Archived press release

Leak reveals Government GM pr offensive

19 May 1999

A confidential letter from the Cabinet Secretariat, leaked to Friends of the Earth, shows the extent of the Government's PR offensive in support of genetically-modified food.

The letter, dated 11th May 1999, is from Cabinet Office official Paul Britton to the Private Secretaries of Tessa Jowell (Health Minister), Michael Meacher (Environment Minister),John Battle (DTi Minister), and to David North, Alun Evans, Peter Wilkinson and Liz Lloyd in the Number 10 Policy Unit. It reveals the existence of a "Biotechnology Presentation Group", which exists to spin Government policy to the media. The embarrassing leak comes the day before Cabinet "Enforcer" Jack Cunningham is expected to make a statement to the House of Commons setting out Government GM policy.

The Group met on the 10th of May. Ministers present were Jack Cunningham, Tessa Jowell, Jeff Rooker (Agriculture Minister), and Michael Meacher. The note of the meeting shows:

. Government attempts to "identify an 'independent' scientist to appear on the Today Programme" to refute the findings of the Christian Aid report on the impact of GM foods in the Third World

. A decision to "present the Government's stance as a single package by way of an oral statement in the House. This would allow the Government to get on the front foot"

. A decision to revise a key secret paper from the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser on health and environmental risks from GM food. The original draft of the paper concluded that not enough was yet known about the risks of growing GM food, but the "Presentation Group" concluded that "The CMO/CSA paper should be revised to make sure it was intelligible to the lay reader and so that it contained clear recommendations, but Ministers needed to guard against the charge that the Government was seeking to influence the findings of the paper. The revised draft should be cleared by a future meeting of the Presentation Group"

. It was decided that

"contact should be made with the National Consumers Council in order to seek their endorsement of the Government's approach"

. Departments should "start working now to line up third parties to author articles in the media in the days before the announcement"

. There should be a "central co-ordinated rebuttals strategy for use after the announcement"

The Presentation Group also noted that there was work to be done before the Government's "line to take" was "robust enough" on issues including biodiversity, herbicide resistance and cross pollination. "It was agreed that it would be better to have a single paper which described the benefits of the technology, and how best to ensure that these featured in the public debate. The paper would need to cover mechansisms to get the industry and scientists more actively engaged with the media."

Commenting, FOE Executive Director Charles Secrett said:

"The truth is out there at last. The Government is not interested in a genuine debate on GM food. It wants to spin GM food down our throats whether we like it or not. To persuade us to love what the biotech companies want us to eat, 'independent'scientists will be lined up who can be relied on to say what the Government wants to hear. Ministers will rewrite advice from their most senior medical and scientific advisers so that the public gets the message that Jack Cunningham prefers. The Government is wasting the time of officials all over Whitehall, not to ensure that decisions about GM food are made in the public interest, but to try to avoid looking stupid in the newspapers. This attempt is doomed to failure".

A copy of the leaked letter is available from Friends of the Earth Press Office

If you're a journalist looking for press information please contact the Friends of the Earth media team on 020 7566 1649.

Published by Friends of the Earth Trust