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The Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London
SW1P 3JR
03 June 2003
PUBLIC DISCUSSION OF THE FSE RESULTS
At the May AEBC meeting, the Commission revisited the discussion in our September 2001 report Crops on Trial about the Government promoting public discussion of the outcome of the Farm Scale Evaluations (FSEs) as part of the evaluation of the results. I enclose an extract from Crops on Trial by way of background.
The Commission would like to suggest that a fruitful way forward could be for Ministers to hold a public stakeholder event this autumn, following the expected publication of the first tranche of the FSE results (the timing of which is of course subject to successful completion of an independent peer review process). Such an event would provide an excellent opportunity to consider the results of the FSEs and to draw the strands of the GM dialogue together – following the report of the GM Public Debate Steering Board to Government in September. It would I hope promote wider public discussion of the FSE results, building on the public debate process. It would also be helpful if the GM Science Review Panel were able to re-convene to consider the results of the FSEs.
The recent statement on GM by the new Scottish administration would seem to support an approach of this sort, since it says that they will assess the FSE results ensuring that there are opportunities for peer review and assessment by others including environmental organisations.
I am copying this letter to Ross Finnie (Scottish Executive), Carwyn Jones (Welsh Assembly Government) and Angela Smith (Northern Ireland Office).
Professor Malcolm Grant
AEBC Chair
‘….the UK Government is now contemplating a more inclusive process which may respond better to some of the concerns which have been expressed. The Minister recognises the fact that “the [FSE] research work has been confined exclusively to questions around the management of the crops” is “a major limiting factor”. He says that after the data have been analysed, as well as seeking advice from ACRE and ACP, “the Government will also conduct a public consultation exercise as part of the evaluation of the results, and public attitudes to commercialisation will form a crucial part of the decision. In the light of such evidence, Ministers, together with the devolved administrations, will take a joint decision as to whether to allow the commercial growing of each of the GMHT crops involved in the FSEs”. It is right that the first step in considering the significance of the FSE findings should be for ACRE and ACP, but in so important a matter involving a political judgement about the acceptability of risk, it is also right that the outcome of the public consultation exercise that the Minister proposes should be taken into account in coming to the final decision. We therefore welcome his assurance to this effect.
In his letter, the Minister also recognises that further research may be needed to complement the FSEs: “In the light of the various consultations that will take place at the end of the trials, [one option is] to require further research work to be carried out, not least to ensure that public consent can be secured for commercial planting – that protection of the economic interests of other farmers (whether conventional or organic) can be secured. [Another] is to consider… what further work should be carried out to examine the effects of moving from field-scale planting of GM crops to district-wide GM cultivation, or further step change that will need to be tested”.’
Crops on Trial, paragraphs 165-166
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