Neil Parish
Main Page: Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton)Department Debates - View all Neil Parish's debates with the Home Office
EU Directive on Animal Experimentation
Neil Parish Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on securing the debate and on his energetic chairmanship of the all-party group. I may not be able to give him as much detail as he might like because, as he will appreciate, I am standing in—no doubt inadequately—for the Minister for Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), and because she and the Home Office more widely are still looking at the details of the transposition, but I will try to answer as many of his detailed questions as I can.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government recognise that the regulation of animal experiments is of significant public interest. We are strongly committed to ensuring the best possible standards of animal welfare and protection for animals used for scientific purposes.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
My last report in the European Parliament, before I retired from it, took the directive through to First Reading. One of the problems in getting the agreement of 27 countries is that the regulations often have to be reduced in order to get them agreed by all member states. I would like to put it on record that I believe that we have some of the best research, done under the best welfare requirements in the world, and I do not want to see that watered down. In many cases I like to see the reduction of regulation, but on this occasion it is essential to keep our strong rules in place, because we are dealing with animal welfare and the quality of the science. I want that reassurance from the Government.