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Home Office

Answer

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the latest findings of investigations into Imutran xenotransplantation research. [143700] Caroline Flint: In November 2000, after carefully considering the arguments for an independent judicial inquiry into the matters raised in "Diaries of Despair", the Uncaged Campaigns report on the Imutran xenotransplantation research carried out at Huntingdon Life Sciences, the then Home Secretary (Jack Straw) asked the Chief Inspector of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Inspectorate to examine the available evidence relating to compliance with the authorities granted to Imutran Limited under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. This compliance review was undertaken as part of the Inspectorate's routine statutory inspection and reporting function. The Chief Inspector's report was published on 13 July 2001 and is available on the Home Office website. Copies were also placed in the House Library.The Chief Inspector's review covered five years of work, involving many thousands of scientific procedures. The review took around 300 man-hours to complete and included scrutiny of all study documents, including material not available during the normal inspection process. The Chief Inspector's findings confirmed that the general level of compliance was good. He also identified five instances of non-compliance by the surgical team. Three of these were already known to the Home Office and were dealt with in 1997. Neither of the two new infringements merited prosecution and both were dealt with by issuing letters of admonition to those responsible. The Chief Inspector's review identified no new issues requiring further action or investigations and none have been carried out. However, all subsequent representations and evidence received by the Home Office regarding the Imutran research have been thoroughly and carefully considered and full answers have been provided to them. This includes additional papers published in 2003 by Uncaged Campaigns on its website. All of these papers, and more, were available when the chief inspector carried out his compliance review. They provide no new insights into these matters, nor do we accept that they call into question Home Office conduct or regulation of the Imutran research in any way. In addition, in October 2003, we provided the Home Affairs Committee with a detailed response to a number questions about the Imutran research. This response is available on the Home Office website. The Imutran licences were revoked in July 2000, following a decision by Imutran and its parent company, Novartis, to transfer its research programme to North America. No xenotransplantation work is now undertaken at Huntingdon Life Sciences. I wrote to all Members of Parliament on 15 December 2003 answering the points raised in the latest letter sent by Uncaged Campaigns about the Imutran xenotransplantation research.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

143700; 416 c322-3W

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Research Xenotransplantation Imutran

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk