The statement made by Matthew Pennycook, the Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich, on Twitter on 1 November 2022.
Yesterday evening saw significant disorder on the Greenwich Peninsula involving a large group of youths discharging fireworks. This was deeply distressing for residents and I will be having further discussions with the police, council and others about how we tackle the problem.
The statement made by Simon Hart, the Conservative Chief Whip, on 1 November 2022.
Following a conversation with Matt Hancock, I have considered the situation and believe this is a matter serious enough to warrant suspension of the whip with immediate effect.
The statement made by Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in the House of Commons on 31 October 2022.
I am today updating the House on the mergers and acquisition process for Bulb Energy Ltd (‘Bulb’) in special administration.
Bulb Energy Ltd (‘Bulb’) was taken into special administration by an order of the court on 24 November 2021. Ofgem applied to court, with the consent of my predecessor but one, my right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), based on their determination that the special administration regime (SAR) was the most appropriate route for protecting Bulb’s circa l.5 million customers in the circumstances prevailing at that time—a recommendation which had subsequent BEIS accounting officer and ministerial concurrence.
The court appointed three individuals from Teneo Financial Advisory Ltd (‘Teneo’) as joint energy administrators and, following an application by Teneo, directed they enter into the circa £l.7 billion funding agreement with BEIS to support the achievement of their statutory objective of ensuring continuity of supply to Bulb’s customers at the lowest practicable cost until such time as the company may be rescued, or the business transferred to another company or companies. Bulb’s parent company, Simple Energy, was taken into “normal”—not special—administration on the same date by their secured creditors.
The energy administrators and their MSA advisers have delivered a competitive and extensive sales process over recent months, culminating in their recommendation to transact Octopus Energy’s bid as the optimal way to achieve their statutory objectives. Their recommendation has been reached after an extensive negotiation process to secure the best terms in the circumstances and detailed analysis of the counterfactual options, all of which show less favourable anticipated outcomes and carry significant operational and execution risks.
I have therefore approved the Octopus bid transaction and associated amendments to the existing funding facility and establishment of their new loan facility.
The BEIS-led consultation process on the energy transfer scheme (ETS) has commenced. Subject to Government approval, the energy administrators will arrange for a court hearing date for commencement of the ETS and to enable the completion of the transaction as all agreements take effect by mid-November.
Energy bill relief scheme (EBRS)
Vital businesses, charities, schools and hospitals up and down the country have seen an unprecedented rise in energy prices following Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, and this new Government will take the difficult decisions when necessary to support our essential British businesses and public sector services. Support has already been introduced to help families with their energy bills this winter, and this new measure will help support growth, prevent unnecessary insolvencies and protect jobs.
The energy bill relief scheme (EBRS) will provide a price reduction for all eligible businesses and other non-domestic customers such as charities, schools and hospitals, who have recently experienced unprecedented rises in gas and electricity prices. The EBRS is a significant Government intervention reflecting the seriousness of the situation we face. It aims to support growth, prevent unnecessary insolvencies and protect jobs.
Subject to the will of Parliament, the price reduction will come into force at the beginning of November 2022 in time to cover energy consumed in October and will apply to the non-domestic customer’s actual gas and electricity consumption. It is intended to run for six months from 1 October 2022 until 31 March 2023. The price reduction will be linked to the wholesale element of a non-domestic customer’s gas and electricity bill. The actual price reduction received will vary depending on the contract type that a non-domestic customer is on, as well as the tariff and volume used. Government will reimburse suppliers in accordance with the scheme.
Funding for the EBRS will be sought through the estimates process. Any future costs for the delivery of the EBRS can only be projections and will depend upon energy usage levels and changes to the wholesale price of energy. As a result, the EBRS will give rise to an uncapped contingent liability. A review of the EBRS will be published after three months to assess effectiveness of the scheme and consider how support might be extended, further targeted, or revised beyond the initial six-month period for non-domestic customers most at risk from inflated energy prices. The Treasury-led review will determine support from April 2023—an update will be provided in due course.
I have laid before Parliament a Departmental minute describing contingent liabilities arising from the energy bill relief scheme (EBRS). It is normal practice when a Government Department proposes to undertake a contingent liability of £300,000 and above, for which there is no specific statutory authority, for the Department concerned to present Parliament with a minute giving particulars of the liability created and explaining the circumstances. If the liability is called, provision for any payment will be sought through the normal supply procedure.
