Draft Public Order Act 2023 (Interference With Use or Operation of Key National Infrastructure) Regulations 2025

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 General Committees

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me, Sir Alec. As you are aware, I am not a member of the Committee and I therefore have no right to vote, but I do have the right to speak, which I am now exercising. My interest in this topic, in parliamentary terms, goes back a very long time. I am not and never have been an animal rights activist; I am an animal welfarist, and in my mind there is a fundamental difference between the two. I do not, and never will, condone any illegal activity, including violent demonstration of any kind—I want to place that firmly on the record.

In my constituency, I have Discovery Park, the former Pfizer establishment at Sandwich. It is an absolutely excellent life sciences establishment, embracing some 100 to 150 small and medium-sized life sciences businesses. The Minister said in her opening remarks that life sciences are vital to the future of this country, and she is absolutely right. I have no desire to impede the work of our life sciences sector—far from it; I would like to enhance it, particularly at Discovery Park in Sandwich.

Some 40 years ago, I was the founding chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for FRAME—the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments. I had the huge privilege at that time of working with Professor Michael Balls, to whom the hon. Member for Bristol East referred. who then led the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods. Our commitment and desire was to seek—bear in mind that this was 40 years ago—validated alternatives to the use of animals. It has always been my view that animals have no place in a laboratory.

Having said that, we also recognised that we do not solve a problem by moving it from A to B. As some would have done then—indeed, as some would do now—simply shutting down animal experimentation in this country might give people a warm glow, but it would only move the problem from the United Kingdom to other countries, where the research would be carried out under worse conditions. There would be no animal welfare gain. The commitment has to be to validate alternatives, and to move as swiftly as possible to in vitro and other methods of research, rather than in vivo. That is what we should be heading for.

It therefore saddens me that, having made a commitment to animal welfare, this Government should, as their first practical measure of any kind, seek to diminish animal welfare, rather than enhance it, by trying to include in national infrastructure an item that has no place in that legislation at all. By the way, I do not share the view of the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Cheltenham, about the 2023 Act; it was a good and necessary piece of legislation. There are arguments to be had about its scope; nevertheless, the fundamental principle was correct. What the Committee is being asked to do this afternoon is not correct.

The road map has been referred to—great, we apparently have a road map, when the engine has not even started. There has been no significant animal welfare gain under this Administration since they took office, and their very first measure is one that seeks to dimmish the welfare of animals. That cannot be right. I therefore urge the Committee to reject this measure this afternoon. This instrument has to have a full and proper debate on the Floor of the House of Commons. That is a debate in which I would like to participate and then be able to vote.

In conclusion, I am and always have been wholly wedded to the validation of alternative methods. That is what is needed, not this half-baked measure.