it is not prepared to fund a liability scheme, one should nevertheless be put in place? The Government are not prepared to fund such a scheme, and I doubt whether the farming industry is prepared to do so across the board, so there is a logjam. If the issue remains unresolved, does that mean that there can be no commercialisation of GM in this country?
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