UK plan to adopt gene editing technology conflicts with EU agreement

UK plans to adopt the latest gene-editing technology are facing delays over fears it will conflict with EU law if Downing Street reaches a deal with Brussels to remove border controls on food and plant products.

Two senior EU diplomats told the Financial Times that Brussels had given an informal warning UK The British government said that agreeing to reduce such tests would not be compatible with current British plans regarding gene editing technology.

The previous Conservative government passed legislation in 2023 to simplify gene editing rules, hailing it as a major Brexit benefit that would attract investment into an emerging sector estimated to be worth £1 billion a year.

But the current Labor administration, which has set its ambition as reducing barriers to trade with the EU, has yet to introduce measures that would give the 2023 law force.

Gene editing involves making precise changes to a plant’s existing DNA and is used to develop crops that are more resistant to pests, diseases and the effects of climate change.

Anthony Hopkins, head of policy at the British Plant Breeders Association, said: “We don’t want things to stop progressing because of potential negotiations that we don’t even know are taking place.” “Delay and uncertainty are terrible for investing.”

Labor government he said in September It will introduce the necessary secondary legislation to enable companies to bring GM products to market, claiming it will put the agriculture sector “at the forefront of innovation around the world”.

But four months on, the measures necessary to give practical effect to the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 have not been introduced.

The delay has raised concerns among scientific and business leaders that the plans have been put on hold before the UK attempts to negotiate a wider deal with the EU to remove border controls on food and plant products, known as the Veterinary Agreement.

Brussels has done this before Shown They are open to a veterinary agreement, but only if the UK agrees to so-called “dynamic harmonization” with EU food and plant safety rules which would require the UK to automatically copy EU law into its statute book.

EU rules require a Genetically modified plant To go through a tedious and expensive approval process.

EU proposals to create a simplified approach to gene editing have been blocked for a year by several member states who say the consequences for traditional crops are unknown.

In a sign of growing concern in the UK farming industry, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture this week sent a letter, signed by more than 50 leading scientists, politicians and investors, urging UK Food Secretary Daniel Zeichner to commit to a “firm timetable”. To introduce secondary legislation.

“The Precision Breeding Act is progressive, coherent and evidence-based. “There can be absolutely no certainty that the EU will end up with similar arrangements,” they warn in the letter, adding that a veterinary agreement with Brussels could take “many years.”

Defra declined to comment when asked if it was delaying legislation as a result of Brussels’ warnings. It also refused to formally reiterate its previous commitments to submit legislation or set a timetable for doing so.

George Freeman, the former Conservative science minister and the main signatory of the letter, said ministers needed to set a timetable for implementation. “Investors and potential innovators need clarity and certainty, not delay and speculation,” he added.

Professor Jonathan Napier, scientific director at Rothamsted Research Centre, the UK’s leading agricultural research institute, said it would be a mistake for the UK to link its regulatory system to that of the EU.

“There is a real risk that we will end up being ‘rule takers’ rather than ‘rule setters’, because we have no input or say in any position the EU wants to take on gene editing,” he said.

But Allie Rennison, a former UK Trade Department official who now works at consultancy SEC Newgate, said the government’s apparent caution about introducing gene editing legislation was unwarranted, and a compromise could be reached in talks expected to start this year.

She added: “The European Union is already moving forward with its own version of gene editing, and any differences could be constrained during negotiations.”

The European Commission declined to comment.