GM Foods - Evaluating
the Farm Scale Trials: the Government Response
1. We published our Second Report of Session 2003-04,
GM Foods—Evaluating the Farm Scale Trials, on Friday
5 March this year, a few days before the statement was made to
the House on GM crops by the Secretary of State for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs, the Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP[1].
We received the Government response to our Report on Wednesday
28 April, just four sitting days before the debate on the Floor
of the House on GM Crops scheduled for Wednesday 5 May. This
response appears as the Appendix to the Report.
2. We are very disappointed by the tone and content
of the Government response. The Government claims to have given
careful consideration to all available evidence. The few days
between the publication of our Report and its statement on GM
crops can simply not have allowed for careful consideration of
the substantial amount of evidence contained within that Report
and accompanying it. The debate scheduled for 5 May will not allow
the House to come to a decision on the basis of a substantive,
and amendable, motion.
3. The Government response is clearly unsatisfactory.
It fails to reply to the substance of some arguments even while
misinterpreting others. For example, the Government in its response
suggests that our Report recommended that only for GM crops should
the benchmark for biodiversity be raised. We clearly stated in
our Report (paragraph 72) that "the Government…should
establish a benchmark for conventional crops, at the less intensive
end of the spectrum". This is only one of a number of either
wilful or careless misinterpretations in the response to our Report
that have permitted the Government simply to recapitulate old
objections to the concerns raised by those who for good reason
oppose the planting of GM crops in the United Kingdom.
4. The Government response tries to take us to task
for its failure to take oral evidence from the research consortium
engaged in the farm scale evaluations, a failure it regards as
a "serious weakness". Yet it makes clear that it was
the job of the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC), not the research
consortium, to ensure that the design of the trials—with
which we took greatest issue - was appropriate. We of course
did take evidence from the Chairman of the SSC, and it
was partly on the basis of that evidence that we came to the conclusions
that we did. Given that, it is surprising that the Government
came to such an insupportable conclusion. It is also unreasonable
of the Government to criticise our report for placing undue emphasis
on the North American experience when the Minister of State at
DEFRA, Elliot Morley MP, in evidence before us maintained the
need for DEFRA to examine the problems with GM in North America,
and has indeed encouraged ACRE to look into the Canadian and US
experience in some detail.
5. The Government response also fails to address
the point that the farm scale evaluations (FSEs) reflected not
only a narrow part of the assessment required under Directive
2001/18/EC but an even narrower part of the totality of the Government's
consultation. Given that the conclusions of this thorough consultation
were ambiguous or contradictory when they were not negative, this
is perhaps not surprising. It is, nonetheless, unsatisfactory.
6. The Government response does not address the issue
of liability. It was clear from the statement of the Secretary
of State on 9 March that the Government will not pay compensation
for any contamination of conventional crops by GM crops. It is
clear that the industry does not intend to do so either. It therefore
appears that the Government is happy to leave conventional and
organic farmers exposed to the possibility of severe financial
losses and the GM industry free from mandatory inclusion in any
scheme to establish proper liability.
7. We are grateful to the Government for asking ACRE
to comment upon the issues raised by our Report and we look forward
to reading its advice. We also commend the Government for its
evident concern about what we have pointed out in our Report about
the decline in biodiversity levels in conventional crops over
previous decades. We further welcome the Government's intention
to use its agricultural research programme to learn how different
farming practices affect the environment at large. We however
note that is unfortunate that such research has not already taken
place and that harm to biodiversity has been permitted to take
place unchecked for far too long.
8. We intend to return to the issue of GM crops later
in the year when we will look at the issues raised by the Government
response in more detail, and at the ever-growing body of evidence
about the impact of GM crops on the environment. It is unfortunate
that the Government has not responded in a more constructive way
to our Report. The public at large are very concerned about issues
relating to GM and will regard the Government's failure to engage
in a proper debate with the Committee on this matter as a sign
of weakness. We can only hope that the Government will show itself
to be more open and responsive in the future.
1 HC Deb, 9 March 2004, cols 1381-4 Back
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