Covid-19: Public Transport

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

My noble friend raises an important point about the different mitigations that can be put in place. As he will know, the recent guidance was updated from two-metre social distancing to one metre plus, and the later guidance includes not only enhanced cleaning and ventilation and wearing face coverings, but no shouting or singing. We are considering all these elements to minimise the spread of coronavirus on public transport.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the demand for public transport increases by about five times during peak periods. Research by McKinsey has shown that the majority of those using public transport at peak times are office workers, students and recreational users, most of whom can vary their arrival and departure times. Will the Government consider requiring that only those who need to travel at a specific time—key workers—be allowed to do so, and that all organisations review their hours of activity to reflect this guidance?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

The noble Lord raises an important point. We have had a number of conversations about staggered start times with not only businesses but schools. However, this must be put in the context of changing travel demand patterns. Peak periods are not where they used to be, and we must keep an eye on how they change as people start using the public transport system in greater numbers in the autumn and as schools go back in September, as I said earlier to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson.

Public Transport: Face Coverings

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

As I mentioned previously, wearing a face covering on public transport is mandatory. If a person does not have a face covering on, they can be denied service or removed from the service. On the reopening of various facilities on 4 July, the Department for Transport and broader government are continually looking at the demand for transport and our transport capacity to see whether we are in danger of demand exceeding supply. If there is capacity on public transport, the Government’s messaging may well change, but in the short term, we cannot suddenly open up public transport to everybody because there simply is not the capacity.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the case for wearing face coverings on public transport, particularly on commuter services, appears quite strong. However, to be effective, face coverings must be of sufficient quality in their design and manufacture to help stop the spread of Covid-19. Will the Government consider making the manufacture, import or sale of coverings that do not meet the defined British standard an offence, as they have for surgical face coverings being used in clinical settings?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

My Lords, the Government are working to the advice of SAGE on face coverings, which is that face coverings worn in enclosed spaces are at least partially effective in preventing the spread of coronavirus to other people. That is why we have said that face coverings can be made of various materials. We do not have a specific British standard, which I feel would stop the supply to people across the country who need to use public transport.

Animals: Experimentation

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wills, on securing this debate, even though there has been a great deal of time between his proposing the debate and our having it in the dinner hour.

I say to your Lordships how important it is that, in using animals in science, whether medical science or elsewhere, the highest levels of transparency are always maintained over how animals of all species—not just non-human primates—are used. It is important across the whole spectrum in the furthering of scientific knowledge. I declare an interest as the chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities, which represents some 126 medical charities that are involved in medical research. I make it clear that AMRC is a member of the UK bioscience sector coalition, which has made a co-ordinated response to EU directive 2010/63, which governs animal research. However, several of our members have made separate responses to the directive because of their own interests.

Our starting point as a coalition was to ask the following questions. Will the directive improve standards of welfare for laboratory animals across the whole of the EU? Will it improve the quality for procedures permitted on animals across the EU? Will it drive down the requirement for animal procedures in line with the world-leading NC3Rs initiative? Will it help to maintain the UK’s position as a world-leading bio and medical science destination? The answer to all four questions was an emphatic yes. We believe that it will. However, given the high standards that exist in the UK, the question rightly being asked by several organisations—the noble Lord, Lord Wills, made reference to this—is: will the directive reduce standards in UK laboratories and open the way for less acceptable procedures, as is claimed by many of the opponents to the directive? I was delighted to hear that the noble Lord did not raise this in his opening speech.

The response from the coalition could not be clearer. As we said in our evidence, our priorities are: to promote high-quality science and patient benefits; to ensure high standards of animal welfare; to apply the principles of the three Rs; to harmonise EU regulatory requirements so that we do not have different levels in different countries; and to promote public confidence in humane animal research, which can be done only through openness and transparency. The idea that such a wide range of organisations as are part of the coalition, of which only two represent commercial interests, should wish to see standards lowered is quite offensive. Indeed, it would be counterproductive. You cannot achieve world-class research unless you treat your animal models with respect and care.

Seeking to strip away needless bureaucracy that does little for science or animal welfare is a positive, rather than negative, move. We are convinced that giving a greater emphasis to inspection, and making recommendations from inspections the basis for improvement, is far better for science, patients and the interests of animals than sheaves of paper-based accountancy, which is what we have at the moment. Transparency is about what goes on in the breeding centres, animal houses and laboratories; ensuring that research programmes are carried out to the letter of their remit; and, where there are changes, that those changes are themselves transparent and approved. Let me make clear that the myths and distortions spread by Animal Aid and others do little to encourage the quality of debate to which we have grown accustomed over the past 10 years when discussing animal procedures and science.

Let me take a number of those myths and distortions head-on. Animal Aid claims that the coalition wishes to scrap the ban on the use of great apes. That is completely untrue. The UK bioscience sector coalition can see absolutely no circumstances in which there would be a requirement to use great apes in medical research. They have not been used in the UK for the past 25 years and there is no reason that they should be in the future. However, it was stressed in our response to the directive that recent deaths in wild gorillas due to human viruses mean that there is a serious threat posed to that species. It would be quite wrong for us to say that we would not do any work on great apes or any other species that was endangered. That would be a nonsense, and yet that is exactly what we are being accused of doing.

The second area of concern is about stray cats and dogs. It is claimed that we,

“wish to lift the prohibition on the use of stray cats and dogs”,

and that we could re-establish the historical link between UK pet thieves and animal researchers. This does not only a huge disservice to medical science but makes the whole proposal laughable. The idea that you would use feral animals for experiments to get reliable results is utter nonsense and needs to be quashed. What does this directive aim to do? Certainly, harmonisation is at the centre of it. We do not deny that there has been an increase in the number of animals used in procedures, particularly in the past couple of years, with some 3.7 million being used in 2010. However, 47 per cent of those include animals that are bred to be used in laboratories, particularly transgender mice. It also includes the production of zebrafish on which to experiment. When you look at the figures more closely, you see that the use of dogs has gone down by 2 per cent, rabbits by 10 per cent, cats by 32 per cent and guinea pigs by 29 per cent. We need to have a rational debate on this.

As the noble Lord, Lord Wills, rightly said, without clear transparency, openness and the sorts of response he rightly seeks from Ministers, people who have a genuine interest in medical science and who want to see animals treated well during these procedures will not get the answers they deserve. However, frankly, those who scaremonger should get the results that they deserve.