2 2GM Monday May 23 2022 | the timesNews
Farms will be allowed to grow more
gene-edited crops to secure British food
supplies against the disruption caused
by the war in Ukraine.
Known as the breadbasket of Europe,
Ukraine has struggled to export goods
such as wheat because of Russian block-
ades, which has caused an increase in
prices and global shortages.
This week the government will intro-
duce a bill to simplify rules on editing
the genes of plants to make them more
resistant to disease or need less water,
The Daily Telegraph reported. A source
told the newspaper: “It could be good
news for food security.”
The Genetic Technology (Precision
Breeding) Bill is expected to be presented
to parliament this week, with a second
reading in a fortnight. George Eustice,
the environment secretary, told the
newspaper: “Precision technologies
allow us to speed up the breeding of
crops that have natural resistance to
diseases and climate change, and better
use of soil nutrients so we can have
higher yields with fewer pesticides and
fertilisers. Water scarcity is a comingNEWS
2013 before serving as chief inspector of
hospitals from 2013 to 2017.
He said hospitals must do more to re-
tain staff and encourage retired staff to
stay on part-time. Figures show 21,
doctors are due to retire later this year.
“One of the ways we can retain staff
is by enabling them to do home-
reporting of [x-rays and scans] so they
work from home,” he said.
Richards, 70, said it was vital the NHS
became a “leading country in the
world” in using new technology that
saved doctors’ time, such as artificial
intelligence that could view cancer
scans. He previously led a national re-
view of NHS diagnostic services, which
recommended the creation of “one-
stop-shop” centres in football stadiums
and shopping centres. So far 92 of these
centres have been set up in England.
The latest NHS data shows 1.6 mil-
lion people on waiting lists for diagnos-
tic tests, 400,000 of whom have been
waiting longer than the six-week target.
This month NHS bosses wrote to
hospital trusts stating that waiting lists
would not fall without steps to “expand
the capacity of our workforce”.
The Department of Health and
Social Care said: “There are record
numbers of doctors, nurses and health-
care staff... Alongside this we recently
commissioned NHS England to develop
a long-term workforce strategy.”Railway unions have vowed to defy new
laws that would prevent them carrying
out “the biggest rail strike in modern
history”.
Workers have threatened to ignore
legislation that would impose mini-
mum staff requirements on railways, in
effect forcing union members to cross
the picket line in the likely event of a
strike this summer.
The Railway Maritime and Trans-
port Workers (RMT) union will ballot
its 40,000 members tomorrow on strike
action in a dispute over pay and redun-
dancies. The RMT is being supported
by the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Asso-
ciation (TSSA) union, which is consult-
ing its 18,000 members about holding a
ballot for strike action against Network
Rail and train operators.
The unions have promised a “sum-
mer of discontent” with the biggest
walkout since the 1926 General Strike
and rail bosses believe that the prospect
of disruption is now likelier than not.
Grant Shapps, the transport secre-
tary, is examining ways to minimise the
fallout, with plans to prioritise freight
trains over commuter services atWe will ignore strike curbs,
declare rail union leaders
George Grylls Political Reporter certain times to ensure the supply of
goods. With a chronic shortage of HGV
drivers, the role of the railways in trans-
porting goods has become even more
paramount. One freight train can carry
72 lorries’ worth of goods.
Shapps is also considering new laws
that would impose minimum service
levels — a Conservative manifesto
commitment that would prevent rail-
way staff from walking out at once.
Unions reacted with fury to the gov-
ernment’s plans and renewed their
threats to stage a mass walkout. Manuel
Cortes, general secretary of the TSSA,
reiterated his call for wages to keep pace
with inflation as he vowed to ignore the
proposed legislation. “Frankly, the
Tories can pass whatever law they wish
to deny our members their fundamen-
tal rights — our union will defy their
unjust and undemocratic laws every
step of the way,” he said.
Mick Lynch, general secretary of the
RMT, said: “Any attempt by Grant
Shapps to make effective strike action
illegal on the railways will be met with
the fiercest resistance from RMT and
the wider trade union movement.”