I regret that due to the urgency of this scheme, I have not been able to follow the usual timelines for issuing notice at least 14 parliamentary sitting days before the liability begins to be incurred.
The Treasury has approved spending for this proposal in principle. I will continue to update Parliament on this scheme.
The speech made by James Bevan, the Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, on 1 November 2022.
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. And in my experience everyone dislikes regulation until they need it, and then they want even more of it than we regulators can supply. All the politicians I meet, all the media that scrutinise us, and all the local communities in which we operate want more not less regulatory action from the Environment Agency (EA) to tackle things like waste dumps, smelly factories, dirty rivers and so on.
It’s a good problem to have. And a reminder that the answer you get to any question often depends on how you ask it. Does any of us want red tape and bureaucracy? No. Do we want clean water, air that’s safe to breathe, a green country, jobs and growth? Yes – and those are some of the things you get from regulation when it’s done right.
My pitch to you today is this: good regulation is essential for most of the things we all want. The report we are launching today “Regulating for people, the environment and growth” – the clue is in the title – sets out what the EA does to support those things.
But no regulatory system is perfect, including ours. Brexit is a massive opportunity to rethink how we do regulation in this country. The government has embarked on that process, and we welcome the debate. Today I want to suggest some pointers about where that debate might usefully take us and the key principles that I think should guide it.
Let me start with an important fact: regulation works. Examples:
Water security: the EA regulates the abstraction of water in this country. If you want to take more than 20 cubic meters a day out of a river or the ground, you need an EA licence. The EA has been reviewing, changing and in some cases revoking these licences to bring them into line with what is sustainable. That has removed the risk of the abstraction of some 1.7 trillion litres of water. That’s enough water to supply London for two years. Nature, wildlife and all of us are better off as a result.
Water quality: in 2021, due to the EA’s regulation of water companies, a record 99% of bathing waters around England’s coasts met or exceeded the minimum quality standard. That is the highest level it has been since new tougher standards were introduced in 2015. Thirty years ago most of our bathing waters would have failed to meet even the minimum standards we have now. Regulation did that.
Air quality: since 2010, emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the industrial sites we regulate have decreased by 72%, sulphur oxides (SOx) by 90%, and small particulate matter (PM10) by 52%. So our air is cleaner than it was, and cleaner air means people live longer and healthier lives. Regulation did that too.
Waste: I have called waste crime “the new narcotics”: it harms people, places and the economy, including by undercutting the legitimate waste industry. Our regulation of the sector ensures waste is managed safely and our fight against the criminals helps the economy: every £1 we spend on it brings at least £4 of benefit to the economy. The right regulation helps deliver growth.
Climate: in 2021 the climate change emissions trading and energy efficiency schemes that the EA manages delivered a nine million tonne reduction of CO2 compared to 2020. And since 2010, emissions of greenhouse gases from the sites we regulate have decreased by 50%. The planet is better off as a result. Regulation works.
But no regulatory system is perfect. Both the regulations themselves and how regulators behave need to move with the times. They need to reflect changes in technology, in the needs of business, in the risks we are trying to manage, in public demand, in government policy and the law, and in the wider world around us.
Brexit is a massive opportunity to rethink how we do regulation in this country.
The government has embarked on an exercise to remove, revise or retain the body of EU-derived law currently in force, much of which is the basis for most environmental regulation in this country. We welcome that. We think it is a great opportunity to deliver better regulation and better outcomes – for people, for business and for nature.
There is already a big debate as to what pieces of legislation should be retained, what should be reformed and what should be repealed. And there should be a debate, because this really matters and because if we make the right calls we can do what the Environment Agency exists to do: create a better place.
There will be examples of laws we find we don’t really need. There will be examples where changing the law will allow us to achieve better outcomes for the environment and nature and support economic growth. And there will be some laws that it will make eminent sense to keep.
Let me give you a real-life example of each. These are my personal views, not those of the EA or the government, but the point I want to illustrate is that we should not regard the current body of laws as sacrosanct.
I would repeal the Floods Directive. This requires EU member states to carry out flood risk assessments, create maps of flood risk and flood risk management plans. That is all very sensible, which is why the UK was already doing those things before the Directive arrived and why the EA will carry on doing them now, because they are good practice and policy. But the purpose of the Directive was to drive cooperation between continental EU member states that share river basins – clearly we are not in that category.
