Beyond GM calls on Scottish and Welsh parties to hold the line on GMO regulation

March 18, 2026 by Beyond GM

As voters in Scotland and Wales prepare to go to the polls in May, we have published dedicated election briefings for both the Scottish Parliament and Senedd elections, calling on all parties to commit to maintaining and strengthening precautionary approaches to genetically modified organisms in food and farming.

The briefings set out the regulatory, economic and democratic case for resisting Westminster pressure to align with England’s Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 and its 2025 Regulations – which failed to implement the labelling, traceability and environmental risk assessment requirements that have governed GMOs in the UK for decades.

Both Scotland and Wales have, to date, declined to adopt the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 and its 2025 Regulations, choosing instead to continue align with the EU-derived GMO regulatory regime. We argue that this position now needs not only to be maintained but strengthened –and that these elections are the moment to do it.

“These elections matter enormously for food governance in the devolved nations,” says Beyond GM Director Pat Thomas. “Both the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd have the opportunity to make clear that their precautionary positions are not administrative preferences that Westminster can quietly override – they are democratic choices that deserve the protection of primary legislation.”

Our Scottish briefing highlights the particular vulnerability of Scotland’s £19 billion food and drink sector, which employs around 123,000 people and encompasses globally recognised products from Scotch whisky to Stornoway Black Pudding. We warn that the removal of traceability infrastructure under the Westminster regulations threatens the supply chain integrity on which Scotland’s premium food brands depend, and note that Scottish seed potato farmer – heavily reliant on EU export market – have specific reason to be cautious about regulatory divergence from European standards.

Our Welsh briefing focuses on the intersection of GMO policy with Wales’s distinctive legislative framework, including the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, which requires Welsh public bodies to act in ways that protect future generations. We argue that a technology whose long-term ecological consequences remain unknown is structurally incompatible with that statutory obligation. Wales’s food and drink sector, worth £27 billion and supporting 17% of the country’s total workforce, includes numerous geographical indication products – among them Welsh lamb, Welsh beef and Traditional Welsh Caerphilly Cheese – whose market value depends on the traceability that the English Act and its Regulations have dismantled.

Both briefings draw attention to the constraints imposed on devolved food safety powers by the UK Internal Market Act 2020, which requires products lawfully marketed in England – including unlabelled precision bred products – to be accepted across the UK regardless of devolved regulatory preferences. We also draw attention to our ongoing judicial review of the Genetic Technology Regulations 2025, with a High Court hearing scheduled for May 2026, which tests directly whether the regulations are lawful under the Human Rights Act, the Aarhus Convention and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.

Both briefings are available to download now: