Examination of Witnesses (Questions 147-159)
24 MAY 2004
MR ELLIOT
MORLEY, MP AND
DR LINDA
SMITH
Q147 Chairman: Minister, welcome. I am
sure you are well aware of who we are given that you were here
last week!
Mr Morley: It is always a pleasure.
Q148 Chairman: It is a good job next
week is Whitsun otherwise you would be back again! I think it
would be very useful if, Dr Linda Smith, you could introduce yourself
and tell us what you do?
Dr Smith: Within Defra I am head
of the GM team dealing with policy science and regulation of all
sorts of GMs that fall within the remit of Defra.
Q149 Chairman: You know what we are looking
at; we have done a very short inquiry and you are the concluding
part, as always, to that short inquiry. I hope it is not going
to put you in the stocks too much, but we have had some interesting
evidence last week and as always, as I said to Professor Grant,
he is a treat because he says it as it is and we got some real
clarity there. If I could start with the issue of tolerance and
indeed the threshold levels, I think it is fair to say that we
will have a difficult report to write because there is not a great
deal of agreement; there is certainly quite a lot of confusion;
and there is the likelihood that the courts could be asked to
arbitrate on some of these issues. Could you just give me some
idea of the rationale behind the point where the Government is
at now, this notion of GM free, which is somewhere below 0.1%,
and the now accepted European level, which in a sense follows
on from what SCIMAC took to be an acceptable level following some
element of adventitious contamination of 0.9%?
Mr Morley: Sure. As you rightly
say, Chairman, the EU have come to an agreement that the threshold
rates shall be 0.9%. Now there was a lot of argument about that,
as you can imagine, and I am sure that Professor Grant went through
with you some of the discussions with the AEBC. I might just say
for the record that I think Professor Grant has done an excellent
job, and the AEBC has been a very helpful forum in terms of advising
the Government and shaping policy, but that is now an EU Directive
and it might be useful for the Committee just to understand that
this is the framework that we have to operate within in terms
of what has now been agreed. The EU Commission's guidance says
that, "Coexistence measures shall not go beyond what is necessary
in order to ensure that adventitious traces of GMOs stay below
the tolerance thresholds set out in Community legislation, and
indicates that it would be disproportionate if statutory co-existence
measures went beyond those needed to meet the EU labelling threshold".
That is a very clear legal framework and we are obliged to work
within that, and it therefore forms the basis of the work that
we are doing in relation to such things as separation distances
and also monitoring that will deliver a framework that will operate
with that 0.9% threshold. Now, it is the case, Chairman, that
we can choose to set a lower threshold for organic farming and
that will be part of the consultation we will have. It may well
be the case that we could ask the Commission to look again at
the thresholds for the organic sector, for example, because there
will be an issue of enforceability within that threshold going
back to the actual framework as agreed by the EU. So that is the
basis on which we are working, and the legal framework we have
to operate within.
Q150 Chairman: Joan is going to ask you
about organic in a minute but just looking at what we were given
by one of the NGOs as a likely scenario last week, this is going
to be tested in as much as somebody somewhere is going to say,
"I was supplying my food on the basis that it was GM free,
or which the consumer takes to be GM free, not at a level of 0.9%".
If the Government gets called into this, without pretending to
give the Government its own legal advice, what is going to be
the Government's defence?
Mr Morley: It is a legal definition
now in relation to 0.9% in that, under the EU regulations we are
obliged to work within, if foods are below 0.9% they are not classed
as GM foods. Now, in terms of being GM free it is, of course,
up to the organic sector, who in relation to their own rules can
set their thresholds in relation to their own members, but in
terms of the legal and statutory position and the potential liability,
the 0.9 is the threshold and the baseline figure because that
is now established within EU law and within this country.
Q151 Chairman: Finally from me, there
has been a lot of concentration on the issue of cross-pollination,
and we are talking about distances between crops, but I do not
think there has been much understanding of the potential of adventitious
contamination through other means like transport and shared use
of equipment. How is this going to be understood by those on both
sides of the argument, but more particularly who is going to monitor
this?
