Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent representations her Department has received from primate users to reassess its prospective assessment of the term severe for non-human primates subjected to head and/or body restriction and water and/or food restriction on neuroscience research.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The Home Office regulator maintains engagement with the neuroscience community, as recommended by the Weatherall report 2006. To understand the ongoing relevance of primate research the regulator attended meetings in 2016, arranged by funders and neuroscientists, at which severity assessment was discussed. The regulator also engages regularly and pro-actively with the breadth of stakeholders across the life science community through to animal protection and welfare groups.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what criteria her Department applies when considering applications for licencing neuroscience research on (a) non-human primates in general and (b) on primates which involves head and/or body restraint and/or fluid and/or food restriction in particular.
Answered by Ben Wallace
Animal welfare is at the forefront of any decision to use animals in research, and the Regulator requires robust evidence that the research complies fully with the principles of the 3Rs (replacement, refinement and reduction). In addition, Inspectors require a justification for the use of non-human primates, setting out what results they contribute to the project that no other animal could provide.
Applications which involve head and/or body restraint and/or fluid and/or food restriction also require particular explanation and justification as to why those techniques are needed and how they can be refined to reduce suffering. The Home Office regulator considers every application, including the associated severity assessment, for a project licence on a case by case basis.
Home Office Inspectors, all with veterinary or medical qualifications, conduct a harm-benefit analysis to ensure that any harm that may be caused to animals is justified by the potential benefits. The regulator has published operational guidance, detailing how project licence applications are assessed, and further advice on how the harm-benefit analysis process applies to all project licence assessments.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the accuracy and independence of retrospective reporting by researchers performing scientific procedures on animals, as a method for assessing the severity of suffering experienced by animals subjected to such procedures; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Ben Wallace
Project licence holders or suitably qualified individuals acting on their behalf are expected to classify actual severity at the end of the series of procedures based on day-today observations of the animals, and submit the data to the regulator as part of the annual returns process. The regulator has published guidance on the assessment and reporting of the actual severity experienced by animals that have undergone regulated procedures. The first requirement to report actual severity to the regulator was from 1 January 2015 for procedures ending in 2014 and are published at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-of-scientific-procedures-on-living-animals
The Home Department has not conducted a systematic review of the available data from 2014 and 2015.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many project licences her Department has approved for scientific procedures on non-human primates that involve head and/or body restraint and/or fluid and or food restriction in each of the last five years; and what the severity limit for each such procedure was.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The prospective severity classification takes account of the highest severity likely to be experienced by any animal used in the protocol. The information related to prospective severity for scientific procedures on non-human primates that involve head and/or body restraint and/or fluid and or food restriction in each of the last 5 years is not held centrally and can be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The number and actual severity of procedures conducted on non-human primates can be found in the “Annual Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals” published here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-of-scientific-procedures-on-living-animals
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress her Department has made on plans for the future of the Cedars pre-departure accommodation site.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The cost of pre-departure accommodation is kept under review. The Home Office is currently considering the most cost-effective way of providing pre-departure accommodation within an enforced family returns service.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when her Department's document, Statistics of scientific procedures on living animals for 2014, will be published.
Answered by Mike Penning
The Statistics of scientific procedures on living animals for 2014 has been pre-announced on GOV.UK for publication on Thursday 22 October 2015.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 5 February 2015 to Question 222873, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that UK users who acquire non-human primates ensure breeders and suppliers they deal with have proper controls and processes in place; how such controls and processes are monitored; and how many UK users have been found not to have sufficient controls and processes in place.
Answered by Baroness Featherstone
We have taken a number of steps to gain assurances about the quality of non-human primates being imported for research within the legal constraints available to us. We have emphasised to those UK users who acquire these primates that they are responsible for ensuring that the breeders and suppliers they deal with have proper controls and processes in place. In order to be assured that these animals are of appropriate quality for the work authorised on their project licences, they need to be confident of high standards of care and welfare.
We are aware that, in recent years, these UK users have routinely visited and inspected their overseas primate breeders, and that they do indeed demand these high standards. We are encouraging this to continue.
Home Office Inspectors assigned to establishments holding and using imported primates play a key role in monitoring the situation. Through inspection visits and other contact with animal care staff, inspectors maintain awareness of the importations of primates, both consignments already acquired and those due. This enables appropriately timed inspections to be carried out to monitor the quality of animals being acquired.
We also expect the local inspector to be notified promptly in the event of any significant health or welfare problems which may occur following arrival of an importation of primates. Should a particular source be shown to be delivering primates of unacceptable quality from the perspective of their health and welfare, we will deal with this through the relevant licence authorisation.
No UK users have been found to have insufficient controls and processes in place.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress operation Nexus has made on tackling offending by foreign nationals.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Operation Nexus has enabled the removal of more than 3,100 foreign criminals, including 269 offenders considered by the police to represent a serious threat since it was established in 2012. The Nexus model of joint working currently operates in nine forces across the UK and we are continuing to implement it across the whole of Great Britain.
Nexus work continues to make best use of all available information to tackle the threat, risk and harm posed by foreign national offenders
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many non-human primates, of what species and from what country of origin, were imported into the UK for the purposes of scientific research in 2014; and how many of those were (a) wild-caught, (b) captive born or F1 generation and (c) captive bred.
Answered by Baroness Featherstone
The Home Office does not hold the information asked for. Since 1 January 2013 when the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 was amended to transpose European Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific
purposes there has been no requirement for users of non-human primates acquired from overseas breeding centres to seek permission in advance from the Home Office for their acquisition for use in regulated procedures.
We have emphasised to those UK users who acquire non-human primates that they are responsible for ensuring that the breeders and suppliers they deal with have proper controls and processes in place. In order to be assured that these
animals are of appropriate quality for the work authorised on their project licences, they need to be confident of high standards of care and welfare.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what projects her Department is sponsoring to tackle radicalisation leading to violent extremism in (a) Crawley and (b) nationally.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Home Office provides support to local authority for Prevent activity based on an assessment of risk, to ensure that they understand the threat of extremism and are equipped to deal with it effectively. We currently fund 30 priority areas, plus an additional 14 areas which receive Home Office support for Prevent initiatives, but do not have a funded Prevent co-ordinator as in priority areas. Crawley is one of the additional areas.
Since June 2011 the Home Office has funded over 180 Prevent local authority projects. These include activity on education, internet safety, and families – all projects now address the risk of travel to Syria and Iraq in different ways. £40 million has been allocated for Prevent spending in 2014/15.