§ SIR G. KEKEWICH (Exeter)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department why the Annual Report of the Inspector, under the Cruelty to Animals Act, is issued each year at so late a date that prosecutions for illegal experiments described in his Report are rendered impossible by the operation of Section 1 of The Public Authorities Protection Act, 1893; and whether he will during the continuance of the existing law direct that the Report shall be issued quarterly and promptly instead of, as at at present, once a year, and long after the experiments have taken place.
§ MR. GLADSTONEThere has been no avoidable delay in issuing this Report. An immense mass of documents has to be received and examined before the Report can be prepared, and to issue it quarterly would very greatly increase the labour involved with little or no advantage. Contraventions of the Act are reported to the Secretary of State as soon as they are discovered, so that the institu- 1292 tion of proceedings for performance of illegal experiments is not dependent on the date of the Report.
In reply to a further Question, Mr. GLADSTONE promised to see if the publication of the Report could be hastened.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLIs it not the case that under this Act no prosecutions have ever been successfully instituted?
§ *MR. SPEAKERThat does not arise out of the right hon. Gentleman's Answer.