Earl of Selborne
Main Page: Earl of Selborne (Non-affiliated - Excepted Hereditary)Genetically Modified Insects (S&T Committee Report)
Earl of Selborne Excerpts
The Earl of Selborne
That this House takes note of the Report from the Science and Technology Committee Genetically modified insects (1st Report, Session 2015–16, HL Paper 68).
The Earl of Selborne (Con)
My Lords, one of the opportunities open to the Science and Technology Committee is to identify scientific, technological and environmental challenges and opportunities—existing and future—which government faces or ought to face. The genetic modification—GM—of insects is one such technology. It has the potential to contribute to global issues such as the control of infectious diseases affecting humans and animals and the control of agricultural crop pests. The potential of GM technologies should not be overstated, and a wide range of strategies is required to tackle insect-borne diseases and crop pests, but despite inevitable uncertainties at this early stage of the development of this technology, our committee concluded that,
“GM insect technologies should be afforded an opportunity to play a complementary role in helping to meet the global challenges of disease control and food security”.
The United Kingdom is a world leader in this area and hosts the only company in the world producing and distributing GM insects—Oxitec Ltd, a spin-out company from Oxford University, which was acquired last year by an American company.
I would like to acknowledge the great assistance given to the committee by our specialist adviser Professor Michael Bonsall and by our clerk, Chris Clarke, who has now moved on to other responsibilities and will be greatly missed; likewise Dr Cat Ball, our policy analyst. It is a great sadness that Lord Peston, a much-valued member of the committee, is no longer with us to participate in this debate.
While undertaking this inquiry in the autumn last year, we took the view that of the potential applications of GM insect technology, perhaps the most relevant would be to address the spread of dengue. Since then the reports of the alarming spread of the Zika virus, primarily in the Americas, have added further urgency to determining the potential of this technology. In January this year, the World Health Organization said that the virus was likely to spread throughout the Americas by the end of the year, and a month later declared that the cluster of microcephaly cases reported in Brazil was strongly associated with the Zika outbreak. I hope that during this debate my noble friend Lord Ridley will be able to update us more on Zika.
The global incidence of dengue has grown dramatically in recent decades, and about half the world’s population is now at risk, including in parts of Europe. This mosquito-borne viral infection can develop into a potentially lethal complication, particularly in Asian and Latin American countries. Other human diseases to which GM insect technology could be applied include malaria, West Nile fever and chikungunya—all mosquito-borne viruses—and Chagas disease, for which the insect vector is a triatomine bug.
GM insect technologies build on methods developed some 60 years ago such as the sterile insect technique. These technologies represent a form of biological control in contrast to the use of chemical controls, such as insecticides, which have dominated the management of insect carriers of disease and pests historically. Insecticides will remain an essential part of the armoury to tackle insect pests and insect carriers of disease—and, indeed, they have been remarkably successful in recent years in reducing the incidence of malaria, by the use of insecticide-treated bed nets and by spraying the inside of houses during the day, when the night-flying mosquitoes are at rest. But this does not work against day-flying species of mosquitoes such as Aedes aegypti, which carries dengue fever and Zika. There is mounting concern at the use of broad spectrum insecticides. A better-focused approach that affects only the target species has obvious benefits compared to the release of toxic chemicals into the environment that have impacts on a range of insects and other forms of life.
In chapter 2 of our report, we try to explain—it is rather complicated—the science behind GM insect technologies, which can be grouped into either population suppression or population replacement strategies. Population suppression of the mosquito Aedes aegypti is being trialled by Oxitec. A population of modified so-called sterile insect males is reared in the laboratory which, while able to reproduce, have non-viable offspring. Recent advances in molecular biology provide an array of techniques for engineering gene drive mechanisms and editing genes, the result being the ability to modify insect populations rapidly. The so-called sterile males mate with the female and if enough are released the population will be suppressed. The results from field trials in Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Panama and Malaysia have been impressive, with reduction of populations of Aedes aegypti of over 90%.
The second strategy of population replacement requires less mass rearing than population suppression strategies and would lead to heritable constructs spreading throughout the populations. As these modifications will be persistent in the environment, there must be much more rigorous assessments of the long-term environmental impacts compared to the population suppression strategies, where no such modifications persist. In paragraph 129, we draw attention to the regulatory challenge of genetically modified organisms designed to persist in the environment. We conclude that we will need better tools for the monitoring of GM insects in the environment and that underpinning research is required in order to allow effective monitoring and tracking of these heritable traits.
