Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-28
Topic: Agriculture
Natalie Bennett (Green Party, Left): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, for leading the way for those of us speaking in opposition to the amendment. As a relatively new Member of your Lordships’ House, I am very glad that such a respected Member went first I begin by reflecting on the scope of this debate. I think it was the Minister who said that it had taken 54 hours a couple of hours ago. There has been a great deal of dissatisfaction with this Bill. That is very obvious. We have just spent a long time on the trade issues. There is also the lack of agroecology at its centre, where it should be; the lack of duties on the Government, only access to powers; food not being a public good; and the lack of regular reporting I refer to all of that, not to try to use this speech as a round-up but to make a specific point about the amendment. In a discussion before Committee started, the Minister said that the Government were minded to consider this amendment outside the Bill’s scope at this time. I find myself in a slightly odd situation, since I am often in the Bill office arguing for things to be in Bills that I am told are outside scope. However, I put it to the Government that they need to ask themselves whether they want to engage in this debate in this Bill when so many other issues will be hugely contentious when we get to Report. Indeed, a noble Lord who has been in the House for many years suggested earlier that Report might be as long as Committee I will pick up on a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, made. Some people, primarily advocates for this technology blazing ahead, try to turn this into a culture war. They try to label those who say, "Hang on, slow down, what are you doing?" as anti-science. I regret that, because my first training was as a scientist. I very much embrace and am fascinated by agroecology. I share the interest in soil science of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. I am very much interested in the science of nutrition. All these sciences take a holistic approach to our interaction with the natural world and with our food system. They are fundamentally different kinds of science and approaches from the silver bullet, single-step approach that GM technology represents In the past, we have seen that kind of approach and technology dominate for decades. It is the approach that produced the green revolution. We have seen quite a few reports coming out of India reflecting on the huge damage that taking that approach has caused, including enormous problems with water, pests, pesticides and a lack of variety in diet I refer to some of the issues that noble Lords have already raised. In an earlier debate, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, talked about rapeseed and the difficulty of growing it here without neonicotinoids. Of course, that crop was only introduced to Britain in the 1970s. There has been quite a bit of discussion about sugar beet, a crop that is responsible for 10% of the entire soil loss of some of the richest soils, certainly in England. This crop also produces sugar, which we already have far too much of We need to think about what crops we grow and whether we grow them in the right places. I often discuss with farmers the growing of wheat in Scotland. There is a reason why Scotland is famous for oatcakes. Wheat is a crop that is fundamentally unsuited to the Scottish climate. We need to look at these things holistically, rather than essentially trying to ram square pegs into round holes, often for the convenience of large multinational companies that want a small number of certain crops and their food to taste the same all around the world I referred to the issue of time. I do not think that this is the place to engage fully with the issue of technology and its potential dangers, but I want to pick the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, up on a phrase he used, which I think another noble Lord repeated. He said that GM technology is producing precise changes. I refer noble Lords to a report in Nature on 25 June. The headline read: "CRISPR gene editing in human embryos wreaks chromosomal mayhem." This actually refers to a series of pre-print reports that have not yet been peer reviewed, which, in the age of Covid, is very much the way a lot of medicine is going. If noble Lords want to wait and see on that one, I refer them to a debate in your Lordships’ House on gene editing, when the House considered a Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. I quote from that debate the noble Lord, Lord Winston, whom I am sure noble Lords would wish to listen to on these issues. He said: "CRISPR is not an accurate technique."—[Official Report, 30/1/20; col. 1530.] So, there are far more issues and questions about these technologies than has been suggested in the debate thus far. I want to come back to the practical arguments that those who do not really want to engage with the scientific debate might be interested in listening to. I want to make a point about subsection (3) of the new clause proposed by the amendment. It states: "Regulations under subsection (1) may only be made in relation to England." If you were to bring an amendment such as this at the next stage of the Bill—whether a government amendment or otherwise—certainly, it should refer to widespread consultation and discussion with the other nations of the United Kingdom. Seeds and pollen and other such crops will not be stopped by Hadrian’s Wall—even less so by Offa’s Dyke. This issue has to be considered on a scale across the United Kingdom; then, of course, Ireland may raise some pretty interesting concerns about and issues with the land border That brings me to a final point and gives me a chance to engage with the noble Earl, Lord Devon, who talked about the wonders of Devon cream teas. I am going to indulge in Yorkshire parkin and the wonderful products of the rhubarb triangle. Many noble Lords at many stages in this debate have spoken about the reputation of food from the UK, its potential in export markets and how that reputation is founded on images of cleanness, wholesomeness and quality. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, reflected on international views of the use of GM technology in crops and how that affects people’s views. If noble Lords are concerned about promoting in that area of export markets—it is not my personal focus, which is on producing local food for local consumption—some of which can be small volumes of high-value products that are valuable and useful ambassadors for Britain around the world, they want to look very carefully at this amendment and consider what its impact would be.