THE first minister has signalled a U-turn on the Scottish executive’s ban on growing genetically modified (GM) crops in Scotland.

Jack McConnell has launched a public consultation to identify ways of preventing GM organisms from contaminating conventional crops, paving the way for the commercial exploitation of the technology.

A “voluntary” ban was agreed by ministers in 2004, after commercial trials in Fife and Inverness-shire. However, executive sources concede they they have little option but to allow commercial cultivation of the crops in the face of European rules that prevent governments imposing GM-free areas.

The consultation document will seek comments on “a proposed co-existence regime for Scotland that would aim to minimise any unwanted GM presence in non-GM crops”.

An spokeswoman for the executive said that the consultation was “very much the start of the process”.

Allowing GM crops to be grown commercially in Scotland could lead to another outbreak of direct action by environmentalists. In 2002 scores of protesters were arrested after a trial crop of GM oil seed rape was trampled in the Highlands.

The government has been criticised for sticking to crop-free “buffer” zones of between 50 and 200 metres around GM sites. Independent tests commissioned by The Sunday Times in 2002 found that honey from beehives situated two miles from a site where GM crops were being grown was contaminated.

Environmentalists have long maintained that GM crops and the chemicals used on them could be a threat to native plants and wildlife. But research produced last year suggested that GM crops do little or no damage to the environment.

• McConnell yesterday took a swipe at the Liberal Democrats, branding them opportunistic and two-faced. The first minister accused his coalition partners of promising “one thing to one part of the country and another thing to another part”.

  His comments reflect deep-seated anger among Labour ministers at losing their safe Westminster seat in Dunfermline and West Fife to the Lib Dems earlier this month.

  McConnell was furious that the Lib Dems won the by-election campaign by claiming it would stop Labour increasing Forth Bridge tolls to £4. Labour ministers were angry because the executive minister responsible for transport is a Lib Dem.

Times Recommends

• Swine flu vaccine for all as drug rushed through
• Artificial sperm and the race to build a baby
• BBC jets out stars to tout for prizes