§ Mr. Arnold Shawasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she has received the final report of the Working Party on the Laboratory Use of Dangerous Pathogens; and if she will make a statement.
§ Mrs. CastleThe final report of the working party has been published today as a Command Paper (Cmnd. 6054). I am grateful to the Chairman, Sir George Godber, and the members for their efforts in producing this report.
My predecessor appointed this working party to consider whether there was a need for further precautions to be taken in laboratories to prevent infection by pathogenic micro-organisms and, if so, to advise on the nature of the measures required. The working party has recommended that various levels of precaution should be adopted related to the potential hazard involved in working with any particular pathogen, and to assist in this it has grouped together pathogens presenting a similar degree of hazard. It recommends that those pathogens which it identifies as being of particular danger to humans or animals should be used only with the approval of the appropriate department of health or agriculture, which would seek the views of a central advisory
344Wrepatriated to their country of origin under arrangements made by the Supplementary Benefits Commission. I regret that this is not in the form requested, but more detailed information could only be obtained at disproportionate expense. I am afraid that no information at all is available about the number of persons who may have returned subsequently.
group which it is proposed should be set up to advise on suitable precautions to ensure safe containment of these organisms. The working party recommended that specific control measures should be voluntary in the first instance but backed later by statutory powers. With regard to laboratory workers, there is a general duty laid on employers by the Health and Safety at Work Act etc. 1974 to ensure the health of employees, and this can be made more specific by code of practice or regulation.
I have consulted my colleagues, and we accept the general principles embodied in the recommendations aimed at establishing an effective system of control over the use of dangerous pathogens. I am pleased to be able to tell the House that a central advisory group is now in the process of being set up and that Professor R. A. Shooter has agreed to serve as its chairman. Also, as a first step in setting up a voluntary system of control, individual approaches have been made to all laboratories known to be holding pathogens which carry a particular potential hazard to the human and animal communities, in order to obtain up-to-date information about organisms held and work being undertaken.
The report of the working party refers also to the part which might be played by the central advisory group in providing 345W guidance to laboratories undertaking genetic engineering work with microorganisms, recently the subject of a report by a working party under the chairmanship of Lord Ashby of Brandon (Cmnd. 5880). I am considering the recommendations with other action proposed in the Ashby Report, in conjunction with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, and with my hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.