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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
First, perhaps I should say that I know nothing of these things. In answer to the hon. Gentleman's specific question, however, no such request has been received to my knowledge.
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PREVENTION OF TERRORISM BILL [MONEY]
Queen's recommendation having been signified—
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52 (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—
(2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of such money under any other Act.—[Mr. Heppell.]
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Animal Experimentation
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Heppell.]
8.38 pm
Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak in this Adjournment debate after all the excitement that went previously. This is an important topic. It is good to see the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), on the Front Bench. May I start by thanking her for accepting a delegation from Naturewatch, on whose behalf I will largely speak? That charity is not based in my constituency, but in that of my friend, even though he is of a different party, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones).
I want to thank particularly Richard Tweedy, who helped me to compile the information on this debate. He, along with the hon. Members for Lewes (Norman Baker) and for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) were able to come to a meeting in December 2003 at which John Ruane, the chief executive of Naturewatch, drew attention to the important issue of the use of animals in experimentation.
I make no apology for the fact that I shall talk about the use of primates and what has happened over the past few years. There are accountable procedures through the Animal Procedures Committee's reports, and more recently we have had the Boyd group report . The Boyd group is influential in combining both scientists and welfarists but unfortunately it seems not to have much power. The APC, which was set up by the Home Office to advise on the use of animal scientific procedures, based on the 1986 legislation, apparently has more authority. It is fair to say that the APC has been quite good at producing impressive reports, but it is for us to question what happens on the back of those reports. I shall be asking my hon. Friend the Minister to provide greater clarification and some assurances that we shall be given more information that is meaningful. There seems to be a greater use of primates, which some of us find reprehensible
I am trying to ascertain what has happened since the last APC report. What actions were taken on the back of that report? Do we need further to clarify the Government's attitude towards it? I will sign up to the three Rs—no doubt my hon. Friend will talk about them—which are the Government's stated policy on animal experimentation, but we want to see actions as well as words.
Most primate use is in toxicology—drug testing. About 70 per cent. of the primates are used in that way. The main species are marmosets and macaques. Baboons have not been used since 1998, largely because housing and husbandry costs are too high. Great apes have not been used since 1988, and thankfully their use has been banned since 1995.
Seventy per cent. of the use of primates is in toxicology. Most toxicology testing is done on rodents, but there is a regulatory requirement to test drugs in two species, one of which must be a non-rodent. The second species is usually dogs, unless they are unsuitable. For example, there is the drug class known as NSAIDS,
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which includes aspirin, to which dogs tend to have an adverse reaction. If dogs are not used, primates tend to be the usual alternative.
A major concern is that primates are used by convention and not of necessity. In other words, primates are used as an alternative to dogs because primates have always been used. The scientific rationale is that because of this there is more background data relating to primates than to other species. Should this be questioned, given the ethical dimension?
The APC notes that the regulations have considerable power, such as those that apply to the US Food and Drug Administration. It comments that
"this is alarming given that there is a lack of transparency in their function. It is extremely hard to ascertain exactly how they operate."
My hon. Friend the Minister may wish to respond to that statement.
Current practice acts to undermine the operation of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. For example, commercial pressures may lead to rodent and primate studies being undertaken simultaneously, when the primate studies should be carried out only after the first studies on rodents have been successful. Also, generic licences for large toxicology projects do not provide sufficient justification for the use of primates, so insufficient detail is given in licence applications for justifying their use.
The developing areas of alternatives are micro-dose studies in humans and non-invasive scanning techniques such as NMR—nuclear magnetic resonance—and PET—positron emission tomography. It is not clear whether enough resources have been allocated to moving towards those technologies and away from the use of primates.
I have two key questions. First, is a secondary, non-rodent species always necessary under the current testing regime? Secondly, when primates are used, are they really the only suitable species? There are other important issues, but I will not discuss them at this point because I want to bring those two issues to the Minister's attention tonight.
The future use of primates concerns Naturewatch, in particular, and those of us who take a keen interest in the future use of animal experimentation. The number of tests declined slightly in the 1990s, and one might have expected that trend to continue. Drugs are increasingly likely to be targeted at human receptors, so they cannot be tested on rodents, which do not have those receptors, but they may be tested on primates. The graphs show a significant recent increase in the number of primates used.
Research is increasingly focused on diseases of old age in the brain such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and strokes, which has resulted in an increased call for the use of primates. Finally, the human genome project is likely to lead to an increased emphasis on primates in order to determine the function of the 10 per cent. of human genes that are unique to primates and are not found in rodents. Pressures seem to exist to bring forward the greater use of primates, at least in unison with testing on rodents. Given the nature of new drugs
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and how the genome project is being taken forward, people who work in that area always say that they want more licences to use primates.
My conclusions concern the role of the APC, which has stated:
"The drive to produce pharmaceuticals for human benefit, and the associated primate use that this currently entails, clearly creates a conflict with the desire to minimise and eliminate the use of primates in experiments. If the predictions of an increased demand for primate use are realised then this conflict becomes more intense. The Subcommittee believes that it is extremely important to recognise this conflict, and absolutely essential to more determinedly and actively seek ways of resolving it. However, it must be recognised that this is a global issue, which needs to be tackled on an international basis."
The APC is aware of the dilemma. If it were asked to examine what is happening in the world of research, it would conclude that primates are more rather than less likely to be brought forward for experimentation, despite that being against the nature of what many of us would like to see.
What steps have the Government taken to address the use of primates as a second species in toxicology testing? In particular, have they tackled the automatic assumption that a non-rodent species is necessary in the testing of all drugs? Secondly, what conversations have the Government had with the regulators on those issues? Thirdly, what progress has been made in developing and promoting human micro-dose studies as an alternative to the use of primates in toxicology? Lastly, what work has been done on assessing the predicted value of primate studies by comparing pre-clinical and clinical studies of drugs that have progressed to the clinical trial stage and beyond?
If I had time, I would go into a number of related issues. I would certainly examine the severe experimentation on cats, dogs and horses as well as primates. The APC has also agreed to review procedures of substantial severity involving xenotransplantation. I am particularly interested in that subject because some have said that redefinition—the third R—is allowable because we will see greater use of xenotransplantation. It would be reasonable at this stage to ask the Government whether that is acceptable and whether it will reduce the use of primates, but also whether there are problems. For example, when there has been xenotransplantation of pig livers into primates, there has been evidence of chronic pain and of a real impact on the central nervous system. That is something my hon. Friend might wish to talk about.
Finally, the main contribution of the Boyd group report on primates in experiments was to summarise scientific knowledge in areas such as the sentience of primates. There was a good discussion of the moral status of apes and whether an ape is a person, but much of it was not germane to this debate so I will not go into it at this time. However, it showed that when we talk about the use of primates, we have to be clear where we are drawing the line in terms of what is currently banned and what is allowable. It would be helpful if my hon. Friend clarified which of the primate family were allowable for testing and which were not.
Monkeys are less sophisticated than great apes, but increasingly show signs of intelligence. Given that their social lives are important, that they express reconciliation and that they show signs of understanding consolation, we ought to be reducing the use of these animals, rather than encouraging it.
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In conclusion, I ask my hon. Friend to put on the record that the APC and the Boyd group report have done some valuable work in highlighting the issues, but it is up to the Government now to state categorically that they will seek to find alternative ways in which animal experimentation, if necessary, can be taken forward other than with the use of primates.
8.51 pm
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