[Declaration: for the last nine years I worked in an academic research laboratory, developing therapies for inherited disorders that cause blindness. During this time I worked with animal models to help our improve our understanding of disease mechanisms and to act as a test-bed for new therapies].

The sparsely-attended adjournment debate on Wednesday secured by Conservative MP David Amess, saw a rare thing – a genuine discussion based around the merits of peer-reviewed scientific research and a robust defence of an evidence-based approach to translational medicine from Lib Dem Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone. For a biology nerd interested in the application of scientific knowledge to public policy it had all the ingredients of a pre-Christmas gift – I can fully recommend the Hansard transcript for a full picture (yes, I am that sad…).

Mr. Amess has some track record of Parliamentary campaigning against animal cruelty, and he reviewed his contributions before getting to the core of the issue – an EU directive adopted last year that, according to Mr. Amess, threatens the high animal welfare standards found in UK scientific laboratories. In responding to these concerns, Lynne Featherstone sought to reassure the house that no such threat was posed by the Directive. Indeed the Economist article cited by Margot James MP in an intervention is, as Lynne pointed out, incorrect when it says that “the strict laws that require British scientists to consider alternatives to animal tests may be partially relaxed as a result of European reforms.” On the contrary, to quote the Directive itself,

this Directive represents an important step towards achieving the final goal of full replacement of procedures on live animals for scientific and educational purposes as soon as it is scientifically possible to do so. To that end, it seeks to facilitate and promote the advancement of alternative approaches

and that if anything the flexibility afforded to EU states regarding welfare would be to impose stricter standards above the floor set by the EU.

Mr. Amess relied on two central arguments in his speech – one entirely reasonable, and one that he claims arises from the first but that in truth is simply inconsistent with it.

The MP for Southend West rightly pointed out that adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in clinical trials and when drugs are approved for use are a real concern, and that his Safety of Medicines Bill has garnered cross-party support which indicates the depth of said concern. There’s little doubt that the medical profession should endeavour to minimise adverse drug reactions and should consider all relevant avenues for doing so including scientifically valid tests of drug safety based on human biology/tissue, as the Bill calls for – however this reasonable position is spoilt by what follows. Mr. Amess wrongly ascribes the extent of ADRs to the use of animal models in pre-clinical research, and makes a logical leap in suggesting that the use of animals to assess drug safety is inappropriate.

The Bill appears to have originated with the Safer Medicines Trust, which describes itself s

an independent patient safety organisation of doctors and scientists whose concern is whether animal testing, today, is more harmful than helpful to public health and safety.

I don’t know enough about the Trust to judge its funding, remit and merit – but I can dispute many of the straw men that Mr. Amess raised in his speech, and can support the line that Lynne took.

Mr. Amess argued that animal models lure scientists into a false sense of security over the safety of drugs, and that because compounds found to be safe in rodents can be toxic when taken by humans that animal testing should be replaced by computer modelling, in vitro tests using human tissue and ‘micro-dosing’. He failed to grasp that the pre-clinical animal trials are an additional test, not an alternative one, to human testing; that the use of animals can be informative if scientists exercise caution in extrapolating their findings; and that thousands of successful drugs have been developed through regulated, judicious use of animal-based pre-clinical testing. These are issues I raise with post-graduate students in my lectures on the relevance of animal models in developing new drugs; Lynne made a point of reminding Mr. Amess of these facts and more in stating that

animal studies are considered to be an indispensable component in the assessment of the safety and efficacy of a new medicinal product. Without animal testing, it is highly likely that a large number of potentially dangerous medicinal products would have to be tested in healthy volunteers and patients in clinical trials. That would be quite unacceptable.

He also failed to understand that there is no single test for how well a drug will be tolerated, that the extent to which a drug will provoke ADRs when widely used cannot be predicted with any certainty even after human clinical trials.

