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- Government agrees to delay GM debate
- 2003
- 10 reasons supermarket mergers are bad for consumers, farmers and small businesses
- Asda spinach over pesticide levels
- Asda/Wal-Mart exploits planning loophole
- Biting back at GM crops
- Blair sacks Meacher
- Committee Stage for Recycling Bill
- Cornwall goes GM-free
- Credibility of GM public debate hangs by a thread
- Cumbria goes GM-free
- Deplorable attack on GM scientific critic
- Devon votes to go GM-free
- Dorset demands caution over GM crops
- EU commission calls for GM contamination of organic food to be allowed
- EU meets US over GM trade war
- Farmers and consumers must have a say in Wal-Mart takeover
- Fat cats fight over Safeway, consumers and farmers are real losers
- Fat-cat Tesco: putting on the pounds at farmers' expense
- Garden pesticides health warning
- GM activists make a pilgrimage for a GM-free Britain
- GM activists make a pilgrimage for a GM-free Britain
- GM beet research answers very few questions
- GM contamination - Government experts disagree
- GM jury challenges FSA policy on labelling
- GM public debate fiasco
- GM study highlights need for urgent rethink over GM crops
- GM trade war - who decides what we eat?
- GM trade war accelerates
- GM won't cure hunger in Africa
- GM-free food could be "impossible"
- Government agrees to delay GM debate
- Government failing to regulate supermarkets, says new report
- Government launches GM debate
- Government may ignore public opinion on GM crops
- Government must address GM debate chaos say groups
- Government must clarify role of GM debate
- Government opposes tough Euro GM rules
- Government report on economics of GM crops
- Government to publish GM science review
- Government urges MEPs to vote for GM food
- Government warns GM farmers over contamination threat
- Hundreds of pesticides banned
- Hundreds turn out for Waste lobby
- Illegal GM contamination threat
- Is Tesco spin on Safeway takeover a joke?
- Lake District National Park first to go GM-free
- Lake District National Park to host GM debate
- Local campaigners call for GM-free Britain election pledge
- MEPs back tougher GM labels
- Ministers try to stop GM food labels
- Morrisons take-over bad news for consumers
- MPs call for extension to GM national debate
- New analysis casts doubt on GM farm scale evaluations
- New maps reveal massive extent of GM pollution threat
- Pesticide review fails consumers and farmers
- Recycling Bill clears the Commons
- Safeway decision must wait for code review
- Sainsbury's: making life taste bitter for banana growers
- Scepticism as GM debate ends
- Second reading for Recycling Bill
- Shameful EU plans for growing GM crops
- Shropshire goes gm-free
- Slow progress on pesticide residues
- Slow progress on pesticide residues
- South Gloucestershire votes to go GM-free
- South Hams votes to go GM-free
- Stop Safeway stitch-up, alliance demands
- Supermarket code fails farmers
- Supermarket code fails farmers
- Supermarkets continue to shun GM food
- Supermarkets must be blocked from Safeway takeover
- The US ghost fleet – behind the hype
- UK votes to keep highly toxic pesticide
- UN treaty regulating GM to become law
- Uncertainty over GM safety
- US files WTO GM complaint
- US threat over GM food
- Warwickshire goes GM-free
- Why the Safeway take-over must be stopped
Government agrees to delay GM debate20 February 2003
The Government has agreed to extend by three months the period for a public debate on genetically modified crops and whether they should be grown in Britain. A request to delay the debate was made by Professor Malcolm Grant, Chair of the debate's Steering Board. In a letter to Professor Grant, Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said that, "it would now be impracticable for the steering for the Steering Board to deliver its report to Government by the end of June. I am therefore prepared to agree to your request to extend the debate timetable, on the understanding that the Steering Board will submit its final report by the end of September at the latest."
The Government announced on 26 July 2002 that it would hold a public debate on GM crops "to provide people with the opportunity to reach their own judgements". The debate was also intended to help the Government decide whether or not to allow GM crops to be commercially grown in the UK. A decision is expected later this year.
But the debate has run into controversy before it has even begun. An unnamed Government Minister was reported as describing the debate as a Government "PR offensive". And in November the Government confirmed that a major scientific review of the new technology - another strand of the debate - will end before the GM farm scale trials have finished. Meanwhile, public opposition to this new technology remains firm. In October 2002 an NOP survey showed that 57 per cent did not want the Government to allow GM crops to be commercially grown across the UK. In the previous month's Grocer magazine found that 58 per cent would avoid products containing GM ingredients.
"At long last the Government has finally agreed a timetable for its GM Public Debate - seven months after details were first announced. But the Government mustn't ignore the real public debate that has been taking place on GM crops throughout the country for the past five years. It's clear that people don't want their food, farming and wildlife threatened by GM pollution. The Government must show that it is listening and refuse to allow GM crops to be commercially grown in the UK," said Friends of the Earth Real Food Campaigner, Clare Oxborrow.
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