Mr Morley: It will certainly be
part of the regulations in that it is irrelevant if the threshold
has been breached, whether it is because of mixing up seeds or
the inadvertent addition of GM material, or whether it has come
from contamination on farm equipment or for any other failure
in relation to the management that crosses the threshold, once
that threshold is crossed then the food is classed as GM. This
cuts both ways. Once you go over the 0.9 it is classed as a GM
product. It can be enforced in the sense that we already have
the SCIMAC code of conduct that applies to farmers who are using
GM products. In terms of the package of measures that we will
be consulting on, it will include controls on such things as volunteers,
cross-contamination, the cleaning of farm machinery. Our proposal
is that the basis of what is currently a code of practice should
become a statutory code of practice to deal with all these aspects,
so it will be enforceable so they can be addressed and they can
be enforced. How they are enforced at the present time is that
there is testing and monitoring which is done by the seed companies
themselves. There is a quality control check which is done by
our GM Inspectorate, and that quality control check involves both
taking samples of seeds but also, more importantly perhaps, checking
the paper trail, checking the traceability of the actual products.
The tests are carried out by our Central Science Laboratory in
York and if there are transgressions then at the moment we insist
on the product being recalled, whether it is a crop or whether
it is seeds. That can have severe financial consequences for the
producers. They do not want that to happen. Of course, it can
also damage the reputation of the companies concerned and they
do not want that to happen either. There are some fairly effective
sanctions in relation to control.
Q152 Chairman: Just on that, can you
give us a feel for how often this is happening?
Mr Morley: I can give you some
examples. You are probably well aware of the very well known Advanta
example. That was a GM seed that was mixed up with, was that GM
or non-GM, the wrong kind of GM?
Dr Smith: It was conventional
seed.
Mr Morley: It was conventional
seed. That was mixed up from the source, which was Canada, and
in that respect the crops had to be destroyed, the seeds were
all withdrawn, and the financial consequences must have been huge
for the company concerned. There have been one or two other smaller
examples as well, I am sure we can give you details on that, Chairman.
Chairman: That would be very useful.
Joan, you want to talk about organic.
Q153 Joan Ruddock: In a moment. How many
quality control inspectors do you have?
Mr Morley: Have we got the figures
for that, Linda, the number of the GM Inspectorate?
Dr Smith: I think it is five but
I can confirm that.
Chairman: Again, if we could have a note
on that, that would be very useful.
Q154 Joan Ruddock: Do you envisage any
increase given that things are changing now?
Mr Morley: That is not impossible.
Obviously you have to look at the level of inspectors depending
on the amount of product which has approval and which is being
sold. Five does sound low at the present time but you have to
bear in mind that this is a quality control check. The companies
are obliged to do their own testing, and they do their own testing.
This is a quality control to make sure that the testing meets
the standard and the paper trail is relevant. It is a belt and
braces approach, it is not the frontline of quality control; the
frontline of quality control is through the companies.
Q155 Joan Ruddock: I just want to go
back over what you were saying about the 0.9% threshold. You were
telling us in your opening remarks about what the EU has said.
Do I take it from that that you are very, very clear that allowing
0.9% contamination meets requirements, that there is nothing in
the argument that has been mounted by the Soil Association that
adventitious and unavoidable contamination has a legal definition
that is not the same as an acceptance of a 0.9% threshold?
Mr Morley: We will certainly look
at the arguments. I would not want to dismiss any arguments. This
might be one where we may have to refer to our legal advisers.
Our current legal advice on this is very clear. Basically the
action on co-existence rules will be consistent with Article 26a(1)
of Directive 2001/18, which is the Directive they are talking
about. The regulations will be made under section 2(2) of the
European Communities Act, which is the normal way of doing it.
We think it is a misinterpretation of the actual wording within
the text, which I have to say in terms of European legislation
is not unusual and sometimes people find all sorts of different
interpretations. I come back to the point that I opened with,
that the Council of Ministers and the Commission have approved
the thresholds, which are very clear. It is very clear about this:
under 0.9 it is not a GM product; over 0.9 it is. It is very straightforward.
