HL Deb 15 May 1968 vol 292 cc378-80WA
LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK

asked Her Majesty's Government:

How much the new Exotic Virus Laboratory and changing rooms at the Research Establishment at Pirbright, Surrey, are costing, and where the necessary funds are coming from?

BARONESS PHILLIPS

The cost of the Exotic Virus Laboratory will be approximately £166,000 and that of the bathing and changing rooms (an extension of the existing disease security precautions at the Institute, and not related directly to the Exotic Virus Laboratory) approximately £29,500, in each case including professional fees. The Wellcome Trust is contributing a sum of £62,500 towards the new laboratory; the remainder of the cost will be met from public funds by capital grants from the Agricultural Re search Council.

The exotic virus laboratory is intended for studies of some of the animal virus diseases hitherto encountered only in tropical or sub-tropical regions. This work is being undertaken not only to broaden the basis of the Institute's fundamental research on animal disease, but also because of the risk that, with improved methods of communication, such diseases might spread with serious results to the United Kingdom.

House adjourned at eighteen minutes past five o'clock.