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Yes, the SLSC report on gene editing was ‘biased’ and risks damaging the House of Lords’ hard-won reputation for serious legislative scrutiny   

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Rt Hon Lord Rooker

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July 2025

Science for Sustainable Agriculture

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In an exclusive post for SSA, former Labour food safety minister and former chair of the Food Standards Agency, the Rt Hon Lord Rooker, goes public on why he labelled as ‘biased’ a report on gene editing from the House of Lords’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (SLSC). He notes that, in only considering evidence submitted by campaigning NGOs, the SLSC report has attracted ridicule from the mainstream scientific and plant breeding communities for providing a platform for undiluted NGO propaganda. The SLSC report’s lack of focus on scientific evidence and objectivity risks damaging the House of Lords’ hard-won reputation for serious scrutiny and analysis of secondary legislation, he warns. One of the real problems with the GMO debate first time round was the ‘false balance’ created in the media whereby virtually anyone could put on a white coat and claim to have scientifically valid views. There was no attempt to establish the ‘centre of gravity of scientific opinion’, as Professor Lord Krebs has described it, because that doesn’t sell newspapers. Sadly, the SLSC report is guilty of exactly the same, more than 25 years later, observes Lord Rooker.      

 

In May this year, following a green light from the House of Commons, approval in the House of Lords remained as the final Parliamentary step for the secondary legislation needed to implement the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 for plants in England.

 

The Precision Breeding Act is a big deal. It is the first time in living memory that legislation has been brought forward which seeks to enable, rather than to further restrict, the use of genetic innovation in agriculture and food production.

 

A positive outcome in the House of Lords would bring our rules into line with other countries like Canada, Australia and Japan, and pave the way for the commercial use of faster and more precise gene editing techniques in plant breeding programmes here. 

 

So, it was no surprise when Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle, the Green Party Peer who has vigorously opposed this legislation at every stage, raised the stakes by tabling a formal motion against the implementing regulations, prompting a full debate in the Chamber on 6 May.

 

But it was something of a surprise (and disappointment) that a poorly-researched report from the House of Lords’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (SLSC) provided the basis for Baroness Bennett’s speech.

 

During the debate, I described the SLSC report as ‘biased’. I did not elaborate because time was tight and speakers were limited to making their contributions in just a few minutes.

 

This is what I said:

 

“I am also quite critical of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. I feel really sad about this, because its report is biased and does not take a full range of evidence. I am not going into further criticism, but I think this report deserves criticism. It is a shame, because they are normally incredibly good.”

 

In the event, thankfully, the SLSC report had little impact since the motion against was robustly dismissed by virtually all speakers in the debate. Baroness Bennett withdrew her motion, and we all moved on.

 

But my criticism of the SLSC report obviously struck a nerve, because just over a week later I received a serious letter from the Committee’s chair, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, defending the SLSC report and alerting me to the Committee’s ‘concern’ and ‘disappointment’ that I had chosen to describe it as ‘biased’.       

  

I take the Lords seriously and receiving such a strong letter from the Select Committee concerned me. I therefore spent some time on the reply.  In my response to Lord Watson’s letter, and in view of the fact that I had not fully detailed my criticism of the SLSC report during the debate on 6 May, I provided some concrete examples of why I considered the report to be biased. I specifically asked for Lord Watson’s letter and my response to be published on the SLSC website. Since more than month has now passed, and this has not happened, I am publishing the correspondence here

 

The gist of my response is as follows:

 

  • The Committee only considered submissions from campaigning NGOs (GM Watch, Beyond GM, GM Freeze, Slow Food and organic farming bodies), as well as the responses from relevant Government departments. Despite the (clearly one-sided) submissions received, the Committee did not take soundings from the scientific community, from plant breeders, from (non-organic) farmers, from the food industry, or from consumer representatives. That, in my book, is biased.  

 

  • Because these same campaigning NGOs were not happy with the outcome of the primary legislation, predictably they used their SLSC submissions to rake over issues already considered in detail by both Houses of Parliament, for example in relation to traceability, labelling, consumer attitudes, detection methods and so on. Rather than stick to the subject matter of the implementing regulations, however, the SLSC chose to indulge the NGOs’ protests, and devoted a significant proportion of the report to issues already debated and concluded, and not pertinent to the detail of the statutory instrument in question. Again that, in my book, is biased.

 

  • The Committee’s suggestion that: “We are not in a position to adjudicate between the conflicting views, as presented in the submissions and in the responses by Defra and the FSA, on the risks associated with PBOs…” is quite frankly laughable (and biased). On the one hand the Committee is considering evidence presented by GM Watch, an anti-biotech NGO, and on the other the advice of independent experts on the Government’s statutory scientific advisory committees.

 

  • The Committee’s decision not to consult more widely, and instead to convey the impression that both viewpoints are equally valid, is not only biased but also misleading. Had the Committee taken soundings beyond campaigning NGOs, members would have encountered similar conclusions that PBOs pose no greater risks than conventionally bred plants from the likes of The Royal Society, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and other leading scientific and food safety authorities around the world.

 

  • Indeed, the scientist presented by GM Watch, Michael Antoniou, is not a plant geneticist. He is, however, very well-known for his strident anti-biotech views and for his NGO-funded research focused almost exclusively on seeking to undermine the established safety of genetically modified crops. So much so that his written submission made clear that the views expressed were personal and did not reflect those of his employer, King’s College (which of course has a proud history in genetic science and innovation, including the elucidation of the structure of DNA). During the passage of the primary legislation, Professor Lord Krebs, a fellow of the Royal Society and like me a former chair of the Food Standards Agency, spoke of the ‘centre of gravity of scientific opinion’ supporting the safety of gene editing techniques, generously describing Michael Antoniou as ‘an outlier’ in his views. 

 

  • Finally, the letter sent on behalf of the SLSC suggests that “the range of positions members took on the Regulations” during the debate on 6 May justifies the Committee’s decision to raise wider questions beyond the detail of the Statutory Instrument. Firstly, it is not within the remit of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to re-open already approved primary legislation; and secondly, the majority of Peers taking part in the debate were strongly supportive of the Regulations. Indeed, at the end of the debate, Baroness Bennett withdrew her motion without forcing a vote indicating that, in her own words, “I can count”

 

I am conscious that the SLSC report has prompted ridicule at large among followers of this issue in the scientific, plant breeding and wider farming community, who have characterised it as little more than an official-looking platform for undiluted NGO propaganda. 

 

And therein lies my central concern. The report is not only biased in terms of its treatment of scientific evidence and objectivity, but in doing so also risks damaging the House of Lords’ hard-won reputation for serious scrutiny and analysis of secondary legislation. 

 

One of the real problems with the GM debate first time round was the ‘false balance’ created in the media whereby virtually anyone could put on a white coat and claim to have scientifically valid views. There was no attempt to establish the ‘centre of gravity of scientific opinion’, as Lord Krebs describes it, because that doesn’t sell newspapers.

 

Sadly, the SLSC report is guilty of exactly the same, more than 25 years later.

 

Lord (Jeff) Rooker is a British politician who served as Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr from 1974 until 2001, joining the government in 1997 as Minister of State at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. He was appointed to the House of Lords in 2001 where he continued to serve in the government under several ministerial portfolios until 2008, including as Deputy Leader of the House of Lords and Minister of State for Sustainable Food, Farming and Animal Health from 2005 to 2008. He was chair of the Food Standards Agency from 2009 to 2013. He is a member of the Science for Sustainable Agriculture Advisory Group.  

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