§ Mr. Viantasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether Dr. E. G. T. Liddell, whose appeal against his conviction for causing unnecessary suffering to cats at Oxford University was dismissed by the Recorder on 9th October, was the holder of a certificate covering experiments for the alleviation of cat 316W distemper; and, if so, the nature of the certificate and when it was issued.
§ Mr. EdeDr. Liddell holds the certificates under the Act of 1876 authorising him to conduct certain experiments with a view to the study of nervous disease in man on animals. He was convicted not for any offence in the performance of these experiments, but under the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, for causing unnecessary suffering by keeping in a compound too many cats while they were suffering from distemper.