Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations 2012

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Winston, I am grateful to the Minister for the care and trouble that he took in setting out the Government’s approach to the regulations, which I think will be generally welcomed. I shall ask him about a number of issues which will, in my view, determine how well the regulations work in practice. It is important that they work well because, as we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, this area of public policy involving research involving experiments on animals is highly contentious. A wide range of ethical and philosophical considerations are in play. There are passionately held beliefs on all sides, and, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Winston, it applies in fields of scientific research which are developing extremely fast.

We have had a flavour of that today in the speeches that we have just heard from my noble friend Lord Winston and the noble Lord, Lord Alton. The Government hold the ring in balancing all these competing views. That is a critical role because, if the public believe that animals have been cruelly treated or that there is no measurable benefit from the experiments being carried out on them, then their support will be withdrawn from the scientific and medical research that is currently being conducted using animals, and potentially invaluable research will be lost.

In that context, I have a number of questions for the Minister. The work done by Home Office inspectors is essential to maintaining and improving standards of animal welfare in experiments. This is not unnecessary regulation and bureaucracy; it is the vital guarantor of the highest standards of animal welfare in experiments. In that context, I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether in the past three years there has been a decline in the number of Home Office inspectors, the number of visits that they make and the number of contact hours. What projections is the Home Office making about any further such declines?

I turn to the question of guidance, which clearly will be crucial to the way in which these regulations are implemented. The Minister mentioned that the guidance is going to be published in January but, as he will be well aware, these regulations come into force on 1 January, so it is obviously important that there is no further slippage in the publication of the guidance. I would be grateful if he could give the Committee reassurance to that effect today.

The directive includes a requirement for a national body to co-ordinate and fulfil various functions. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, has already mentioned the end of the Animal Procedures Committee, which I understand has now met for the last time. So far as I am aware, there is no new national body ready to be put in place, so I add my voice to that of the noble Lord in asking the Minister to give us a few more details about this national committee—when it is going to be in place, what the membership will be and, in particular, its remit.

I want to raise two issues with the Minister that in my view are fundamental to the successful implementation of these regulations and the successful management by the Government of this important area of public policy. Transparency is critical to good governance. As I understand it, the Government have accepted that the directive requires the reconsideration of Section 24 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. Amending the section so that it does not apply to disclosures in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act would increase transparency. That would mean, for example, that someone leaking information for commercial gain or to assist extremists would still be committing an offence, but that if an FOI request went to the Home Office, it could release that information so long as other relevant exemptions did not apply. Those exemptions, in my view, should be sufficient to protect legitimate interests such as health and safety, the locations of animal experimentation, the privacy of names and addresses of researchers, breach of confidence and any genuinely commercially sensitive information. When I raised this issue in your Lordships’ House a year ago, the Minister’s predecessor said that the Government would,

“consider how we might adapt Section 24 of the 1986 Act—the statutory bar to disclosure—to enable more information to be disclosed, again ensuring that proper safeguards are included”.—[Official Report, 24/10/11; col. 632.]

I would be grateful if the Minister could set out today what the outcome of those considerations has been, recognising that the longer that such action is delayed, the more concern is likely to grow about the maintenance and enhancement of standards of inspection and care of laboratory animals, and that is something that no one wants to see.

Beyond the directive and its implementation by these regulations, there remain fundamental questions about the use of non-human primates in experiments. As the Minister will be well aware, this area gives rise to particular public concern, notwithstanding the welcome protection that the Minister has already mentioned for great apes.

The Weatherall report was published in 2006. It argued for a national strategic plan for the use of such animals in experiments. I would be grateful if the Minister will tell the Committee what progress has been made in drawing up such a plan. When I raised this issue in your Lordships’ House a year or so ago, the Minister’s predecessor suggested that there had been no such call in the Weatherall report. He and I then embarked on a long and fruitless wrangle about what the report actually said, which concluded when I drew the Minister’s attention to page 140, in the chapter headed “Conclusions and Recommendations”, that states:

“All the stakeholders involved should work together in formulating a national strategic plan for non-human primate research”.

