TENTH COMMISSION MEETING
18 APRIL 2002
ROYAL HORTICULTURAL HALLS CONFERENCE CENTRE
80 VINCENT SQUARE
LONDON SW1P 2PE

MINUTES

Papers

AEBC 02/06 A debate about the issue of possible commercialisation of GM crops in the UK

Present

Professor Malcolm Grant (Chair)
Ms Julie Hill (Deputy Chair)
Ms Anna Bradley
Ms Helen Browning
Dr Ed Dart
Dr Matthew Freeman
Mr John Gilliland
Professor Robin Grove-White
Dr Rosie Hails
Ms Judith Hann
Dr Derek Langslow
Professor Jeff Maxwell
Professor Ben Mepham
Ms Justine Thornton
Dr Roger Turner

Secretariat

Mr Richard Abel
Mrs Anne Packer
Mr Pat Wilson
Ms Mileva Novkovic
Mr Chris Hepworth
Mr Andrea Bovolenta

Officials also present

Judy Britton, Office of Science and Technology
Graham Davis, Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Jo Durning, Office of Science and Technology
Jan Ebdon, Department of Health
Sue Hattersley, Food Standards Agency
Glenda Townsend, Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Claire Bennett, Welsh Assembly Government

THE MEETING WAS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC TO OBSERVE

Apologies for Absence

1. Apologies had been received from Reverend Professor Michael Banner, Dr Dave Carmichael, Professor Phil Dale, John Gilliland, Chi Chi Iweajunwa, and Dr Sue Mayer.

Introductory matters

2. The Chair opened the meeting by welcoming members of the public who were present to observe the Commission’s proceedings.

Minutes of the Previous Meeting

3. Members’ comments had already been incorporated into the unconfirmed minutes. These were now confirmed as a correct record and would be posted as such on the AEBC website.

Matters of Report

4. AEBC had considered its future work priorities for 2003 and beyond. A revised Work Plan, informed by the AEBC Horizon Scanning Study, had been drawn up and issued for consultation on 16 April. Consultation would end on 9 July. The Commission was keen to hear respondents' views on its choice of topics, approach to those topics, the suggested priority and sequence of topics. The Work Plan would be approved at the Commission meeting on 17/18 July in Cardiff and subsequently submitted to Ministers. The Horizon Scanning Study had been made available alongside the Work Plan.

5. Pat Wilson, who had joined the Secretariat as part-time Communications Adviser, was welcomed to his first AEBC meeting.

6. The Secretariat had moved offices and was now based at the DTI Headquarters in 1 Victoria Street, SW1.

7. The eleventh meeting of the AEBC would be held in Cardiff on 9/10 May.

Discussion of draft advice to Government on a public debate about the question of commercialisation of GM crops in the United Kingdom (AEBC/02/06)

Purpose of meeting

8. The purpose of this extraordinary meeting of the Commission was to approve the terms of draft advice to Government on how and when to promote an effective public debate on the possible commercial growing in the United Kingdom of GM crops. Government had asked for this advice as part of its response, published in January 2002, to AEBC’s report, ‘Crops on Trial’.

9. Work on the advice had been taken forward by the AEBC public attitudes sub-group led by Robin Grove-White. The Commission was grateful to all those who had assisted in the development of the paper, and in particular for Gary Kass’s helpful comments on the most recent draft of the advice.

10. Introducing the draft advice (AEBC/02/06), Robin Grove-White said that it envisaged a programme of events designed to reach as many people as possible and also explore in depth public attitudes. The principal elements were: 11. The discussion at the meeting would be taken into account in the final, version of the draft advice to Government. The main areas covered in discussion leading to changes to the draft advice set out in AEBC/02/06 are recorded below.

Objective and timing

12. Commission members discussed the objective of the programme of debate. This depended on how Government intended to use the results of the debate. It would be very important for the credibility of the process that Government made its position and its objectives for the debate clear at the outset. The draft advice from AEBC would advise Government clearly about the essential principles in relation to conduct of the debate.