Lynne also rightly praised the work of The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), which works with researchers, regulators and animal welfare campaigners to ensure that animal research is only carried out when justified, in ways that minimise the numbers and suffering of animals, and supports the development of viable alternatives to animal models. The work of the NC3Rs ensures that the UK strikes the balance between animal welfare and medical benefit when it comes to animal research.

Ultimately, I’m afraid Mr. Amess’ objection to the use of animals in research stems from a misunderstanding of how medical research works. He seems to think that we use animals to determine with certainty which compounds will be both safe and effective, and that the use of animals is designed to eliminate ADRs in humans. In truth, as Lynne hinted in her response, there is an element of Knightian uncertainty when it comes to individuals reacting adversely to drugs, and even if we abandoned animals as our shibboleth we’d still face that uncertainty – indeed we’d probably have more adverse reactions tests of human cells in dishes will likely bear even less relevance to how intact humans will tolerate new compounds. Whilst the development of in vitro and in silico drug safety tests should continue, regulated and judicious use of animals will continue to be a valid method of developing safe and effective medicines for clinical use.

Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone has today launched a new teaching pack to help children understand how images in the media are altered and the impact these have on self esteem.

From the Home Office:

The teaching pack developed by not-for-profit company Media Smart marks an important contribution to the government’s ongoing Body Confidence campaign.

Primary school teachers will be able to download the materials to structure a lesson specifically tailored to the 10-11 age group, an important stage in a young person’s development.

Pupils will be guided to look carefully at the images they see in order to gain a more realistic perception of what is real and what is not. The lessons will explore how and why idealised images in advertising and the media are used to construct particular messages and make people feel a certain way.

Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone said: ‘Young people are being set an impossible standard by the images they are confronted with on a daily basis from the media and advertising and there is evidence to suggest this has a negative impact on self esteem.

‘I want children to recognise from an early age that their value is worth so much more than just their physical appearance.

I am delighted to have worked with Media Smart to produce this important work.’

The 33 bodies are all being required to fully document how they handle future requests and report monthly to the Information Commissioner on how they are doing are complying with the rules. Their record will be reviewed in three months time.

And who is included in the list?

The Met Police. You know, the people whose job it is to stop other people breaking rules.

The Home Office. You know, the ministry that until a few months ago spent so much of its time telling us what to do.

And the Cabinet Office – which won’t come as a surprise to regular readers.

The full list is over on the Press Gazette and here is the official press release.

The ISA passed the issue on to the Home Office, and – as I previously reported – then there was silence, despite prompts from me. Silence too reigned when I contacted my Labour MP, Jeremy Corbyn, three times about the matter. Between them they didn’t even reply the once.

The ISA had the good grace to be embarrassed by this, and did respond (and in a positive way about the parts of the issue within their remit).

But post-election, and with a new ministerial team in place at the Home Office, I thought I’d try once again. And you know what? Bingo, a prompt and detailed reply – and one that lays out a position very different (and much better) from the one in the original guidance that I’d started off commenting on. With revised guidance being produced, it looks as if my original concerns are all being covered.

Good news.

Oh, and what was at the bottom of the reply? That original email from me to the Home Office which had gone unanswered for so long but clearly had safely reached them. Amazing what a change in ministers can do…

The report warns that children are being increasingly exposed to sexual imagery through advertising, music videos, computer games, magazines and some children’s clothing lines.

From the BBC:

Unless sexualisation is accepted as harmful, we will miss an important opportunity… to broaden young people’s beliefs about where their values lies,” said Dr Papadopoulos, a psychologist. The report’s 36 recommendations include calling for games consoles, mobile phones and some computers to be sold with parental controls already switched on.”

Other recommendations include banning “sexualised” music videos before the TV watershed, making digital literacy a compulsory part of the curriculum from age 5, and labelling airbrushed images:

Evidence suggests that even brief exposure to airbrushed images can lead to acute body dissatisfaction. To help combat this, efforts to raise levels of media literacy should be accompanied by initiatives aimed at encouraging society to take a more critical and questioning approach to the harmful perpetuation of unrealistic ideals. I therefore recommend the introduction of a system of ratings symbols for photographs to show the extent to which they have been altered. This is particularly critical in magazines targeting teen and pre-teen audiences.
[Sexualisation of Young People Review by Dr Linda Papadopoulos, page 83]

The BBC, in reporting the findings, indulges in a little airbrushing of its own:

Both Labour and the Conservatives are examining the issues.

Where’s the mention of the high profile Real Women campaign led by Jo Swinson? (BBC ignoring Lib Dems? Surely not…)

Jo, along with Lynne Featherstone, met with the Advertising Standards Authority this week to discuss the use of airbrushed images, and told Lib Dem Voice,

The Government has been dismissive of Liberal Democrat proposals to tackle harmful airbrushing, but now the Home Office’s own review shows that this is issue which needs urgent action.

Pressure on children to conform to unhealthy body image ideals is something many parents are extremely concerned about, and we welcome Dr. Papadopoulous’ report. When it comes to children, airbrushed adverts aimed at them need to be banned.

We will be holding a body image debate in Parliament on 8th March to take this important campaign forward.

You can read the full report: Sexualisation of Young People Review by Dr Linda Papadopoulos here.

I emailed Sir Roger Singleton [see letter here] on 14 September about my concerns with the way the Independent Safeguarding Authority’s guidelines state that if someone has been found innocent in a court of law that does not mean they could have been completely innocent. Particularly given the many issues about the ISA’s remit, this choice of wording in their own guidelines is one of obvious concern.

I heard nothing so I emailed again on 16 October. On 19 October I was told by the Vetting & Barring Scheme Information Team that the issue had been passed to the Home Office. Again, I heard nothing further so I got in touch on 27 November. On 1 December the team apologised for the delays and said they would raise it with the Home Office again. I have not heard anything since.

In summary: it is over four months since I first contacted Sir Roger Singleton and over three months since I was first told the issue was with the Home Office.

I have in fact written to my MP – Jeremy Corbyn – twice about this matter because the first letter, er…, didn’t receive a reply. Nice touch of irony

And as for the Independent Safeguarding Authority and the Home Office, good thing it’s not as if either is a body that has to worry much about dealing with paperwork properly or that either’s workings have much of an impact on people’s lives. Oh, hang on…

The strategies most likely to be effective in improving confidence are initiatives aimed at increasing community engagement. Three out of the four interventions classified in the ‘what works’ evidence all included an element of communicating and engaging with the community (embedding neighbourhood policing; high quality community engagement; and using local-level communications/newsletters).

In other words: talk to people, listen to them and involve them. That is the way to get greater confidence in the police.

Increasing confidence in the police isn’t just good news for the police, it’s good news for the public too, in particular because fear of crime often causes worry and restricts lives in ways that can be overcome if people have more confidence in the police. Increased confidence in the police also goes hand in hand with increased willingness to work with the police, such as by reporting crimes or helping with investigations.

So whilst cutting crime itself is crucial, increasing confidence in the police not only helps with that but also brings its own benefits.

It’s also one reason why I despair of councillors (of all parties) who don’t like putting out leaflets and perhaps, at best, begrudge doing a few in the run to their own re-election.

Leaflets are a major way for councillors to let local residents know what is happening in their area – on crime and on other matters. Failing to communicate in this way isn’t just being a bad campaigner, it’s being a bad councillor.

The Home Secretary confirmed today that he had “stopped the clock” on proceedings to extradite the British alleged hacker Gary McKinnon to the United States. Alan Johnson told MPs that he was examining new medical evidence in the case, and would allow Mr McKinnon’s lawyers more time to consider medical reports and make legal representations.

Mr McKinnon, from North London, is wanted by US prosecutors for what they have called the “biggest military computer hack of all time”. They claim that he hacked into 97 military computers and caused £487,000 of damage. The 43-year-old, who has Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, says that he was looking for reports of UFO sightings.