I would reform the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in order to drive better environmental outcomes. Each time I say this I get flak from everyone, so let me say again for the avoidance of doubt, I’d reform it in order to enhance water quality and restore nature, not degrade them. The WFD rightly sets high standards for water quality in rivers, lakes, estuaries and groundwater. But the way it requires us to categorise the status of those waters is complex, and can be misleading about the real state of those waters, both for better and for worse. And because the Directive stipulates that waters can only get “good” status if they tick all of several different boxes, it can force regulators to focus time and resources on indicators that may not make much difference to the actual water quality, taking focus away from things that would. I wouldn’t repeal the WFD. But I would reform it, to ensure it drives action that will deliver the clean and plentiful water we all want.
I would keep the Bathing Waters Directive, which protects public health and the environment by keeping coastal waters free from pollution. It has done exactly that, driving the water companies, the regulators, the local authorities and local communities to make huge improvements in water quality at most of our beaches. High quality bathing water benefits health and wellbeing as well as boosting local economies. According to Visit Britain, the 135 million day visits taken to the seaside in England in 2019 were worth £4.4 billion to the economy. A great example of good law and good regulation producing better outcomes for nature, people and the economy.
As we have this debate about what kind of regulation we want for the future, let’s be guided by a few principles. Mine would be:
Ronald Reagan said that Government’s traditional view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it”. He was, it is pretty safe to say, not a natural fan of regulation or indeed of government. But he also said: “Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.”
That’s a good distinction. Regulation doesn’t exist to protect us from ourselves. It exists to protect the things we value – people, nature, our economy – that would otherwise be harmed. So let’s have no more regulation than we need, and let’s have the right kind. But when we need it, let’s make sure we have it.
The comments made by Sir Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet, on Times Radio on 1 November 2022.
Her language yesterday, I’m afraid, suggested that she [Suella Braverman] is only really interested in playing the right wing. I understand that, I’ve received a certain amount of abuse on the stand that I’ve taken. I’m not in support of illegal migration, bit I’m in support of humane treatment for those who have crossed the channel and have a right to be properly processed by us. The fact of the matter is that, of course, I’m also defending my constituents’ interest because the facility at Manston was designed to turn people around in 24 hours, maximum 48 hours, and move them on, it’s a processing centre, not a refugee camp.
I was given a clear undertaking by Priti Patel as home secretary and by her Minister of State that that is what would happen and that there would be no expansion of the facility. Over the last few days, we have seen an almost doubling of the size of the number of people in Manston and a massive building of further accommodation, and that is not acceptable. This is in breach of the undertakings that I was given and I’m not prepared to accept it. I don’t accept or trust this Home Secretary’s work.
………………..
I share Mrs Braverman’s desire to see this ended. It is criminal, it is trading in human misery and it’s quite wrong. When you’ve seen, as I have, two or three-year-old toddlers at Manston in the processing centre, kids slightly younger, actually, than my own grandchildren, who have crossed the channel in open boats, you realise just how pernicious and how dangerous this is, and it has to be brought to a halt, that I agree with entirely.
Where I think we as a party have gone wrong, and indeed the Labour Party hasn’t offered any solutions either so let’s not be holier than thou about this, is that we’ve taken the wrong approach. Instead of trying to work with the French authorities and the European authorities to reach a pan-European solution to what is a pan-European problem, we’ve chosen to play to the gallery.
I have a lot of time for some of the things that Priti Patel has done, but I part company with her over the Rwanda idea, it’s dog whistle politics as it won’t work and it’s playing to the gallery. It’s not practical and very expensive anyway, as well as being immoral.
Are we going to get to grips with this? Well, I hope that the prime minister’s approach to President Macron will yield results. If it does, that’s a very good thing. That is the right approach and the right direction of travel. The home secretary’s approach is the wrong direction of travel, I believe.
The comments made by Robert Jenrick, the Minister of State at the Home Office, on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme on 1 November 2022.
INTERVIEWER
[Asked if the migrants crossing the Channel were invaders in the way that Suella Braverman had referred to those people as]
ROBERT JENRICK
The expression that the Home Secretary made yesterday was a way of conveying to the public the sheer scale of the challenge that we’re now facing as a country. 40,000 people have chosen to cross the channel this year alone in small boats, arriving on beaches on the south coast of this country or hooked out of the sea by Border Force, the RNLI or the Royal Navy. That is a very significant challenge to this country, which is putting immense pressure….