13. AEBC discussed the options for using the information arising from the debate. There were three main options. In any case the material arising out of the debate should be synthesised into a report by independent, professional evaluators. The options were: 14. Starting the debate before the first results from the FSEs were published would help put the results in context. Equally, the debate should not just be about the FSEs but cover possible future developments. The experience of others indicated that it is important to allow sufficient time to prepare for and carry out a programme of activities like this properly. It was agreed, therefore, that the programme of events should be designed to start in autumn 2002 and run on to autumn/winter 2003, after the first set of results from the FSEs was published (in summer 2003).

Framing of issue

15. With regard to the framing of issues for debate, the Commission agreed that citizens’ discussion workshops should start with a "blank sheet of paper" for the initial framing of the issues. They would initially set out the issues they believed were relevant. The independent facilitators would as each workshop proceeded make sure that the workshop members had access to sufficient balanced information to allow them to refine, prioritise and expand their initial list of issues. The workshops could be run over more than one day so that the workshop members could determine what further information they needed, having reflected on the material they had received thus far. Such an approach would enable participants from the general public to recognise their own concerns at later stages, which was vital to the success of the initiative. References to ‘consensus conference’ and ‘pre-briefing’, therefore, would be deleted from the description of the initial stage of framing in paragraph 14.

16. It was agreed that the programme of debate, including the discussion workshops, should be run in parallel in the devolved administrations and in three English regions.

Programme of events

17. The Commission agreed that the programme should be divided into essential elements and those which were only desirable. The programme needed to be practicable and affordable.

18. Reaching out to people at grass roots level was seen as essential and a film as a potentially useful way of fostering debate. For reasons of cost and time, only one film would be made, but it would draw on the six national and regional discussion workshops. Members were keen to seek feedback from these grass roots discussions. As a way of gaining such information, the film would be distributed as a video package, containing a pro forma for both individual responses and group responses from local discussions.

19. Regional and national events to bring together representatives from local discussions would be included in the core programme of events

20. Focus groups were an essential element of the programme. They would add considerably to the richness of information about public views and the comparative analysis of methodologies. But the scale of this element of the programme could be adjusted depending on the available resources.

21. One or more consensus conferences would be a desirable but not essential element of the programme.

22. The views of stakeholder bodies were already well known both to AEBC and Government. The emphasis of the programme of debate would be to reach to a wider public. But clearly those organisations will express views about the issues in the course of the debate. One option would be for them to be specifically invited to respond to the film and for their views to be compared and contrasted with the responses from the local discussions, national and regional events, and the focus groups. This would be a useful opportunity to assess the extent to which those organisations are in step with how people at large are thinking about the issues.

Management issues

23. The Commission discussed editorial control of the film. The steering board would need to produce a clear brief and contract with a filmmaker of high professional standing who would be entrusted with production and editorial control, accountable to the steering group.

24. Since its responsibilities would include financial management of the initiative, the Steering Group would include Government officials in addition to AEBC members. The AEBC had a sufficiently diverse membership to ensure a balance of views on the steering board. But in addition to a few AEBC members, one or two other individuals with particular expertise could be co-opted as required to serve on the steering board. Editorial questions in relation to the film or other issues about content in the course of the debate should be resolved by the chair and the members of the steering board who were independent of Government, in line with the principle of keeping the debate at arm's length from Government.

25. The Evaluation Group should be composed of individuals professionally qualified to synthesise the information arising from the debate.

26. AEBC was aware that it may be seen by some parts of the wider public as part of Government, so its genuine independence would need to be communicated carefully.

Next steps

27. Other detailed points agreed in the course of the discussion would be incorporated in the final advice. The revised advice would be circulated by e-mail for final comments and submitted to Ministers by the end of April.

End of meeting

28. The Chairman thanked AEBC members for their contributions and observers for attending.

AEBC Secretariat
April 2002