Good on Alan Johnson,who runs the risk of losing the title held by every single Home Secretary in the last 12 years of being the ‘most authoritarian Home Secretary since the last one’. (In fact it’s hard to recall the last genuinely liberal home secretary, at least after Roy Jenkins in the mid-’70s – perhaps Douglas Hurd?)

Many politicians across the party divides have been pressing Gary Mckinnon’s case – you can read about how Nick Clegg, Simon Hughes and Alex Carlile have been doing so on behalf of the Lib Dems here.

This prompted vigorous activity from the think-tanks and NGOs, and a predictable silence from the dead who may live again, aka the Conservative Party.

Last week, the Liberal Democrats published data showing that the number of 10 to 12 year olds convicted of a criminal offence rose by 87.2% between 1997 and 2007. Nick Clegg, remarking on the figures, argued that:

It is a disgrace the Government spends eleven times more locking up our young people than it does on backing projects to stop them getting involved in crime in the first place.”

Unless you happen to be keen on nineteenth century penal philosophy, Nick’s comment seems to make excellent sense. I would suggest, however, that it is, at best, carelessly imprecise. At worst, it indicates a refusal to challenge the prevailing conservative narrative on youth crime. Given recent reporting of events in Doncaster, a measured rebuttal is more critical than ever.

Existing Liberal Democrat policy on youth justice, expressed through the ‘A Life Away From Crime’ paper published last year by the party’s Justice and Home Affairs team, has a great deal to offer the electorate.

Most importantly, it commits to using custody for young people only as a “last resort”, noting that community sentences are “…cheaper, more rehabilitative and better at reducing reoffending.” Hear, hear.

What, though, would the practical consequences of the policy be? What exactly is meant by ‘last resort’?

In May 2008, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies published the influential ‘Ten years of Labour’s youth justice reforms: an independent audit’. The report states that, since 2000-01 (when the Youth Justice Board became responsible for commissioning custodial places for those within its remit), spending on youth justice has increased in real terms by a staggering 45 per cent.

The report notes the trend of disinvestment from social responses to youth crime toward criminal responses and questions “…whether resources should instead be directed to social support agencies outside the criminal justice arena.”

One practical consequence of a policy of “last resort”, then, would be a considerable saving. Another should be the explicit commitment to spend money through those agencies which are best-placed to improve outcomes. These agencies are social, not criminal.

As a party we seem reluctant to be explicit about this point; talk of ‘projects’ implies that youth crime can be addressed simply through a few youth clubs, or indeed a ‘volunteer force’.

Perhaps the reticence is tactical? How can we persuade the electorate that to protect communities youth justice budgets should be reduced? By recognising and publicising that ‘penal moderation’ expresses fundamental English values like restraint, tolerance and parsimony. The Howard League for Penal Reform, one of the key voices in the sector, advocated such a position in a recently concluded two-year study of the penal system.

These are also, of course, Liberal values. Youth justice offers us the opportunity to demonstrate the practical success penal moderation could have, and how these policies grow naturally from our core beliefs.

We must argue for radical and lasting change in youth justice. We must demonstrate that this desire for reform is rooted in our history and our values. And we must trust that voters are able to tell the difference between those who merely purport to be progressive and those who genuinely are.

* Tim Connolly is a Lib Dem party member.

Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD): Will the Home Secretary act now to deal with growing anger in my constituency and around the country about the plans to extradite Mr. Gary McKinnon to the United States? Mr. McKinnon has no previous convictions and suffers from Asperger’s syndrome. Given that there is power to try him in this country, where the offence was committed, will the Government intervene to ensure that that happens and that he is not sent to languish in an American supermax jail indefinitely?