INTERVIEWER
[But you used the word invasion you mean people who are coming to do you harm?]
ROBERT JENRICK
Well, I think in this job, you do have to choose your language carefully, but you also have to accept that many millions of people across this country are rightfully extremely concerned.
INTERVIEWER
[Said that the interview would return to that, but asked if Jenrick would use the word]
ROBERT JENRICK
It’s not a phrase that I’ve used, but I do understand the need to be straightforward with the general public about the challenge that we as ministers face because the issues that we will discuss like Manston are very important. But, they are the symptoms of a major problem that we’re facing as a country. We might find, because November is historically a time when a record number of individuals cross the channel, that we end up with 50,000 people who have made this perilious journey. That, as a number of independent experts have said, is causing our system to be overwhelmed. It is putting huge pressure on the asylum system, on social housing, on hotel accommodation and it’s very hard to plan efficiently and effectively for that. We have to grip this challenge because it’s a first order priority of a Government to secure our borders and ensure the public can have faith in the asylum system.
INTERVIEWER
[Asked if people were being held at Manston for more than 24 hours]
ROBERT JENRICK
The law is very clear that we should not be holding people for more than 24 hours. We need to make sure that this site operates legally and so we need to make sure that people are moved out of the site as swiftly as we can. There is also a competing legal obligation on us not to leave people destitute and it would be quite wrong of me as the Immigration Minister, indeed of the Home Secretary, to leave people on the streets of Kent without support and care.
As you heard from the doctor who spoke very movingly a moment ago, to leave those individuals who are sometimes bewildered to be in a foreign country having been through an extraordinary experience of crossing the Channel in a small boat to leave them without support. So we have to balance those two competing duties. What I’m clear on as Immigration Minister, and I’ve only been doing the job for five days, but that I’m clear on is that we will get the hotels procured and we will get the individuals out of Manston as quickly as we can.
The speech made by Jo Gideon, the Conservative MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, in the House of Commons on 31 October 2022.
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I think we have had a very thoughtful and good-humoured discussion. It is clear that animal welfare is a key feature for both sides of this House. I just want to mention amendment 7, with which I have a great deal of sympathy, but I will not be supporting it because I think the question of labelling needs to be looked at in a much wider context. I would very much urge the Minister, within that wider context, to look at consumer information, which I think is a really important issue.
Last week, I spoke in the Chamber on the national food strategy and food security. Much has changed since Henry Dimbleby published his recommendations last summer. The cost of everyday staples continues to rise as the war in Ukraine pushes food price inflation to its highest level in 14 years. So this is the right time to consider alternative ways that our Government can strengthen the nation’s food security.
By removing barriers to precision breeding, the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill will open the future to developing crops that are more resistant to pests, disease and climate change, reducing the need for fertilisers and pesticides. Genome editing provides the opportunity to achieve the outcomes of plant breeding, which has been so successful in controlling diseases and improving yields, but in a much more precise manner.
In encouraging this innovation, placing UK researchers and commercial breeders at the forefront of exploring what these technologies have to offer, we can use science to move away from chemical use and make land more productive, both reducing the cost of food and restoring the balance of nature. However, the UK’s world-leading animal welfare standards must be upheld, so I support the step-by-step approach to legislation, with a focus on plants and maintaining our high standards in animal welfare. I am sure that the Minister has listened to some of the concerns that have been expressed, and that will probably be reflected in looking at the wording of the Bill.
This Bill is a real opportunity to make a positive contribution to a more sustainable food system. For instance, by reducing the spoiling and browning of foods and increasing their shelf life, we can help reduce food waste. It could enable us to improve the nutritional profile of foods—for example, by increasing antioxidants, phenols and tannins in fruit and vegetables, or improving oil and carbohydrate profiles, delivering foods that benefit consumers and reduce the burden on healthcare providers.
Precision breeding represents an opportunity to develop crops with modified macronutrient status, such as increased resistant starch, which naturally reduces the calorific content of food, but increases the level of fibre. Through agritech innovations, farmers around the world will have the opportunity to make better use of their land, fight off harmful pests and better regulate the nutrients in their soil, while removing unnecessary barriers, and helping the world grow more and strive towards a greener tomorrow. In that spirit, I think the Bill is the right step forward, and I just hope that we can all get behind it.
