OBSERVER (London) | November 21, 1999 | Antony Barnett and Oliver Morgan
A government 'Minister' for the Church of England, involved in a crucial decision on whether to allow the Ministry of Agriculture to use Church land for GM crop trials, earns thousands of pounds a year from Bell Pottinger - the lobbying and PR firm that advises Monsanto.
Middlesbrough MP Stuart Bell is the Government's representative on the board of the Church Commissioners which will have the final say on whether to give the go-ahead for the trials.
Some Church insiders are deeply unhappy that Bell is a paid consultant to Bell Pottinger. Last September, Monsanto paid for an overseas visit to France. The MP is also a paid consultant to accountancy firm Ernst & Young which has a number of clients involved in the GM industry.
The reluctance of many landowners to take part in GM trials has forced the Ministry to put pressure on the Church to allow some of its 123,000 acres to be used. In July, the Ministry's main research arm, the Central Science Laboratory, asked to lease land in York. The Church's ethical investment working group is to debate the issue on 1 December.
Its views will then be considered by the 33 Church Commissioners who will make the final decision. A Church source confirmed that blocking the trials would also have a dramatic impact on the Church's investment policy. It owns shares in companies involved in genetic science and would have to sell its stakes in companies like Zeneca and Novartis.
"We would have to be seen to be consistent. We could not say it is wrong to allow Church land to be used for GM trials but then invest money in companies doing those trials."
A Telford vicar, the Rev Paul Cawthorne, is campaigning against the use of Church land for crop trials. He has become concerned that a strongly pro-GM faction is pushing the Commissioners to allow the trials. "We are very worried about some of the people involved in the decision-making, including Stuart Bell, who we perceive as having a conflict of interest because of their links to the industry," he said.
Cawthorne's view is backed by Christian Aid and the Christian Ecology Link which fear the Church's decision is in danger of being swayed by financial and political pressures.
Professor Derek Burke, an influential member of the Church's scientific and medicines advisory committee, is a passionate supporter of genetically modified food and a former chairman of the Government's advisory committee on new foods. Burke recently published a 10-point rebuttal of the Prince of Wales's criticism of GM food and was until last year a director of Genome Research - the firm intricately linked with the future of genetic technology.
Burke said: "I have never hidden my views on this issue and believe that the Church should allow trials to be conducted on its land."
Bell, who declared his consultancies in the Commons register of interests, declined to comment. But a spokesman for the Commissioners rebutted any claims of undue pressure to allow the trials to go ahead.
He said: "To suggest that there is some type of plot to get us to allow trials is nothing more than a conspiracy theory."
