§ Sir GEORGE GREENWOODasked the-Comptroller of the Household, as representing the National Health Insurance Commissioners, the total sum expended on research by the Commissioners under Section 16 of the National Insurance Act during the year 1915, out of moneys provided by Parliament; and if he will make arrangements that in future the sums expended on research by experiments on living animals shall be kept distinct from the sums expended on research by other means?
Mr. ROBERTSIn the financial year ending 31st March, 1916, the total sum paid under the Regulations out of the moneys standing to the credit of the Medical Reseach Fund was £53,375 18s. 7d. The suggestion in the second paragraph of the question is, I am advised, intrinsically impossible to carry out, as I informed the hon. Member on the 24th October last.
§ Sir G. GREENWOODasked the Comptroller whether, seeing that Regulations under which schemes for research prepared by the Medical Research Committee are required to be laid before both Houses of Parliament as soon as may be after they are made, and that every such scheme is required to contain an estimate of the expenditure necessary for carrying it out, and to specify the period within which such expenditure is to be incurred, and in view of the public interest in matters paid for by moneys provided by Parliament out of the general taxation of the country, he will arrange that all such schemes shall be published?
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Mr. ROBERTSThe Regulations referred to are laid before Parliament and published, and full Reports on the work carried out by the Committee are also presented to Parliament and published. A further Report, I may add, will be issued in a few days, covering the recent work of the Committee. These give the fullest possible information as to the schemes and the work done under them, with the names of individual workers, and the objects aimed at, together with summaries for the information of the lay public as to the chief results obtained.
§ Sir G. GREENWOODasked the Comptroller of the Household what were the medical questions of immediate national urgency in the war conditions of July, 1915, for the solution of which Dr. Flack was licensed to make experiments upon living 248W animals by immersing them in chlorine gas; whether any and, if so, what solution of these was obtained by Dr. Flack by these means, and what, if any, knowledge of any value for the civil population was thereby obtained; and whether he is aware that the effects of chlorine gas upon human beings had been demonstrated in hundreds of cases previously to such experiments?
Mr. ROBERTSNo, Sir; it would not be in the public interest to take the course suggested in the question. The investigations made were into the effect of various poisonous gases, and were of the most urgent nature, and I am satisfied that results were certainly obtained of great value to the civil population, and, indeed, to insured persons in particular.