Animal Testing

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Elliot Colburn

Monday 19th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Elliot Colburn]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention; I think that more than 100 of her constituents signed this petition too. I hope that the Minister heard her request—indeed, I am sure that it is an ask of all of us in the Chamber today. What is being done, and what more can be done, to try to encourage people out of using animals and into using non-animal methods?

I want to pick up again the point about animal welfare. Many people will cite the regulations that are in place in the UK for animals in experiment environments. However, this statistic might shed some light on why welfare standards are so low. As of 2021, there were only an estimated 23 full-time equivalent inspectors in the United Kingdom. That is 23 inspectors trying to look at 3 million different procedures. The fact that so much self-reporting is going on in the industry and there are so few inspectors leads, again, to the argument that non-animal methods are a much better use of money and bring with them higher ethical and moral standards.

I want to go through some of the proposed solutions before I hand over to some of my colleagues. PETA—People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—has proposed a solution known as the research modernisation deal, or RMD, which offers a strategy to eliminate the use of animals in biomedical research, regulatory testing and education. It prioritises non-animal methods, conducts critical reviews to assess the necessity of animal use, and reallocates funds to non-animal methods. This is aimed specifically at making the UK once again a leader in innovative, ethical scientific practices. Furthermore, we have seen advances in technology such as in vitro and in silico tests, and innovative technologies such as organs on chips, which offer higher levels of protection and prediction accuracy.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

rose—

[Elliot Colburn]

That is one of the things I want to stress, but before I do so, I will give way to the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend makes the really important point that non-animal methods can be much more accurate than using animals in these experiments. Does he agree that companies such as Lush, which came to Parliament before Christmas to advocate for those methods, have shown the way in which, through science, we can do better?

[Elliot Colburn]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. This is something that we cannot stress enough in this debate: it has been proven in the data time and again that non-animal methods are highly accurate, and much more accurate when it comes to predicting human responses than animal testing is. In fact, animal testing has such low levels of success when it comes to measuring how a drug or something else might affect a human that we would not accept that in any other form of business. When the levels of prediction are so poor, why are we still accepting it? It does not make any sense—not when we have alternatives that can offer much greater clarity about to how humans will react to products and drugs.

However, there are challenges standing in the way, and one of them remains funding for NAMs. Pfizer and AstraZeneca have said that they do not want to do things such as secondary species testing, but regulatory guidelines often expect new drugs to be tested on animals and there is a lack of consensus on possible transition timelines. There is also push-back from the industry, which is resistant to change. However, in advance of this debate I spoke to many scientists and industry leads who said they are crying out for change and want to be at the forefront of non-animal methods. We need to give them the tools to do so and look at the way we fund research.

Autism and ADHD Assessments

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Elliot Colburn

Monday 6th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Elliot Colburn]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, and he is absolutely right. The delay in diagnosis also means a delay in treatment. We have debated this topic many times; just last week in this Chamber, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) led a powerful debate on waiting times. I thank colleagues who have shared their stories individually.

I want first to touch on ADHD as a neurodiverse condition, which is believed to impact over 3 million people in the UK. However, there is substantial evidence that it is vastly underdiagnosed.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I was fortunate enough to chair the debate led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey). Does my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) agree that this is not just about delays and a lack of proper diagnosis? There is a real and crucial problem, which came out in last week’s debate, about women and girls being less likely to be diagnosed than their male peers.

[Elliot Colburn]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her intervention; she has nicked a later part of my speech. I commend her for the amazing work she does chairing the Women and Equalities Committee, which has done amazing work looking at the impact on women and girls in the equalities space. She is absolutely right, of course.

There is a lack of understanding about what ADHD actually is, how it affects people and how it can be treated. The best example is the common stereotype that those with ADHD are all hyperactive. That is a common misconception; only about 15% of patients diagnosed with ADHD have hyperactive tendencies. GPs and teachers hold the responsibility, in essence, for being gatekeepers to assessments, but there are significant issues with training and awareness, which I will go into in more detail. The single biggest issue I have had feedback on from those who have briefed me is the complete lack of data on ADHD care.

When I met with ADHD UK last week, I asked about national data on assessment waiting times and the number of individuals diagnosed. The answer I got was, quite simply, “We don’t know,”—or, at least, the NHS and the Government do not know. ADHD UK has done an extraordinary job conducting its own extensive research and, as an independent charity, it can provide partial answers based on information it has gathered through freedom of information requests to integrated care boards. The Government, however, do not collect national data, and it is therefore hard to have true oversight of the state of waiting times for ADHD assessments in the UK. I know the Minister is very much aware of the problem, so I hope she will provide more information on the steps the Government are taking to gather and assess data on ADHD.

Based on the data available to us and the anecdotal evidence shared with us by those who have gone through the system, we know that ADHD waiting times are indeed in a poor state. The average adult assessment waiting times are believed to be around six months in Scotland, a year in England, nearly two years in Wales and four years in Northern Ireland.