University Research: Project Decisions (Hansard, 6 July 1999)

§ The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone)
My Lords, universities have procedures involving ethics committees which take decisions on whether experiments, investigations or procedures using human or animal subjects are appropriate.

§ Baroness Knight of Collingtree
My Lords, does the Minister agree it is odd that a university with no medical research department should have embarked upon this project? Will the Minister agree that many students are impecunious and that some may view this as an easy way to earn £40? Does the Minister realise that the students are aware of the project and that their parents are extremely worried? Can she tell the House what insurance or compensation is available to young men who contract Aids through such a scheme?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I can give the noble Baroness some reassurance about the project. No students at City University or elsewhere are involved in the project. The participants are recruited through gay organisations. I do not believe that this raises an insurance issue, as the project involves clinical trials which will concern protecting the health of homosexual men.

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, why does the noble Baroness not condemn this as a perfectly appalling practice? Why does she not say that it is not the proper function of a university to carry out research of this nature?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, as a Member of this House for many years, the noble Earl ought to know that Ministers have no powers to intervene in such matters. Under Section 68 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, universities are independent, autonomous institutions, responsible for determining their own educational and research priorities. The House has always held that matter dear. I believe that it is something that the Government and others should respect.

§ Lord Quirk
My Lords, will the Minister agree that in upholding the right to free academic inquiry, vice-chancellors are vulnerable to public opinion and to public criticism if the project simultaneously involves 716 personal risk—in this case such things as rectal injury—and can also be represented as little more than commercially sponsored testing of a commercial product?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, this is a clinical trial. Frequently, universities undertake contract research that involves clinical trials. Of course, vice-chancellors have a difficult role to play, particularly if it is put about that the research is in some way dubious. All the evidence I have before me suggests that this is properly conducted research, which has been carefully considered by the ethics committee of the university concerned. I believe that we should respect the view taken by that committee.

§ Earl Russell
My Lords, the noble Baroness in her private capacity may or may not have strong feelings on this subject. Will she confirm that not everything on which we have strong feelings is a matter on which a Minister is accountable to the House?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for that comment. He has hit the nail on the head. This matter should be left to the discretion of universities. I have every confidence that all the necessary care was taken before this particularly sensitive piece of research was undertaken. I repeat that we should respect the decision that was made.

§ Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, will the Minister agree that we would be treading a rocky path if it 'were suggested that the Minister should take powers to intervene in the research decisions of British universities?

§ Baroness Blackstone
Yes, my Lords, I strongly agree with my noble friend. Were that to happen, we would be treading an extremely dangerous road where political views of all kinds—and personal views—would start to affect the independence of our universities to undertake properly conducted, thoughtful research.

Baroness Young
My Lords, can the Minister tell us what the cost of such research is to the taxpayer?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I can confirm that the project is contract research, paid for entirely by the private sector organisation sponsoring it.

§ Lord Milverton
My Lords, does the Minister agree that there are many who would courageously say that such research is not simply quite wrong, but unethical from a Christian standpoint? It is surprising that there are homosexual men prepared to do such a peculiar thing.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, of course, I respect the views of the noble Lord. I suspect that there are 300 personal views in the House. However, I do not believe that our personal views are pertinent to the issue.

§ Baroness Carnegy of Lour
My Lords, perhaps I may suggest that the Minister was correct, in her first answer, to point out that this piece of research had been before a research ethics committee. Is the whole trial to take place within the area of one university, and therefore within the 717 area of one ethics committee, or is it to take place across the country? The numbers involved suggest it may involve other centres. If that is so, does the Minister know of the decisions of the ethics committees in the other areas? A serious issue is raised if an ethics committee has found one way in one place and another way elsewhere, as sometimes happens.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I accept entirely what the noble Baroness says; that is, that where research is carried out by several universities, particularly sensitive research of this kind, it is important that the ethics committees of those universities work closely together and reach a common decision. I can confirm that in this case the research was undertaken by a single university. It is not a large piece of research since only 300 gay couples are involved. It is not a piece of research involving thousands of people.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, is it purely incidental that no student from this university is involved in the research, or is there a ruling that they should not be?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I can confirm that before the research was undertaken the decision was taken that no student at the university should be involved. The noble Baroness, Lady Knight, talked of payments. Each participant receives £20—a small sum of money—at the end of the research for answering 10 long questionnaires. It is standard practice in clinical trials of this sort to pay a small sum to compensate people for giving up substantial amounts of time.