§ Joan RuddockTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown), of 17 January 2000,Official Report, column 245W, on genetically modified organisms, if he will estimate the proportion of genetically modified organisms which will come within the scope of the Advanced Informed Agreement. [106963]
§ Mr. MeacherThe scope of the Advanced Informed Agreement (AIA) procedure within the Biosafety Protocol to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity is one of the issues currently under negotiation in Montreal. Therefore it is not possible to estimate the proportion of living modified organisms (LMOs) that will come within its scope. The position of the United Kingdom and its European Union partners is that an effective and workable AIA procedure is necessary for the Protocol to contribute to biosafety, and that LMOs for food, feed or processing (commodities) should be included within the scope of the Protocol. At the negotiations, informal contact groups have been set up to look specifically at issues of transboundary movements of commodity LMOs and the scope of the Protocol.