"Q But would you say that a lawyer may look at a definition and say it is vague because the very nature of biology is vague? Is that fair? I do not want to put words in your mouth.
"Q I want to go back to the idea of environmental release, which the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith talked about. To my mind, that implies something that would not have been there as part of nature. You are releasing something into the environment—a transgenic animal; a …..." Katherine Fletcher - View Speech
"And she—let us make it a she—almost environmentally released it into a field.
Professor Dunwell: Yes. That is the context, and I think it is important just generally that people—well, that is me producing a sermon. That is the context in which we are now working...." Katherine Fletcher - View Speech
"I am speaking today in full support of the Bill, precision breeding and our outstanding scientists, who are looking to this House to unlock barriers to solving many of the most important problems facing us on earth. I want to see this Bill unleash their capability and energy on those …..." Katherine Fletcher - View Speech
"Quite. That is a mouthful, but the key here is “transgenic”. We were putting a gene from Escherichia coli—E. coli—into an itty-bitty nematode worm, an animal, and making a cross-species C. elegans. Those little guys were effectively harnessing natural stress repair mechanisms to produce something that we could measure easily.
"Yes. If the Bill contained a way of opening up the transgenic debate, be that in plants or animals, it would not enjoy my support.
While I have put on a lot of weight since the mid-1990s, science has also massively moved on. In response to the intervention by the …..." Katherine Fletcher - View Speech
"The way the hon. Lady is talking about gene editing implies that one can tell the difference. It brings in variant genes from the same species. It is literally scientifically impossible to identify a gene-edited product if it is done properly...." Katherine Fletcher - View Speech
"Nature makes mistakes; that is how evolution comes about. So the mistakes that are reported in the literature are actually further evidence that such technologies effectively replicate a natural process. Does the hon. Lady agree?..." Katherine Fletcher - View Speech
"I thank the Secretary of State for recently meeting the little pocket of marvellousness made up of the grade 1 agricultural land and glasshouse growers in South Ribble. Banks, Tarleton and Hesketh Bank are producing some of the finest celery, turnips, tomatoes and salad leaves in the world. Glasshouse growers …..." Katherine Fletcher - View Speech