The speech made by Jim Shannon, the DUP MP for Strangford, in the House of Commons on 31 October 2022.
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson). He brings much knowledge to the debate and I thank him for sharing that with us.
I welcome the Bill and I declare an interest, as I must, as a member of the Ulster Farmers Union and a farmer in Northern Ireland. The Bill will bring great benefits, not just to England but to the whole United Kingdom. In my earlier intervention, I mentioned the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which I will touch on later. I welcome the Minister’s response.
I live among farmers, who are incredible people. They love their animals and the job they do. They are very efficient. Near me, they have high-quality dairy herds, beef cattle, lamb, pork and poultry. My farmers want the best, and that is what I want for Northern Ireland. It is no secret that Northern Ireland’s high-quality produce is some of the best in the world and is much envied. Northern Ireland leads the way, but we want to be part of the Bill. The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, however, does not enable us to do the same as the farmers here.
As the Member for Strangford, a strong agricultural constituency, legislation to unlock new technologies to boost food production, support farmers and grow more productive crops is certainly of great interest to me and those I represent—my neighbours across Strangford and across Northern Ireland. As always, one of my first ports of call was to see what the farmers thought about it. They were clear and quickly explained to me that gene editing is different from GM and gives us an opportunity to be more efficient and farm better. It does not result in the introduction of DNA from other species and creates new varieties similar to those that could be produced more slowly by natural breeding processes. It will potentially provide a greater yield and better farming practices.
Crucially, precision breeding technologies will help to develop foods with direct benefits to the public, such as products of better quality, increased nutritional value and a longer shelf life. Those are things that we are all striving for and we should all try to make those ambitions happen, so the technology can only be a good thing as long as it is safe and has farmer buy-in. From my discussions with farmers, it clearly has that buy-in.
We must be realistic and say that farmers have been gene editing for generations but did not have a fancy name for it; they knew it as splicing. I am old enough to remember my grandmother splicing the peas and beans to make bigger and better varieties of peas and beans. That goes back to the ’60s—it was not yesterday—but even in those early days, perhaps my grandmother was a bit of a pioneer in doing such things. Today we do not call it splicing but genetic technology. That is a much fancier name, and much greater, because it is about more than that, which is why the Bill is important. Through trial and error, science has allowed us to go to the next level, yet we must be mindful of the difficulties that can come by decimating the wonderful structure of nature that God has put in place. I believe that the Bill provides safety and security, and a way forward to UK food security.
A fortnight ago, I had the opportunity to meet a constituent, Stephen Alexander, who keeps 130 Dexter cattle—an almost-unique herd across Northern Ireland. He takes 60 acres of land at Orlock in North Down, he has some land at home in Greyabbey, and he takes other land just down the road. He made a deal with the National Trust, which was that he would not use fertilisers or bring anything new on to the land—it all had to be natural; the grass was natural—which was quite unique. Along with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Edwin Poots and others, I had a chance to see how that works. It does work: it is an organic farm in every sense of the word, yet all the cattle are exceptional.
That is another reason why it is essential to bring in the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill as a matter of urgency. As Edwin Poots outlined:
“The introduction of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill in England will not apply to Northern Ireland. The Protocol requires alignment to EU rules so gene-edited crops developed in England under the Bill”—
that we could take advantage of in Northern Ireland—
“would not be available for cultivation in Northern Ireland.”
We need parity of opportunity and of legislation. When the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill returns to this House from the other place, we need to see that we will have that opportunity.
The fact is that for any British gene-edited crops we would have to apply to the European Food Safety Authority for approval before they could be sent to Northern Ireland, which imports, among other things, grain for animal feed. Even then, the crops could still be banned by Dublin, and that is what this really is: the EU and Dublin, with their hand—their dead hand—upon us on many occasions. That would present a fresh headache in ensuring the affected plants did not cross that invisible Irish border.
It is clear that while this Bill is a stand-alone one, the fingerprints of European intransigence are all over it. I again make the point that it is not this Bill, but the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, whenever it comes back, that will give us in Northern Ireland the same chance as the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill. I would ask the House and the Government to reinstate their support for us whenever the Bill, which I think is going through the other place tomorrow, comes back to us.
