Small Farms

Lord Winston Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. It is probably a little outside my bailiwick to talk about changing the devolution settlement with the Senedd. To reassure him, we are working with farmers in all parts of the country and in all farming sectors to ensure that they have fairer, more equitable supply chains, which is of course a really important factor in ensuring that businesses are viable. We have already introduced fair dealing regulations for pig and dairy farmers to ensure that small businesses are treated fairly in their contractual dealings with large buyers. We are currently developing those regulations in other sectors, such as the milk/dairy sector, and I can tell him that the egg sector regulations are well advanced: we are getting cracking with it.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, in March 2023 this House passed the precision editing Bill, which allowed the release of modified organisms, plants and animals into the environment, specifically to help farmers, including small farmers—particularly with plants—to make profit. Many scientists felt, as I did, that this was a risky process, and it is still under review. This March, nine months ago, the Government announced that they were going to do some tests to see what the risk of mutations and other things might be with such plants. Can the Minister please update us on the current situation?