CONDITIONS (Hansard, 21 April 1986)

§ Mr. Fry
I beg to move amendment No. 19, in page 8, line 16, at end insert— '(b) the Secretary of State shall consider granting exceptions to this condition only in very limited circumstances. In all such cases he shall notify the Animal Procedures Committee.'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to take Government amendment No. 20.

§ Mr. Fry
I am prepared to accept Government amendment No. 20 because my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has done his best to honour the obligations he gave in Committee. This is an important matter. There is widespread concern, especially about the possible fate of cats and dogs that might be used in research establishments. Today, the Committee for Information on Animal Research rightly pointed out that the Bill insisted that dogs and cats must be bred at and obtained from a designated breeding establishment. It stated that there was no provision which made it an offence to supply rather than use animals which had not been purpose-bred. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will answer that point in speaking to Government amendment No. 20.

§ Mr. Mellor
I shall deal with the last point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry) in a later debate, because it does not arise in relation to Government amendment No. 20. I shall think about his point.
Government amendment No. 20 is in response to the concern in Committee that appropriately rigorous conditions should be attached to the use of man's companion animals. I believe that this makes clear the limited extent to which exceptions are permitted in the use of animals from breeding establishments. I hope especially that it gives further weight to the clear prohibition on the face of the Bill and in arrangements made under it against the use of pets in laboratories.

§ Mr. Fry
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

§ Mr. Mellor
I beg to move amendment No. 21, in page 8, line 40, at end insert—
'(5A) The conditions of a certificate issued under section 6 or 7 above shall include conditions requiring the holder of the certificate—

(a) to secure that a person competent to kill animals in the manner specified by conditions imposed in accordance with subsection (5) above will be available to do so; and

(b) to keep records as respects the source and disposal of and otherwise relating to the animals kept at the establishment for experimental or other scientific purposes or, as the case may be, bred or kept for breeding there or kept there for the purposes of being supplied for use in regulated procedures.'.

This is a significant new amendment which relates to important issues which were debated in Committee. As the 104 House will see, there are two limbs to the new subsection (5A) to clause 10. The first deals with euthanasia and the second with rigorous record keeping.
On the first matter, subsection (5) of clause 10 already requires establishments to use only approved methods when killing surplus animals or animals which have been bred at or bought for breeding or supplying establishments but not supplied for use in laboratories. The new requirement obliges the establishment to ensure that there is available a person competent to kill animals in the requisite manner—either using a method appropriate under schedule 1 or another method approved by the Secretary of State for use at the establishment concerned. Therefore, there is a tightening up.
Finally, on the second matter—this relates to some of the discussions we had on new clause 2—it is plainly crucial that the representatives of the Secretary of State should have access to the clearest records that indicate where animals came from and where they have gone to. This amendment spells that out even more forcefully in the Bill. On that basis, I commend amendment No. 21 to the House.

§ Sir Dudley Smith
I shall take only a few moments. I should like to support my hon. Friend on this amendment. Perhaps, at the same time, I can tell my hon. Friend the Minister that my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West (Sir A. Grant), who is attending the Council of Europe in Strasbourg—where I should also be—knew that I would be here and I promised that I would endeavour to raise an issue for him.
My hon. Friend tells me that the amendment just moved by the Minister, and the provisions of the Bill generally under this section, impose an extra financial burden on the teaching of mammalian physiology, which is essential in the training of doctors and veterinary surgeons, at St. Catherine's college in Cambridge, which is in his constituency. He tells me that that department may be forced to close as a result. Would my hon. Friend the Minister please bear this problem in mind, especially in any future negotiations with the Treasury, because it is important? It is a good example of a department which is doing its work excellently and carefully and which will fully respond to the provisions of the Bill.