Michael Edenborough QC gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee

Michael Edenborough QC gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee on Thursday, 30th June on the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill on aspects of patent and plant variety rights in relation to genetically modified foods. Currently, genetical modified organisms are heavily regulated. The Government wishes to lighten the regulatory burden to encourage innovation in the UK in this field. The proposed route is to allow “precision bred organisms” to be subject to a lighter touch. Such organisms are those that have resulted from modern biotechnological processes but “could have resulted from … traditional processes … or natural transformation”, i.e. could have occurred in nature without the intervention of modern biotechnology. Such organisms would be considered to pose a lower risk, as hypothetically they could have occurred naturally, and so not require close scrutiny. The committee appeared split between those that favoured deregulation in order to promote UK science and commerce and those who were concerned about unintended consequences due in part to the vague way in which precision bred organisms have been defined.