As someone who loves the land and always supports the farmers, I trust those who have farmed for generations when they say that this is an enhanced version of splicing and that there is a need to be open to all possibilities. I say the Bill is the right way to go to ensure that the facility is there and so suits the farmers and food producers, and allows Northern Ireland to play a crucial and important role to advance our markets across the world. It will also ensure that we can grow and provide more jobs and a stronger economy, and that we can determine this for ourselves, rather than have the unelected EU, with no Northern Ireland voices, dictating our food security and farming practices.
That is my bid for the Minister about what has been brought here tonight. I really do support this, and I think it is the right thing to do. I will say in advance that amendment 4—perhaps the Minister can clarify this for me at the end, if possible—while it has been put forward by the Labour Opposition, has I believe been done in the best possible sense. I understand that the Minister’s colleague, the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), was going to put forward something similar, and we were apt to support that. So if the Opposition move amendment 4, which would ensure that the Secretary of State takes into account animal welfare in relation to Northern Ireland, that is the one on which we will probably disagree with the Minister, unless clarification can be given to us. However, on everything else, I fully support the Minister and the Government as they bring this Bill forward.
The speech made by Neil Hudson, the Conservative MP for Penrith and the Border, in the House of Commons on 31 October 2022.
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who is a passionate advocate for the environment and animal welfare issues.
I firmly believe that this Bill is an important piece of legislation. I first declare an interest: as a veterinary surgeon, I am passionate about animal health and welfare. I also represent Penrith and The Border, a huge rural constituency with a huge farming footprint. We have the most fantastic farmers in Cumbria, and across the UK, who farm to the highest animal welfare standards. I firmly believe that we do not have anything to fear from this legislation, but I do understand some of the concerns that have been raised, and I will speak to some of the amendments and new clauses.
It is important to reaffirm from the outset that this Bill is to do with gene editing, which is very different from genetic modification, where genetic material from an exogenous species is potentially inserted. That is not the case with what this Bill is concerned with. Gene editing is very different from genetic modification. When the Government move forward with this Bill, it is important that they keep articulating and communicating that to the public, to try to alleviate some of those concerns.
I firmly believe that there are huge benefits to be gained from this legislation to animals, plants, the environment and the human race. I respectfully disagree with amendment 1, because I firmly believe that it is important that animals are included within the scope of the legislation. I will try to articulate why I believe that. There will be huge benefits to animal health and welfare from the development of animals and potentially birds that have more resistance to diseases, as colleagues have touched on. As a veterinary surgeon, I firmly believe that is a good cause, because if we can reduce the incidence of disease, that is an animal health and welfare gain.
We have talked about birds becoming more resistant to avian flu, and we have seen how this country is being ravaged at the moment by avian influenza. Technology that helps us to mitigate that is to be welcomed. In addition, in the pig world, pigs with resistance to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, PRRS, will be another good development. Anything that can reduce morbidity and mortality in the animal world is something to be welcomed. As some Members have touched on in interventions, ultimately that could also lead to a reduction in the use of veterinary medicines. That will be of benefit to the animals, but it will also be of indirect benefit to humans. If we can reduce the amount of antimicrobials used, that will mitigate the blight of antimicrobial resistance that is affecting the whole world. I firmly believe that there are indirect benefits to the human race as well.
As I have touched on, we are seeing widespread cases of avian flu across the UK, which leads me to stress to the new ministerial team that we really need DEFRA to adequately fund the Animal and Plant Health Agency. Certainly, the Weybridge headquarters in Surrey is in urgent need of refurbishment, which has been estimated at £2.8 billion. The Public Accounts Committee has looked at that, as has the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. I really push the Government to invest in the APHA to try to prevent diseases and outbreaks in the future. That is very important.
I firmly welcome anything that can reduce morbidity and mortality in farming. I speak as a vet with a lot of first-hand experience through the patients I have treated, but also through my experiences in the foot and mouth crisis of 2001. The trauma that infectious diseases can create for rural communities is something that we are still living with in Cumbria and other parts of the UK. When a farmer who is farming his or her stock gets the vets involved to treat disease, that has a toll on the vets and on the farmer. No one working there wants to see animals suffering from disease.
I firmly believe that if we can improve animal health and welfare with such technology, that will have an indirect benefit on human mental health. We on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee have looked at that in our rural mental health inquiry. If we reduce the amount of medicines, that will help animals and people.
