Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to enforcement notice 310819694 served against the UK Health Security Agency on 31 July 2020 by the Health and Safety Executive, what steps she is taking to ensure that laboratories at Porton Down continue to comply with relevant safety requirements.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
In July 2020 the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) issued a Crown Improvement Notice in relation to the information, instruction, and training for the handling and restraint of animals infected with hazardous biological agents. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) complied with this notice to the satisfaction of the HSE, by their deadline of November 2020. The UKHSA has built upon this through a dedicated human factors specialist in its corporate health and safety function, and a compliance team within the Science Group.
The UKHSA Porton Down high security laboratories meet current HSE guidance. This is tested on a regular basis by site evidence-based inspections, conducted by the HSE.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the Health and Safety Executive's annual budget is for accessing scientific papers and other academic journals; to which academic journals it subscribes; and whether there are any relevant academic journals to which it does not have access in the context of its work on UK REACH.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) Annual Budget for accessing scientific papers and other academic journals was £52k in the 22/23 financial year. This value can vary year on year depending on requirements of HSE staff, changes to cost of access to journals etc
On subscriptions, HSE’s Divisions will organise access to specialist journals depending on need. Examples include:
a. British Medical Journal
b. Ergonomics in Design
c. Flight International
d. Human Factors
e. International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics
f. Journal of Pyrotechnics
g. New Scientist
h. Science in Parliament
i. Business Green
j. Future Farming
k. MIT Technology Review
l. The Economist
Additionally, HSE has access to Elsevier’s Government edition of ScienceDirect which provides users access to over 2,000 online journals and e-chapters.
HSE staff can also request articles and full journals from the British Library interlibrary loans service and utilise a commercial provider “Reprints Desk” for articles that are urgently required. When required HSE can also purchase articles directly from publishers.
As part of the above arrangements, HSE has been able to access all published material that it has needed to deliver the programme of work on UK REACH
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if she will take steps to support human relevant science.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
UKRI actively supports and accelerates advances in biomedical science and technologies to reduce reliance on the use of animals in research. This includes MRC and BBSRC providing approximately £10 million per annum for the world-leading National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs). Total funding for human-relevant science is not routinely captured given that it covers not only investment in the development and delivery of Non-Animal Technologies, but also the underpinning basic science that sits beneath this as well as research across the biomedical spectrum, from fundamental lab-based science to clinical trials, and in all major disease areas.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how much funding her Department has allocated to research and innovation relating to human relevant science since her Department was established.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
UKRI actively supports and accelerates advances in biomedical science and technologies to reduce reliance on the use of animals in research. This includes MRC and BBSRC providing approximately £10 million per annum for the world-leading National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs). Total funding for human-relevant science is not routinely captured given that it covers not only investment in the development and delivery of Non-Animal Technologies, but also the underpinning basic science that sits beneath this as well as research across the biomedical spectrum, from fundamental lab-based science to clinical trials, and in all major disease areas.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what recent discussions she has had with (a) domestic stakeholder organisations and (b) international partners regarding the use of human-specific medical research.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Secretary of State has not had any meetings specifically on human-specific medical research. However, the Government is committed to reducing the reliance on the use of animals in research and officials in the department meet representatives from relevant stakeholder organisations and businesses, including the RSPCA, Unilever, LUSH and Animal Free Research.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to help protect employees from (a) tracking surveillance and (b) covert monitoring.
Answered by Paul Scully
Monitoring of employees by employers must not breach the duty of trust and confidence implied into an employee's contract of employment and must comply with the European Convention of Human Rights, Data Protection legislation and Equality Act 2010. Employers are neither expressly permitted to monitor employees, nor are they prohibited from doing so.
Organisations that process workers’ personal data for the purposes of monitoring their activities or surveillance must comply with the requirements of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (‘UK GDPR’) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (‘DPA’). This means that the data processing must be fair, lawful and transparent.
The UK GDPR and the DPA are administered and enforced independently of the government by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO publishes a range of advice and guidance for organisations on their data protection obligations.
The ICO have been consulting on draft guidance on the data protection considerations which are likely to be relevant if an employer is minded to use tracking or surveillance technologies to monitor the activities of employees. The draft guidance discusses the need for employers to make workers aware of the nature, extent and reasons for the monitoring unless exceptional circumstances mean that covert monitoring is necessary. The draft guidance, entitled Employment practices: monitoring at work can be viewed on the ICO’s website.
Asked by: Amy Callaghan (Scottish National Party - East Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much public funding his Department has spent on cancer research in each year since 2015.
Answered by George Freeman
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), a partner organisation of BEIS, funds research relating to cancer across all UKRI councils.
The table below presents spend data for each of the relevant Research Councils for each year from 2015/16 to 2020/21.
Cancer research
Year | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 |
UKRI spend £m[i] | 98.1 | 116.9 | 109 | 114.4 | 119.1 | 125.5 |
MRC spend £m | 96.2 | 102.7 | 93.4 | 96.3 | 101.6 | 106.6 |
BBSRC spend £m | Data not available | 12.9 | 14.3 | 15.2 | 14.2 | 15.2 |
ESRC spend £m | 1.9 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 2.9 | 3.3 | 3.7 |
Notes on cancer research figures
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool, Riverside)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Prime Minister, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of appointing a Minister for Human Relevant Science to be tasked with accelerating the take-up of innovative medical research techniques such as the use of artificial intelligence and organ-on-a-chip technology.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend, the Member for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani), is the Minister of State (Minister for Science and Investment Security) at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. A summary of her responsibilities can be found on gov.uk here:
Minister of State (Minister for Science and Investment Security) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Anna Firth (Conservative - Southend West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if his Department will develop an action plan for setting out how the widespread adoption of human relevant research techniques can be facilitated.
Answered by George Freeman
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, published the UK non-animal technologies roadmap in 2015 alongside the NC3Rs, the research councils and the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, setting out a long-term vision and strategy for non-animal technologies in the UK.
Innovate UK also supports innovative businesses in the development of non-animal technologies such as tumour organoids, stem cell-based disease models for drug discovery and research through programmes such as the Biomedical Catalyst and SMART, with additional infrastructure support provided through the Medicine Discovery Catapult.
Asked by: Luke Pollard (Labour (Co-op) - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make assessment of the potential merits of the creation a new ministerial role with specific responsibility for leading the replacement of animal experiments with human relevant science.
Answered by George Freeman
The Government continues to actively support and fund the development and dissemination of the 3Rs (replacement, reduction and refinement) for the use of animals in scientific procedures. This is achieved through UK Research and Innovation’s funding of the National Centre for the 3Rs, which works nationally and internationally to drive the uptake of non-animal technologies, and through research into the development of alternatives by Innovate UK, the Medical Research Council, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
The Government is committed to the development of alternatives to using animals in scientific procedures and to avoiding unnecessary suffering. As laid out in the List of Ministerial responsibilities, I am the Minister with lead responsibility in this area.