UK plans to adopt the latest gene-editing technology face delays over fears they will conflict with EU law if Downing Street reaches a deal with Brussels to scrap border checks on food and plant products.
Two senior EU diplomats told the Financial Times that Brussels had given an informal warning UK government that an agreement to reduce such checks would be incompatible with the UK’s current plans for gene-editing technology.
The previous Conservative government introduced legislation in 2023 to simplify rules for gene editing, hailing it as a major Brexit benefit that would attract investment into the emerging sector, estimated at £1 billion a year.
But the current Labor administration, which has set out an ambition to reduce barriers to trade with the EU, has yet to introduce measures to give effect to the 2023 law.
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.
“We don’t want things to stop moving forward because of possible negotiations that we don’t even know are going on,” said Anthony Hopkins, head of policy at the British Plant Breeders’ Society. “Delay and uncertainty are terrible for investment.”
Labor government he said in September that it will introduce the secondary legislation needed to allow companies to bring genetically modified products to market, claiming it would put the agricultural sector “at the forefront of innovation worldwide”.
But four months later, the measures needed to give practical effect to the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 have not been introduced.
The delay has sparked fears among science and business leaders that plans have been put on hold ahead of the UK’s attempt to negotiate a wider deal with the EU to scrap border checks on food and plant products, known as the Veterinary Agreement.
Brussels is previously indicated it is open to a veterinary agreement, but only if the UK agrees to so-called “dynamic alignment” with EU rules on food and plant safety that require the UK to automatically rewrite EU law into its own statute.
EU rules require a genetically modified plant 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 conventional 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, calling on UK Food Secretary Daniel Zeichner to commit to a “firm timetable”. for the introduction of secondary legislation.
“The Precision Farming Act is progressive, coherent and evidence-based. There can be no certainty that the EU will end up with similar arrangements”, they warned in the letter, adding that a veterinary agreement with Brussels could take “many years”.
Defra declined to comment when asked if it was delaying the law because of warnings from Brussels. He also refused to formally repeat his previous commitments to introduce the law or set a timetable for doing so.
George Freeman, a former Conservative science minister and a leading signatory to the letter, said ministers needed to set a timetable for implementation. “Potential investors and innovators need clarity and certainty, not delays and speculation,” he added.
Professor Johnathan Napier, scientific director of Rothamsted Research, the UK’s leading agricultural research institute, said it would be a mistake for the UK to tie its regulatory system to that of the EU.
“There is a real danger that we end up as ‘rule takers’ rather than ‘rule makers’, as we have no input or say in whatever position the EU intends to take on gene editing,” he said.
But former UK Trade Department official Allie Renison, now at SEC consultancy Newgate, said the government’s apparent wariness over introducing gene-editing legislation was unwarranted and a compromise could be reached in talks expected to start this year.
“The EU is already moving forward with its similar version of gene editing, and any differences can be resolved during negotiations,” she added.
The European Commission declined to comment.