I also firmly believe that the Bill will help with food security, as other hon. Members have said. If we can develop climate resilient and disease resistant crops, that will reduce the need to use pesticides and fertiliser. In the food security crisis in the UK and across Europe, we have seen how critical the supply of fertiliser is to the country. We have two plants, one of which, the Ince plant, has been mothballed and one of which, the Billingham plant, has ceased to produce ammonia. Anything that can help to reduce the use of fertilisers will help with critical infrastructure too.
As I said, I understand some of the concerns that have been raised tonight and in Committee. To mitigate and alleviate some of those concerns, the Government could tweak the Bill in the other place, or the Minister could give reassurances at the Dispatch Box tonight that the Government are looking at some of those suggestions and will move forward with them.
On amendment 11, regarding exogenous material, that point has been well made. As I said earlier, however, gene editing is different from genetic modification where exogenous material comes in. If the Government could be clearer with the public and articulate again that the gene editing procedure does not include exogenous genetic material being inserted, many of the fears outside this place would be mitigated.
I share some of the concerns about consumer confidence in terms of transparency, the providence of our food and how it is produced, so the Government could indicate that they will look at giving more information to consumers through labelling and information about how some of those products are produced. We have nothing to fear from this technology, so I do not think that we have anything to fear from being clear with the public about the technology. If the Government could give reassurances on that, it would help people inside and outside this place.
I take on board the concerns about animal health and welfare. People fear that the Bill might lead to different practices that will exacerbate animal health and welfare issues in farmed animals. It is important to remember that in this country, we farm to the highest animal welfare standards and that there are robust mechanisms for monitoring animal health and welfare in our farming practices. People should be reassured by that, but equally, there is scope within the Bill for increased monitoring of animal health and welfare in terms of the animals that are produced through this technology. So again, we have good regulatory mechanisms and there is scope within the Bill to improve them. If the Government could give reassurances on that, it would alleviate some of the fears.
We in this country should be proud of farming to the highest animal health and welfare standards and we can be a beacon for the rest of the world in that area. I support the Bill, but I understand some of the concerns that have been raised. If we can get some clarity and assurances from the Government, the House could come together, as the Bill progresses to the other place, to say that this will ultimately benefit animal health and welfare. As I said, I think it will help animal health and welfare and the environment, and support human and public health and the mental health of people working with animals. I wish it well as it progresses.
The speech made by Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, in the House of Commons on 31 October 2022.
It is a pleasure to follow the important speech by the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), with which I agreed. As I said on Second Reading, this is a flawed Bill; it is unclear and it is not robust, and legal experts have said that it is staggeringly imprecise. Nothing that has happened since Second Reading has caused me to change my mind, so I have tabled a number of amendments, and welcome the opportunity to speak to them, starting with amendments 1 and 2, which would remove animals from the Bill’s scope and title. For the record, it is my intention to press amendment 1 to a vote.
As I say, amendment 1 would remove animals from the scope of the Bill, but the intention is not, as the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) suggested, to kick the can down the road; I genuinely believe that we need more time to look more carefully at what kind of regulatory framework we need, so that we can make the most of potential benefits, but also safeguard ourselves against risk. I acknowledge that there may well be potential benefits to the legislation, but I hope that others will acknowledge that there may well be serious risks, and I do not think that the work has been done to get the balance right in the Bill. We need more safeguards that are commensurate with the risks. That is why—for the moment, at least—we should remove animals from its scope. If the Government wish to legislate on gene editing of animals, they need to give much more thought to defining the circumstances in which that is acceptable, and to provide much more detail on how it will be regulated.
I recognise that clauses 10 to 15 are an attempt to prevent the significant risks that are associated with precision breeding, but I do not think that those measures are sufficient. When we debated the animal sentience legislation, the Government were prepared to accept that there should be a mechanism, via the animal welfare hub, through which the impact of animal sentience legislation could be properly considered by independent experts with the relevant skills. There is an urgent need for something similar that allows us to judge whether genetic engineering will be harmful to animals, how it can be better regulated, and how that can be done transparently. The model in clause 11, however, gives the person applying for authorisation and the Secretary of State far too much authority and responsibility, and the proposed animal welfare advisory body is given only a weak, secondary, advisory role. I worry that that suggests that welfare considerations will carry very limited weight in decision making.
It is also of concern that, under the Bill, the full regulatory system is supposed to be set through secondary legislation. That vastly reduces the scope for vital parliamentary scrutiny on issues of animal welfare and gene editing.
