PRESS NOTICE FROM GM FREE CYMRU Embargoed to 12 noon on Monday 27 January 2003 GM CROPS COULD CLAIM FIRST UK VICTIM A community group based in West Wales has accused Mike German, the Welsh Assembly's Rural Affairs Minister, of misleading Assembly members during and after a crucial GM debate (1). The group has evidence to show that when Mr German claimed to know nothing about a devastating GM Contamination Report (2), it had already been in the possession of the Assembly Government for almost four months. A spokesman for the Group, GM Free Cymru, said that the matter was so serious that the Minister should now consider his position. If he resigns or is sacked, he will be the first UK politician to lose his job as a consequence of the GM crops fiasco. GM Free Cymru says that the Minister and his staff were in possession of this Report before the end of August 2002, and that it should have been cited by the Minister during a key debate on the Welsh GM Release Regulations on 18 December. What is more, they say that it should have been brought to the attention of AMs who were interested in participating in that debate. The Group's spokesman Dr Brian John said: "The Minister has failed in his duty to inform the Assembly of this Report on GM contamination, the contents of which might well have led AMs to reject the Draft GM Release Regulations which they were asked to approve. We would argue that he misled the Assembly." "More seriously," continued the spokesman, "he has gone on the Assembly's Official Record (22 January 2003) as denying any knowledge of a Report which was of very great importance to the GM debate and which he and his officials actually obtained before the end of August 2002. Again, he has in our view misled the Assembly. If he knew about the Report, he has lied to the Assembly. If he did not know about it, he is clearly not in control of his own department. We consider that these breaches of trust are extremely damaging to the Assembly Government." The Group expressed some sorrow at this turn of events, since GM Free Cymru has been broadly supportive of much of the Assembly Government's work in making Wales a "GM Free Country." But the Group feels that the Welsh Release Regulations should have been much tighter, and members feel that Mr German must take personal responsibility for depriving AMs of the opportunity for a robust and well-informed debate on 18 December. There have been no less than eight occasions on which Mr German could have apologised for misleading the media, the public and the Assembly; but he has taken none of these opportunities. GM Free Cymru now feels that it is vital, in the light of these revelations, that the Assembly should revisit and tighten up the Welsh Release Regulations, and that the AMs should be given another opportunity to vote on this important issue. ENDS 27 January 2003 The Background On 18th December there was a debate in the Chamber of the Welsh Assembly which resulted in the approval of Welsh Regulations (1) for the control of GM crops and releases of GM material into the environment. The Regulations were approved by 31 votes to 19, and came into force on 1st January 2003. On Christmas Eve, 24th December 2002, DEFRA posted onto its web site a summarised Report (2) on the contamination associated with GM crop plantings. It was referred to by Geoffrey Lean in "The Independent on Sunday" (29 December 2002) as "devastating to the Government's case for GM crops". Next day Michael Meacher claimed on Radio 4's "Today" programme that the timing of this publication was due to cockup rather than conspiracy. The contents of the Report show: (a) that it is impossible to "contain" GM crops which have wild relatives and where cross-pollination may occur; (b) that where rotations are practiced GM varieties may re-appear unexpectedly years after GM crops have been grown; (c) that biosecurity and management measures are not -- and never will be -- strong enough to prevent the "adventitious" spread of GM varieties many miles away from the farms on which they are grown and harvested; (d) that superweeds have been created and will be created in the future in association with GM crops, with quite unknown ecological consequences. (e) that the integrity of conventional farming will be even more threatened than organic farming (because there is more of it about) if GM crops are grown commercially in the UK. When GM Free Cymru saw this Report it concluded that if it had been available to AMs on 18th December, the GM Regulations would not have been passed by Assembly members. They noted that the research on which the Report was based was completed in December 2000 -- ie a full two years ago. The Group then wondered whether the Report had been suppressed by DEFRA in London or by the Welsh Assembly Government. They wrote to Mike German on 1st January 2003 and asked him the following questions: 1. Did you, or any of your officials, know about the contents of this Report and about its imminent publication, prior to your 18th December debate? 2. If you and your officials did know about it, who took the decision not to make AMs aware of its contents prior to, or during, the debate? To date, GM Free Cymru has had no answers to these questions and no acknowledgement of their letter. When the Western Mail followed up this story on 1st January, reporter Ceri Jones was told by an Assembly spokesperson that officials were not aware of the DEFRA report prior to its web posting on Christmas Eve. If they had been aware, she said, copies would have been given to Assembly members. On 22nd January Cynog Dafis AM asked Mike German the following question (OAQ 21760): "Do you accept that you are at fault for not knowing about the existence of the Report that DEFRA published on Christmas Eve?" and received the following reply from the Minister: "As I have already explained, I knew nothing of the report that was published on the DEFRA website, which was a report for England. I cannot accept that I should have known about it because it was not made available to me or to anyone else beforehand." On the basis of these denials GM Free Cymru contacted DEFRA and accused civil servants there of burying the Contamination Report until the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly had completed their approval of the GM Release Regulations. At 7 pm on Thursday 23rd January they were sent a message from DEFRA (2) which stated unequivocally that the full Report was published and sent to the Assembly on 23rd August 2002. The report must have been in the possession of the Assembly Government before the end of August 2002. There was no embargo on the use of material from the Report, and it could have been made available to all interested parties. References (1) The GMO (Deliberate Release) (Wales) Regulations 2002, debated by the Welsh Assemby on 18 December, came into force on 1st January 2003. (2) 'Monitoring large scale releases of genetically modified crops (EPG 1/5/84)' NIAB report, by Carol Norris and Jeremy Sweet. Published August 2002. (3) Email from Linda Smith, DEFRA: > From: "Smith, Linda M (CGMP)" > Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:54:50 -0000 > To: 'Brian John' > Subject: RE: Letters to Michael Meacher - NIAB report > > Dear Dr John > > For the time being I would like to respond to just one of your points. > > Defra did not withhold the NIAB report from the Welsh Assembly Government. > > A copy of the full NIAB report 'Monitoring large scale releases of > genetically modified crops (EPG 1/5/84)' was sent by one of my staff to > officials in the Welsh Assembly Government on 23 August 2002. > Officials from WAG were also entitled to be present on 5 September 2002 when > ACRE discussed the report. The outcome of the discussion is recorded in > ACRE's minutes which were published on 10 October 2003. > > Yours sincerely > Linda Smith > > GM Policy, Science and Regulation Unit >