Campaigners tell Government to get a grip on 'badly organised' public debate over GM crops

Government preparations for a national debate to be launched today on whether genetically modified crops should be grown commercially in Britain have been "badly organised and chaotic", a leading campaigner said yesterday.

Dame Sheila McKechnie, director of the Consumers' Association, fiercely criticised the organisation of the GM debate by the Government's Central Office of Information.

The six-week debate is intended to give people a voice in the decision, expected in the autumn, after a four-year trial of the powerful weedkillers associated with GM crops has been completed.

But it has been plagued by delays, has not been advertised and has been very modestly funded, say some critics, who claim that the Government deliberately set out to give it a low profile.

Yesterday, Dame Sheila demanded more time for public discussion and criticised ministers for apparently already reaching a decision on GM crops and foods. "The debate has been very badly organised," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"Defra [the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] appointed the Central Office of Information, not an organisation that's got much experience of this kind of thing, and in the last few months it's become very obvious the whole thing is chaotic.

"The materials haven't been tested, the way they're going to organise the public discussion, the way they're going to collect the evidence and the views, all of that is entirely unclear," she said.

The Consumers' Association is one of eight bodies that have written to the Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, urging her to "get a grip" on the national debate, and to extend it until October.

Dame Sheila said: "Basically the letter is a plea to Margaret Beckett, 'Margaret, get a grip of this, you promised an inclusive debate, it's not happening, now please can you organise it properly so public opinion can be represented.'"

She said the £500,000 that had been provided for the public consultation was a "small fraction" of what had been spent in the Netherlands. But she added: "It's not necessarily about money. We just don't think the Government has given the leadership that it should have done."

The other signatories to the letter are Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the National Federation of Women's Institutes, the National Trust, Unison, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming.

Michael Meacher, an Environment minister, insisted yesterday that there would be a role for the public in reaching the decision, something the sceptics have queried.

He said: "The relevant EU legislation hinges around whether GM is a risk to health or the environment ... But consistent with that, there is still a critically key role for a public debate over a whole range of issues. There is still a very important debate to be had in this country, for example whether the public believes that we have sufficient knowledge of the long-term effects of GM, or if not, whether we should exercise a precautionary principle.

"Secondly, whether the growing of GM crops is compatible with the survival and growth of the organic sector ... The Government has committed to increase it [the growth of organic production] from 30 per cent to 70 per cent of all that is consumed in this country. In view of the risk of cross-contamination by GM, can that be done? We want public views."