The Saturday essay: who is now in charge of regulation asks Tim Lang, professor of Food Policy at City University

Grocer, August 23, 2003 by Tim Lang

I admit to being in some shock. A most interesting split has emerged over GM. No, I don't mean between those who are for it and those who are against. I refer to the split between government and the big retailers.

The symbolism of the chief executives of Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda getting into their cars outside No 10 after refusing to budge before the government's pressure to be more enthusiastic about GM will reverberate for some time.

'Listen to the science which gives GM the all-clear' was the prime minister's line. 'We listen to our customers' was the reply.

Everyone knows that, by and large, the government has been minded to promote genetic modification and other uses of biotechnology. With a few exceptions, the vast majority of ministerial statements have been quite clear.

The prime minister has been persistent in his support. The minister for science Lord Sainsbury not only supports it in his role but also out of his own pocket, via his Gatsby Foundation. 'Big' science, led by the Royal Society, is a resolute supporter, arguing this is a fight as significant as that between the Darwinians and the Church over whether species evolved over millions of years or creation happened as stated in the Bible. They see the tension as Rationality versus Superstition.

In fact, the fight is more complex than that and I suspect the gung-ho scientists are making a mistake.

This is a struggle over the direction of science. What sort of science? In whose interest? What for? It is also a fight over who is more important in the supply chain. Governments or consumers?

This is not really a political rift, as in politics with a big 'P'. In the 1992 election supermarket bosses signed a famous letter to The Times giving unequivocal support to the re-election of John Major.

Five years later, no food sector was more New Labour than the retailers, with David Sainsbury resigning to become a Labour Minister and Tesco sponsoring the Millennium Dome (surely wasted money, if ever there was).

With the one exception of the spat when the prime minister referred to farmers being held in an "armlock" by the supermarkets, retailers have been held in awe by the present government.

The Lord Chancellor last month even argued that he wanted to end self-regulation by the Law Society and heralded the day when there might be a law firm 'Tesco Law'.

No, what is important about this very public fall-out over genetic modification is who and what governs regulation.

There are now two distinct regulatory structures. One is governmental, the formal world of laws, including regulations and standards laid down by, or stipulated in the name of, the state.

These are now a function of multilevel governance, whether imposed by Westminster or Brussels, through Bills or via the Food Standards Agency in the case of the former, or via directives or, say, the strictures of the Codex Alimentarius in the case of the latter. National and regional governments are still important vehicles for formal regulations, which are delivered at the local level by food law enforcement officers.

Alongside this formal system there is another architecture of de facto regulations and standards set by companies. These, as readers well know, are enshrined in the contracts and specifications that span the increasingly interconnected food supply chain with its constantly upgraded traceability and other quality control systems. These have become the real power in terms of what is allowed to happen.

Not for the last time, I suspect, we have seen a moment when a real fissure opens up between governments who claim to control regulations and retailers who really gate-keep between primary producer and end-consumers. Where will this end?