The 'Honourable' Editors

It is reported that the UK House of Lords is 'minded' to allow CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) gene-editing of plant crops (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jun/14/lords-seek-to-allow-gene-editing-in-uk-to-produce-healthy-hardier-crops). This technique (based on a family of DNA sequences found in bacteria as a result of their being infected by bacteriophages) should enable plants to be produced that are resistant to some environmental challenges, are better nutritionally and are more resistant to specific diseases. It is argued that these are more likely to be acceptable to the UK public (it's more precise) than Genetically Modified (GM) technology, where whole genes are transferred from other organisms to produce so-called 'Frankenstein foods'. There are, however, a number of unanswered questions. Are they just talking about food crops or will horticulture and forestry be empowered to use this technique? One could even see people who use grasses for sporting surfaces (soccer and golf) being interested. Some people have even suggested that allowing CRISPR to be used on animals (utilised for food or as pets) would inevitably rapidly follow. GM crops are effectively banned in the EU and it would be interesting to know if (certainly, should we want to export to them) their attitude to gene editing is likely to be more positive. The basic trouble for regulating CRISPR is that it's cheap (a kit is around $100) and easy to do (it could be done in a greenhouse or a garage). Most people would look to do sensible edits but there is no certainty that you wouldn't get the odd oddball.