The government has downplayed the health risks of genetically modified crops, Michael Meacher has said.

The former environment minister, sacked in the recent reshuffle, has warned that "senior people in government" are pushing the agenda of the biotechnology industry.

And writing in the Independent on Sunday, Meacher said that there is a lack of scientific evidence on the health risks of food containing GM products.

"The only human GM trial, commissioned ironically by the Food Standards Agency, found that genetically modified DNA did in fact transfer to bacteria in the human gut. Previously many scientists had denied that this was possible," he wrote.

Meanwhile, the Independent reports today on the emergence of new "superweeds" that are resistant to the weedkillers that GM crops were engineered to tolerate.