GOVERNMENT Minister has made about £20m on GM food shares - while having official responsibility for regulating the 'Frankenstein food' technology.
Lord Sainsbury's shares in a leading biotech investment company, Innotech, have risen from £26.9m in 1998 when he became Minister for Science and Innovation to £42.6m today.
The billionaire peer, who also owns fast-rising shares in another company with interests in GM food, has donated £9m to the Labour Party, nearly half of it since assuming office.
He has said he always 'stands aside' if a conflict of interests arises, but Green campaigners reacted with fury to the revelations. Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth, said: 'This is an outrageous conflict of interests. He is responsible for a key policy area and has been making millions as a result of those policies.'
The GM food issue is anathema to environmentalists but the Government is receptive to the technology. Last week Tony Blair condemned those who sabotaged GM crops and called for an 'informed debate'. But Lord Sainsbury's profits will create a new talking point.
A Government spokesman said that Lord Sainsbury avoided any conflicts of interests and his investments were run by a blind trust. 'He has no knowledge over the assets in the trust which is independently administered on his behalf,' he said. [but Sainsbury retains the power to hire and fire the directors of the Trust, whom he appointed, if he doesn't approve of their decisions!]
Lord Sainsbury, the Science minister and a multi-million-pound donor to New Labour, has made £20m paper profit on GM food shares.
The billionaire, a known supporter of controversial GM technology, has shares in Innotech - an investment firm with interests in several biotechnology companies - that rose in value from £26.9m in 1998 to £42.6m at the end of 2000, it was reported last night.
Critics have seized on the disclosure, insisting there was a conflict of interest.
But the Department for Trade and Industry defended the minister last night, stressing that all of Lord Sainsbury's business interests were held in a blind trust and that the department did not have control over policy on GM food and technology.
The news comes as Tony Blair is being put under pressure to make special advisers donate part of their salary to help the Labour Party's cash crisis. The party already has a scheme to force Labour MPs to pay 2 per cent of their salary to the party. Now senior MPs and some ministers are calling on the Prime Minister to impose a similar tithe on spin doctors and other party-appointed advisers.
The wage bill for such advisers - most of it picked up by the taxpayer - is now £4.2m a year. Donations from them could raise around £336,000. Labour is thought to be around £10m in debt after the 2001 Election.
Thanks to Norfolk Genetic Information Network (ngin), http://www.ngin.org.uk for sending this file
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