Scientists are expected to tell the UK government next week that two of the three genetically modified crops grown as a trial in the UK may be more harmful to the environment than regular crops, according to a newspaper report.

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The crucial findings of the UK’s three-year GM crop trials are expected to form the basis for the government’s decision on whether or not to allow GM crops to be grown commercially in the UK. The scientists carrying out the trials are due to report their findings to the government next week and will conclude that growing GM oil seed rape and sugar beet is damaging to UK plant and insect life, the Guardian reports.

The third crop that was tested, GM maize, was reportedly found to be less harmful to the environment than the other two and may therefore be recommended for approval.

European health commissioner David Byrne was asked by MEPs yesterday whether a threat to British wildlife would be sufficient grounds for the UK to ban the growing of GM crops. He said that he had not seen the results of the trials but that a proven threat to wildlife would be enough to ban GM crops, the newspaper reported.

In order to place a ban on GM crops, European Union member states must provide scientific evidence of a threat to the environment or to health. If that evidence is provided, and the UK goes ahead with a ban, then many other European Union member states, with similar farming conditions, would be expected to follow suite, the Guardian said.

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The UK government-backed public debate on GM crops recently concluded that more than half of participants were against growing GM crops under any circumstances. Furthermore, it revealed that many people mistrusted the government over the issue, believing the government had already decided to allow the commercial growing of GM crops.

The government has previously maintained it would take into account the results of the GM Nation? debate as well as the results of the farm-scale trials, but the results of the trials were widely expected to back the growing of GM crops.

“If these leaks are proved accurate then the government will have to face up to decisions they may not have anticipated,” Liberal Democrat rural affairs spokesman Andrew George was quoted by the Guardian as saying.

The UK’s three year study is the largest scientific experiment of its type on GM crops and the results are to be published next Friday by the Royal Society.