Q156 Joan Ruddock: Is not a consequence
of this that if separation distances were set such that there
was a clear acceptance that 0.9% contamination of non-GM crops
would occur, that the separation distances were set to allow for
contamination up to 0.9%, that would then wipe out a non-GM farmer
who had a farm next to a GM farm? If it were a crop, of course,
where there was a GM and organic equivalent—I accept there
is not in all cases—and in that scenario 0.9% contamination
was allowed for in the separation distance, the GM farmer cannot
meet what is understood in this country, what is certified in
this country, 0.1%.
Mr Morley: This raises some really
quite complex arguments which are not just for the Government
but also for the organic certifying bodies themselves and their
umbrella group, which is currently discussing this particular
issue. The problem is it is true that if you have a certifying
body, and there are a number of certifying bodies in this country
and they do not all have the same standards on the same things,
as you understand, and it does set a threshold for the sake of
argument at 0.1 then, of course, if that threshold is exceeded
they could argue it does not meet the standards they have set,
that is true, but the dilemma for the sector is that at the moment
the bulk of organic produce in this country is imported, and we
would like to see that changing, and that imported produce is
already working on the basis of 0.9. I also understand in the
draft consultations in the same things that we are doing, which
is happening in other European countries, major producers like
Denmark, Germany and France are already talking about 0.9 for
their organic producers. There is a difficult issue here. I do
understand the dilemma for organic sectors that have set those
particular standards and they are free to do so. Of course, they
may have a standard but legally if an organic crop does not go
over the 0.9 it can still claim to be organic.
Q157 Joan Ruddock: That is arguable,
is it not? Organic means something other than conventional non-GM
because there is certification. If I just might go on. It is a
fact that the supermarkets are saying, rightly or wrongly, that
in their own source products they are GM-free, ie 0.1%. Are you
suggesting that imported organics at the moment are not meeting
that standard?
Mr Morley: I would very much doubt
whether all organic food is meeting the standard of 0.1, I would
seriously doubt that at the present time wherever it is coming
from. To come back to this point about what is organic and what
is not organic. The organic sectors already allow such things
as spray drift, for example, in relation to pesticides and herbicides
because it is a fact of life and you cannot guarantee that it
will not happen. You have got a similar issue in relation to GMs
should they become established in this country in that you cannot
guarantee that there will be no GM presence. You can argue whether
you can keep that down, you can argue whether 0.9 is the right
amount, it is the level that has been set at the present time.
I repeat, we are willing to look at a lower threshold for the
organic sector. We are also willing to argue within the EU that
that should be an enforceable EU standard as well. We are willing
to do that, but if you come at this on the basis that you are
absolutely against GM, you do not want any GM, then of course
you will argue for a zero threshold, I understand that, but we
do not have that luxury in relation to the position we have to
take as a Government within EU law. What we are trying to do is
put in place a workable co-existence regime with the minimum levels
of measurable GM in non-GM crops. That is what we are trying to
do within the threshold that has been set legally.
Q158 Chairman: Can I just make one point.
Certainly I talk to farmers and the analogy with the implications
of pesticide spraying is quite good here because for want of my
own innocence I put forward an EDM looking at the idea of buffer
zones and farmers, understandably, got very, very nervous about
that and basically said to me that co-existence cannot work if
you are really taking that to mean that what is next door will
be free from whatever you want it to be free from. We are going
to look at co-existence a bit more in a moment but this is one
of the crunch points, that the consumer will think one thing and
in reality the practicalities are saying something different.
How do we overcome this dilemma?
Mr Morley: You have to have a
recognition, as I think you said, Chairman, that if you have conventional
crops and organic crops there will be detectable levels of pesticides,
for example, and if you have GM crops then you will have detectable
levels of GM material in some cases. We have the legal maximum
and what we are trying to do is see how we can make that work
taking into account the concerns of various sectors and, of course,
the responses that we will get in on consultation. That is what
we are trying to do at the present time.
Q159 Joan Ruddock: You said a moment
ago that the Government would be willing to argue within the EU
for a statutory threshold for organic. What level might that threshold
be at?
Mr Morley: The level would be
what is enforceable and obviously what is detectable.
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