Margaret Becket responds to GM Nation? report

Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Margaret Beckett has said she will reflect carefully on the findings of GM Nation? - the GM public debate, published today.

The report represents the culmination of a long and innovative process to explore what people think about GM crops and food.

The Secretary of State, said today:

"This debate was a new way of engaging the public in the policy-making process. Government provided the funding, and we demonstrated our good faith by appointing an independent steering board to manage the whole process.

"I will reflect carefully on the findings of today's report, along with those of the science review and our costs and benefits study, before publishing our response. We said that we will listen, and we will.'


The Secretary of State has given a commitment that the Government will make a written response to the report and will indicate what has been learned from the debate when making future policy announcements on GM.

No GM crops can currently be grown commercially in the UK. Several applications for approval of GM crops are under consideration in the European Union, but no decisions will be taken until next year. The Government will decide its policy based on an objective assessment of all the available information, including the report of the public debate, the GM science review, the costs and benefits study and the results of the farm scale crop evaluations.