I hope the Minister will avoid another theological wrangle about what precisely the Weatherall report recommended and just let the Committee know today what progress has been made in the formulation of such a plan and what the Government intend to do to ensure that another six years do not elapse before such a plan is formulated.

I look forward to hearing answers from the Minister to all these questions.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister takes from this debate that there is a significant welcome for the way he introduced his comments today and the great care he took when going through a number of the issues, some of which have been raised by noble Lords.

These are hugely significant regulations. I say at the outset that the Labour Party welcomes the introduction of the EU directive, although the key to the regulations is in the detail that will come though the codes of practice due to be published in January 2013. Will the Minister give an update on when they will be available because we are very close to January, and we would not want to be in the position we have been in with other issues in the Home Office when documents have been delayed? The noble Lord is smiling and nodding his head, which indicates to me that they will be ready in January, but I hope he can confirm that because this guidance and those regulations are crucial.

I am grateful to the RSPCA, FRAME and the BUAV for the information and technical briefing they have provided. As welcome as the directive is, there are some areas of concern, some of which the Minister has already referred to, which was very helpful. The main area is ensuring that the higher standards we have in the UK do not drop as a result of the directive coming into force. Under the rules of directives, higher standards cannot be implemented after a directive comes into force unless they are already within national legislation. There are a number of situations—the use of primates has been mentioned—where we have stronger and better regulations than those in the directive as a whole. I shall come back to some of them in a moment.

The number of animals being used in experiments in Great Britain has been steadily increasing for a number of years. It reached 3,700,000 in 2011, which is higher than at any time in the past 25 years. Despite the concerns of my noble friend Lord Winston, who referred to the three Rs, we support the pledge within the coalition agreement to,

“work to reduce the use of animals in scientific research”.

This revised directive—which many feel to be an improvement on the earlier draft—was published after eight years of discussion throughout Europe. The clear intention is not just to improve standards throughout the EU but to harmonise standards across member states. However, the UK already has a good law in this area: the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. The Government and the research community have often commented on how well regulated animal research is in the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Certainly, and I hope that we will be able to arrange that in the new year. I think that that is realistic; we have few days left this year; but I am happy to do that. We might also discuss the Weatherall report and the primates strategy. We agree that it is important that the use of primates in research is appropriately monitored. We have made that clear in everything that we have said. We keep the Weatherall report under consideration at all times, but I cannot give a progress report. Perhaps by the time we meet, I might know the answer to the question about page 140. I will try to find it.

I move on to the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. They joined up with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Wills. I made it clear that the Animal Sciences Committee is being set up. It will be very similar to the previous committee, but we wanted to create a new committee and the directive requires us to have such a committee. As I said, we have recently advertised for a chair and members, including a member with expertise in ethics.

I have dealt with the question of timing. I have dealt with the guide. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, was particularly interested in knowing in which particular areas standards have not been maintained or transposed. We are retaining all the higher UK standards in every case where it will ensure better animal welfare. If she feels that that is not the case in particular instances, I should be very grateful if she would let me know. That is certainly the objective.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

That is extremely helpful; I am grateful to the noble Lord. One of the specific instances I mentioned in my comments was about annexes to the directive on humane killing. I do not expect him to answer that today. I take the point that he has made, but if he could write to me on that, that would be helpful.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I can answer it today, because I have the answer here, I hope. We are not transposing Annexe 4 as it stands. We are amending our current ASPA Schedule 1 to retain more humane methods. There is no question of clubbing kittens or chopping the heads off sparrows. I can assure the noble Baroness that we will maintain those higher standards.

There is a clear commitment to prohibit the use of great apes; I think that I made that clear at the beginning, and that continues. We also agree that the current high cage and enclosure sizes are good for welfare, which is why we have maintained all those standards in the transposed regulations.