Led by Beyond GM, this is a critical legal challenge to the UK Government’s Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025.
These Regulations, which were signed into law on the 13th of May 2025, fundamentally change how genetically modified organisms are regulated in England, and by extension the rest of the UK, removing essential safeguards that have protected consumers, farmers and the environment for decades.
While the Regulations apply only to England, the government believes that through the Internal Market Act it can force genetically modified PBOs on other UK nations.
The new regulations, therefore, have significant implications for food sovereignty, environmental protection, consumer choice and democratic accountability in the UK. The implications are far-reaching:
- No labelling requirements for precision-bred GMOs in food
- No traceability systems to track these organisms through the supply chain
- Direct threats to organic farming and food businesses
- Risks to UK-EU trade relationships if English genetically modified PBOs fall below other countries’ standards
- Developers can ‘self-certify’ the safety of plants released into the environment
- Threats to the autonomy of devolved nations Scotland and Wales; the government believes it can force English PBOs onto their markets
For organic farmers and businesses, they create acute legal conflicts because PBOs are still legally considered GMOs for the purposes of certification.
For any businesses that wish to remain GMO-free, including agroecological, non-GMO regenerative, artisanal, traditional and Geographical Indication, they mean traceability will be nearly impossible.
For the environment, the new Regulations mean no safety assessments or monitoring and, crucially, they allow almost any kind of precision bred plant – not just those intended for agricultural use – to be planted in England for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.
For all these reason we believe these new Regulations must be challenged.
Our legal team comprises Leigh Day solicitors, recognised for their commitment to representing individuals against powerful entities like corporations and government bodies and experienced barristers from Matrix Chambers who specialise in bringing public interest claims.
Our pre-action letter, sent to the Secretary of State on 16 June, is supported by Doves Farm, Daylesford Organic, Planet Organic, Abbey Home Farm, Holden Farm Dairy, Hodmedod’s and journalist and author Joanna Blythman. It highlights multiple grounds on which the government has failed consumers, farming and food businesses and the environment, including:
- Violations under the Human Rights Act, including linked breaches of the Aarhus Convention on public participation in environmental decisions relating to GMOs
- Failure to conduct proper impact assessments
- Breach of the Habitats Directive
- Legislative over-reach by the Secretary of State
We are not seeking to ‘ban’ GMOs – indeed they have never been ‘banned’ in the UK. We seek to ensure full transparency from field to fork in order to protect the food system and wider environment.
For this reason we believe the new regulations should be revoked before they become operational in November 2025, that a full impact assessment should be performed and that a new, more robust and inclusive process should be put in place to rewrite them in a way that is responsive to the needs of citizens and the natural world.