The United Kingdom has a number of leading academic research groups active in this area and, more generally, a strong bioscience sector in universities, research institutes and small and large companies. For example, there is a group at Imperial College funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, working on a different approach to Oxitec’s to cause a detrimental effect to the reproductive capacity of the mosquito population. It is encouraging that there are these different approaches that derive from the new gene-editing opportunities. We should expect, however, the United Kingdom’s lead position in the development of GM insect-based control methods to be challenged by competition from the USA, China and elsewhere. We recommend in paragraph 72 that Innovate UK should provide targeted funding in this emerging technology on the grounds of economic benefit to this country and the potential benefits to global health.
The immediate beneficiaries of GM technologies that serve to control insect-borne diseases are most likely to be in low and middle-income countries. For resource-poor countries with limited regulatory capacity, GM insects may represent a problematic area of governance and regulation. We recommend in paragraph 86 that the Government, in the light of their strong commitment to international development, work through international organisations to help to address challenges of international guidance and appropriate regulatory framework.
The EU regulatory process for genetically modified organisms is deeply flawed. We set out in paragraph 91 how the regulatory process should work, from application for a commercial release, then identification of risk concern, risk assessment, risk management and finally a decision. In practice there has been political deadlock between member states and an inability to get a decision, with ever more reviews and information requested and the application stalled. Agreement was reached two years ago on allowing national derogations for commercial cultivation of GM crops, but only time will tell if this will break the gridlock, the fundamental cause being political interference once the scientific risk assessment has been completed.
Against this background of failure to implement the EU regulatory process for GM crops without political interference, there is inevitable concern that Europe will fail to realise the potential of GM insects. We heard repeatedly that there are currently no means to consider the potential benefits of GMOs within the regulatory regime. Decisions are made entirely on the basis of risk alone. A potential new GM insect technology to reduce an agricultural pest population would not be compared alongside the insecticide currently used to tackle the pest. However Sir Roland Jackson, executive chair of Sciencewise, stressed to us in his evidence that benefit is not the opposite of risk. He urged that benefits and disbenefits be considered alongside each other, and that seems to be sensible advice.
Whether the first application to release GM insects in the UK for research purposes is for research on crop protection or for the control of disease-carrying insects, there needs to be in place appropriate policy direction before such an application is made. The decision on whether to allow such a release must be made against a background of scientific risk assessment of the environmental hazards and exposure to these technologies but must also involve public dialogues, conversations and explanations of the science. These conversations and this dialogue need to take place alongside the development of the new technology.
It was to stimulate such a dialogue sooner rather than later that we recommended that the Government invest in a GM insect field trial to test fully the science of GM insects and to test whether the regulatory processes are fit for purpose as well as to stimulate public engagement. In order to widen the debate and ensure that all aspects are given adequate consideration such a trial should be dual-approach in nature and investigate both an agricultural pest and a species of mosquito. The Government’s response to this proposal was unenthusiastic to say the least. Paragraph 28 of the response states:
“The Government will keep under review the recommendation that a public dialogue should be undertaken when GM technologies are near to potential commercialisation in the United Kingdom”,
while paragraph 25 states that the Government are not prepared,
“to open up the existing regulatory regime for public debate”.
The Government should show more confidence in the public to participate and contribute to both the regulatory framework and the policy direction.
Around the world, this technology is playing an increasing role, with UK science leading the world. If we are to avoid the damage to our economy we have suffered through failure in Europe to implement as intended our regulations for GM crops, we need to learn from this experience and we must allow the public to participate in policy formulation. I beg to move.
The Earl of Selborne
My Lords, it remains for me to thank all who participated in this debate, which has been of great interest. I thank the Minister for his response. He assures us that he will be using our report as a quarry and a resource but, alas, not too soon because he thinks that immediacy, so far as the United Kingdom is concerned, is some years ahead. Yet I detected a slight contradiction in his answer. He recognised that when dealing with alien species, for example, there might be relevance in the United Kingdom. Certainly in Europe the olive fly in Spain might well be addressed with the next application. If we do not get the GM regulatory regime in Europe to work, that will fail again. The Government’s attitude that we should not reopen this issue because the debate might go the wrong way is not giving enough credit to the public of this country and the wider public. Of course there are many people who rightly have great suspicion and wish to have an absolute assurance that the risks are being properly assessed and that the benefits and the disbenefits— by which I mean the effects on society or the ecological impacts we have heard about—are being quantified.
No control policy is risk-free, but I suspect that this technology will be much more relevant in a shorter time than may have been apparent from the Minister’s response. Defra should therefore continue to look at the possibility that there might well be an application for field trials in this country, certainly in Europe, as there has already been in our overseas territories. I hope that this report and debate have helped to encourage a wider debate about these issues which are of great interest to the wider public, remembering, of course, that we are custodians of a science the benefits of which are most likely to impact on countries without the resources we have. We have a responsibility to humanity and to feeding the world. This technology is not a silver bullet. We must not overstate its benefits, but we should not ignore them either.
Motion agreed.