Frances O’Grady, general secretary
of the Trades Union Congress, said:“The right to strike is crucial in a free
society... We will fight these unfair and
unworkable proposals to undermine
unions and undermine the right to
strike. And we will win.”
The unions were supported by
several backbench Labour MPs who
expressed their anger at the govern-
ment’s proposals.
John Trickett, Labour MP for
Hemsworth, said the plans represented
an “authoritarian step along the road to
repression of all organised dissent”.
Both railway unions have deep
connections with the Labour Party.
The TSSA is a Labour-affiliated union
that donated more than £50,000 to the
party last year. The RMT has made
personal donations worth £5,700 to
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader.
Rayner has been a vocal supporter of
RMT’s plans for strike action in previ-
ous disputes, attending protests and
carrying placards.
Labour refused to say last night if it
supported the proposed strike or the
government’s plans on workers’ rights.
Jobs on the line, letters, page 30
Strike threat is as self-serving as it is
disruptive, leading article, page 31
Signallers are centre stage, page 41More gene-edited crops in
bid to boost food security
Charlie Moloney challenge... and this technology could
be imperative to global food security.”
Food security is also expected to
feature prominently in a national food
strategy white paper next month.
Andrew Bailey, the governor of the
Bank of England, warned last week of
the Ukraine war’s “apocalyptic” impact
on food supplies. He told MPs on the
Commons Treasury committee: “That
is a major worry and it is not just a major
worry for this country, it is a major
worry for the developing world as well.”
An estimated 1.7 billion people in 100
countries are likely to be affected by a
fall in grain supplies from Ukraine this
year, the UN has said.
Ministers hope that the bill, designed
to “remove unnecessary barriers inher-
ited from the EU”, will be made law this
year. Gene-edited crops were the sub-
ject of a 2018 ruling from the European
Court of Justice. It decided that the
technology should be regulated in the
same way as genetic modification, which
typically involves the introduction of a
gene from another organism.
War in Ukraine, pages 12-
Getting out the grain,
leading article, page 31continued from page 1
Work-from-home doctorsand predicted that this would increase
by 500,000 by the autumn. E.On runs
about eight million energy accounts in
Britain. He said: “We are seeing a signifi-
cant number of people in fuel poverty,
and in October our models suggest that
could rise to 40 per cent if the govern-
ment does not intervene in some way.”
The energy price cap rose by 54 per
cent last month, taking the average gas
and electricity bill to nearly £2,000 a
year. Analysts expect that in October it
will rise a further 40 per cent, meaning
customers will be paying an average of
£2,750 a year. However, Lewis, who
earned £1 million last year, says that bills
may yet rise to £3,000 a year.
He said: “We have called on the
government to take action and we doneed more intervention in October and
it has to be very substantial. [The situa-
tion] is very difficult, particularly for
people on benefits or very low incomes.
Frankly some people are at the edge.
They simply cannot pay and that will get
worse when prices go up in October.”
Last month the Resolution Founda-
tion think tank said that April’s increase
in the price cap would push the total
number of households in fuel poverty to
five million and a further 2.5 million
could follow them in October.
Jonathan Marshall, senior economist
at the foundation, said: “There are no
easy ways to protect people from rising
bills in the current climate. But with
many of the poorest households missing
out on the council tax rebate, this
scheme should be used to supplement,
rather than replace, support via the ben-efit system, which is better equipped to
target lower-income families. Another
increase in energy bills this autumn
hastens the need for more immediate
support, as well as a long-term strategy
for improving home insulation, ramping
up renewable and nuclear electricity
generation, and reforming energy
markets so that families’ energy bills are
less dependent on global gas prices.”
Martin Lewis, of Money Saving
Expert, also warned of worse to come.
“We are not in the middle of a cost-of-
living crisis, we are at the start of a
cost-of-living crisis,” he told the Daily
Mail. “The problems are going to peak
over the winter months, from October
onwards, when we’re expecting to
see energy bills rise again by another
30 per cent.”
Sunak turns to the lady, page 6continued from page 1
Fuel poverty warningART OF WAR
A painting of
Dunkirk is returning
to Churchill’s home
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