Archived press release

Gm debate chair slams government

6 February 2003

The Chair of the GM Public Debate Steering Board, Professor Malcolm Grant, has attacked the Government over funding of the debate and called for the start to be delayed until May, with the report delivered at the end of September. The Government-led GM debate, which campaigners say is rapidly descending into farce, was originally expected to have been launched last year with the report due in June 2003.

In a letter to Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett (obtained by Friends of the Earth), Professor Grant says that there would be `sensitivities' in Scotland and Wales if the debate was held in the run up to their elections (1 May), and that it makes "most sense to kick off the public events in the programme of debate across the whole UK in May and June running through July". However, Professor Grant is highly critical of Government funding and its proposed timetable:

"Being still unclear as to what resources are to be expected from Government for the debate continues to blight our planning…we still have not yet been in a position to tell organisations what exactly we are planning and what we will be able to offer them."

"With the projected new budget, we will be relying heavily upon participation and co-operation with a variety of networks and stakeholder organisations to deliver the programme effectively. These are for the most part voluntary groups without large resources, and attempts to engage them within an excessively compressed timescale will simply backfire."

The Government announced on 26 July 2002 that it would hold a public debate on GM crops "to provide people with the opportunity to debate the issues openly and reach their own judgements" [1]. 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 even before it has begun. An unnamed Government Minister was reported as describing the debate as a Government "PR offensive" [2]. 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 [3]. 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 Grocer magazine found that 58% would avoid products containing GM ingredients.

Friends of the Earth's GM campaigner Pete Riley said:

"This GM debate has become a farce before it has even started. It is under-funded. It is uncertain when it will start, and even more unclear what it will achieve. Even Government Ministers have called it a "PR exercise' - although it isn't a very good one. It is little wonder that Professor Grant is so exasperated.

"The whole sorry saga only adds to the suspicion that the Government is not really interested in an open-minded debate on this issue, and that it is keen to allow GM crops to be commercially grown in the UK. Unfortunately it faces determined public opposition, and mounting evidence that GM crops would pollute the environment and the crops of those farmers that want to remain GM-free."

Notes

1.See DEFRA Press release: www.defra.gov.uk/news/2002/020726a.htm

2. .Daily Telegraph and FT - 9 July 2002. See: www.foe.co.uk/pubsinfo/infoteam/pressrel/2002/20020709130931.html

3. See: www.foe.co.uk/pubsinfo/infoteam/pressrel/2002/20021129004345.html

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust