Do not pass legislation to allow the gene editing of animals and crops

I want the Government to abandon plans to pass legislation to legalise gene editing of animals and crops. The Government has said technologies such as gene editing have the potential to increase disease resistance in crops, reduce pesticide use, lower costs to farmers and increase food production.

I want the Government to abandon the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill because I believe that relaxing regulations on GE livestock would be a huge step backwards for animal welfare and jeopardise ethical consumer choices.

Furthermore gene editing could have unpredictable effects and alter the animals in ways we cannot comprehend. We believe the use of GE technologies also threatens to push farmed animals further beyond their biological limits, which could have adverse effects for their health and in turn for consumers.

Precision breeding technologies, such as gene editing, have great potential and can help us adapt to the impacts of climate change, improve food security and enhance the sustainability and resilience of agricultural systems.

The UK is at the leading edge of genetics and genomics research, and we want UK researchers and commercial breeders to be at the forefront of capturing these benefits and helping cement our position as a science superpower.

Precision breeding describes a range of technologies, such as gene editing (GE), that enables DNA to be edited much more efficiently and precisely than current breeding techniques, which can take decades to produce the same changes. These technologies can make targeted genetic changes to produce the beneficial traits that can also occur through traditional breeding and natural processes.

The scientific advice from our independent Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE), the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Biology and the Roslin Institute, is that precision bred organisms pose no greater risk to the environment or health than their traditionally bred counterparts.

The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill aims to create a new, proportionate regulatory regime for organisms produced through precision breeding technologies, where the genetic changes could have arisen through traditional breeding processes.

The primary policy objective of the Bill is to ensure that plants, animals and food and feed products developed from them, using precision breeding technologies, are regulated proportionately to risk. The Bill will introduce simpler regulatory measures to enable these products to be authorised and brought to market more easily.