Alan Johnson: First, the case is the subject of a judicial review and I do not think that I can say anything helpful about that. However, there were reports this morning that the hon. Gentleman’s colleague in another place had written to me to ask me, as Secretary of State, to use my “undoubted discretion” about the case. I have no discretion over prosecutions. The High Court confirmed that in January, when it said:

“The decision to prosecute is exclusively one for the Director”—

of Public Prosecutions—

“and not in any way for the Secretary of State.”

As the Daily Mail’s Quentin Letts noted in his Parliamentary sketch:

If you believe the Alan Johnson described for us in some newspapers, this unhappy tale of Mr McKinnon would be the sort of case the new Home Secretary would indeed want to grab.And yet the Alan Johnson of yesterday was less brave.

First he said that the case was ‘the subject of a judicial review’ and that he could therefore not become involved.

But in his next breath he said that ‘I have no discretion in the respect of prosecutions’.

It was a matter solely for the director of public prosecutions. Make your mind up, sir. If you indeed have ‘no discretion’ in the case, why can you not tell us your views?

There is no point being talked up as a potential future leader of the Labour party if you are not going to use your clout a little and indicate your views.

Yesterday in the Commons, both Greg Mulholland and Chris Huhne asked the questions of the Government’s minister for policing. Here are the exchanges from Hansard:

Greg Mulholland (Leeds, North-West) (LD): What recent representations he has received on the policing of the Kingsnorth climate camp in August 2008. [283784]

The Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism (Mr. David Hanson): The Home Office has received a number of items of parliamentary and public correspondence relating to the policing tactics employed at Kingsnorth climate camp in August 2008.

Greg Mulholland: My constituents, James Chan, Stephen Halpin and Sunil Bhopal, attended the Kingsnorth camp and report that the police played music between 5 and 6 am, and prevented water and food from getting into the camp. Does the Minister think that that is acceptable policing, and will he tell the House what lessons have been learned from that as we look forward to the climate change camps this summer?

Mr. Hanson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising those points. He will know that the National Policing Improvement Agency, Kent police and the inspectorate of constabulary have looked at these issues. I am shortly expecting some reports on how policing was undertaken at the camps. It is important to recognise that the Government and the police are committed to allowing peaceful protest, and that we take the concerns that have been raised about some issues at the climate camp extremely seriously. I will receive shortly, and will publish for the House, reports on those issues, and I will look at what lessons can be learned.

and

Chris Huhne (Eastleigh) (LD): There appears to be a repeating pattern at protests, including the Kingsnorth climate camp, of some police officers failing to wear their identifying numerals. We saw that at the Countryside Alliance protests in 2004, again at the G20 protests—despite the assurances of senior officers beforehand—and, astonishingly, again at the Tamil protest in Parliament square just a day after the Metropolitan Police Commissioner had made it clear that that practice was unacceptable. What are Ministers doing to ensure that some police officers do not tar the reputation of the vast majority who are disciplined, public-spirited and unashamed to be identified as citizens in uniform?

Mr. Hanson: I regard it as a matter of course that police officers should be able to be identified in whatever activity they undertake, and that will be one of the issues that we consider in relation to the policing of this protest and others. We are expecting a report shortly, as I have said, and I raised in a letter to Kent police of 24 June the need for me to see their report of the incidents at Kingsnorth. I have had an assurance from the chief constable, Michael Fuller, in a letter dated 3 July that he intends to publish the report on the incidents. I want to obtain the facts, look at the issues and ensure that the lessons are learned.

Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne has not minced his words:

This is a monumental shambles. It is astonishing that ministers were not consulted, if the Home Affairs Select Committee is right, as they should have realised the political consequences of being seen to harass an opposition MP for doing his job in holding the Government to account.

“Senior civil servants appear to have confused their own embarrassment with national security, and misled the police into believing that national security was involved. The Director of Public Prosecutions makes plain that it was not.

“This foolish complaint has wasted police time, tied up prosecutors unnecessarily and created a constitutional squall because of the searching of an MP’s office – and all for a matter that should have been handled as an internal civil service disciplinary case.”