The claims made for gene editing mainly focus on increasing productivity and disease resistance. The Government argue that gene editing is simply an extension of traditional breeding, such as selective breeding, but is more precise and efficient. I assume that is intended to be reassuring, but over the last 50 years selective breeding has itself caused substantial health and welfare problems in most of the main farmed species. We have already heard about the concerns about broiler chickens who have been bred to grow so quickly that many suffer from leg disorders, while others succumb to heart disease. Hens have been bred to lay over 300 eggs a year. They have to draw on their own bone calcium to produce egg shells. This results in osteoporosis, leaving them susceptible to bone fracture. A cow producing milk for her calf would normally produce just over 1,000 litres in her 10-month lactation. Many of today’s dairy cows have been bred to produce 10,000, or even 11,000 or 12,000 litres of milk a year. That contributes, unsurprisingly, to many suffering from lameness, mastitis and reproductive disorders, and the animals live with those welfare problems for a substantial part of their lives.
Gene editing for even faster growth and higher yields would exacerbate the suffering caused by selective breeding. I believe it would be unethical to permit it for increased productivity, and it simply should not be necessary for disease resistance. The proper way to reduce diseases that are generated by keeping animals in poor conditions is to move instead to health-oriented farming systems, in which good health is inherent in the farming methods. Indeed, gene editing could lead to animals being kept in even more crowded and stressful conditions, as they would be resistant to the disease risks that are inherent in those conditions.
I cannot be the only Member who has been lobbied hard to remove animals from the Bill’s scope. I urge the Government to listen to the public and look again at this. They should return the legislation on this subject only once they have given much more detailed consideration to the issues that I have raised. Another of those issues is that nobody involved in drafting this legislation could, I imagine, have honestly envisaged it applying to, for example, domestic cats and dogs. Yet, without clarification, that is exactly what the current drafting could result in.
Our constituents want to be confident that there is consistency in the Government’s ambition for improving animal welfare. They want to know that gene editing cannot be used as some kind of techno-fix and that it will not entrench intensive farming, with its inherent environmental and animal welfare shortcomings. If my amendments are a step too far, I would urge Ministers, as a form of compromise, to bring forward an amendment of their own in the other place that will at the very least limit the scope much more explicitly to farmed animals. In the meantime, my amendments 1 and 2 would remove animals from the scope of the Bill.
Let me move on briefly to a few other amendments in my name. New clause 7 is about informing consumers about what they are buying. It would require the Secretary of State to make regulations on the labelling of this new class of GMO and to do so in consultation with key named stakeholders. Clear labelling is something that we know consumers want. The Food Standards Agency found that:
“Consumers wanted transparent labelling…if genome edited foods reach the UK market.”
My new clause does not prescribe what form that labelling should take; the groups and organisations that it lists for consultation are much better placed to determine that. They include the FSA, food producers, retailers, consumers and anyone else the Government think appropriate. In other words, it would allow for co-operative, sensible, well-informed approaches. I hope Members will back new clause 7 on that basis. Finally, labelling—in either the form set out in my clause or some other form—could represent a step towards resolving the differences with the devolved Governments, which we have already heard about, for whom, for example, alignment with EU standards is a major priority and a current source of disagreement with Westminster.
Amendments 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are a group designed to ensure that regulation is sufficiently robust when it comes to authorising activities involving so-called precision-bred organisms. They seek to convert the powers afforded to the Secretary of State into requirements. In addition, amendment 8, alongside amendment 7, would require obligations relating to supply chain traceability. Without amendment 7, the Bill fails to mandate any such traceability for the new category of precision-bred organisms.
That would be inconsistent with the current long-standing requirement for mandatory traceability for GMOs and would create significant trade barriers for organic businesses in the UK wanting to export products to, for example, the EU or Northern Ireland. The UK organic sector is worth £3 billion, so it makes no economic sense not to amend the Bill and ensure mandatory supply chain traceability. Traceability of genetically engineered organisms is also essential to support recall in the event that novel allergens or toxins, or other safety issues emerge after release.
I believe the Bill is badly conceived and badly drafted. My amendments are all designed with one of two things in mind: to bring either clarity or robustness to the regulatory framework for precision-bred organisms. It is with that intention that I lent my name to a number of other amendments, on behalf of the official Opposition in particular. I hope that they might support mine in the same spirit.