A minister apologised to parliament yesterday for telling MPs that 70 police officers were hurt during a climate change protest … The apology followed a freedom of information request from the Liberal Democrats, which showed that no officers in the £5.9m police operation at Kingsnorth power station in Kent during August had been injured by protesters. Instead, police records showed that their medical unit had dealt mostly with toothache, diarrhoea, cut fingers and “possible bee stings”.

And here’s the Hansard exchange:

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): When people expressed concerns about the vigour shown, and resources devoted, by the police in relation to the Kingsnorth climate camp, we were told that it was justified because dozens of injuries were incurred. We have now found that those injuries were of a more prosaic origin—they were due to things such as insect stings and sunstroke. Unless the protesters are to be held responsible for wasps and the weather, are we not to conclude that the justification used at the time was wholly bogus and vacuous?

Mr. Coaker: I have written to the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) on the issue. I was informed that 70 police officers had been hurt, and naturally assumed that they had been hurt through direct contact, as a result of the protest. That clearly is not the case, and I apologise if that caused anybody to be misled. I can say to my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) and other Members that the National Policing Improvement Agency is currently considering the lessons to be learned from the Kingsnorth climate camp protest. I will meet the public order lead of the Association of Chief Police Officers to discuss the report, so that we can share the lessons to be learned from Kingsnorth with police forces across the country.

[...]

David Howarth (Cambridge) (LD): Returning to the issue of Kingsnorth policing, I thank the Minister both for what he has just said and for the letter that he wrote to me. However, in the light of the new information available to the House, would he care to revise his conclusion that the policing of Kingsnorth was proportionate and appropriate, especially as we also know that large numbers of protesters were injured at the hands of the police, especially by batons?

Mr. Coaker: I have apologised to the hon. Gentleman for that, and as he quite rightly said, I have written to him. I think it would be best for me to wait for the NPIA report on what happened at Kingsnorth, and to review it with the ACPO representative responsible for public order to see what lessons can be learned. I would then be happy to share those conclusions with the hon. Gentleman.

It’s not just our own councillors concerned with the conduct of the police at that event. A report in the Guardian suggests that people at all levels of governance from councillor to MEP have raised concerns.

Norman Baker MP said, “I personally witnessed unnecessarily aggressive policing, unprovoked violence against peaceful protesters, an extraordinary number of police on site, and tactics such as confiscating toilet rolls, board games and clown costumes from what I saw to be peaceful demonstrators.”

Now, according to a report in today’s Guardian, a combined effort from Lib Dem MPs has exposed the police activity at the camp as an enormous waste of time and money.

Whilst Government sources were keen to portray the protesters as violent and dangerous, Lib Dem FOI requests have revealed that injuries were not a result of clashes with demonstrators, but from bee stings, heat exhaustion, and a bad back caused by slamming a car door.

The Guardian report is well worth a read.

EDIT: also worth a read: the report over on Home Office Blog.

The Authority’s chair Sir Michael Scholar has written to the Permanent Secretary at Number 10 as follows:

These statistics were not due for publication for some time, and had not therefore been through the regular process of checking and quality assurance.

The statisticians who produced them, together with the National Statistician, tried unsuccessfully to prevent their premature, irregular and selective release.

I hope you will agree that the publication of prematurely released and unchecked statistics is corrosive of public trust in official statistics, and incompatible with the high standards which we are all seeking to establish.

I would be grateful for your comments, and for your assurance that there will be no repetition of this breach of the National Statistics Code of Practice.

Chris Huhne has commented:

Yet again this government has been caught peddling dodgy statistics. If ministers want the British people to trust anything they say, statistics must be made completely independent of government. Unfortunately it still seems that ministers are prepared to put courting the headlines ahead of checking the facts. This seems like a failed attempt to cover up criticism of Gordon Brown by rushing out a flimsy good news story.