My Lords, I am very grateful to all Members of the House who have been kind enough to speak in this debate. I am not entirely convinced by the arguments that I have heard; I will need to read the Minister’s response to my Motion in more detail before I make a considered reply to it. I am a little unhappy with my noble friend on the Front Bench on this side, who seemed to imply that it is better not to discuss things that should be open and transparent. That is a real risk here. If animal research is being used, we should state it clearly; that is a very important ethical consideration. To know that will not put people off taking their drugs; there is no evidence for that.
The noble Lord, Lord Willis, made a very cogent point about the support or lack of it in some aspects of the Department of Health, and the concern. The Department of Health has not, at the moment, shown the right way forward. It has certainly not been helpful to people such as myself, who do this research and are in the firing line. Far too often we have seen evidence that, for example, companies that supply or transport animals have been under great threat because they have not been thoroughly supported in the way they should have been.
It is important that this measure is considered seriously. I very much take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, with his usual accuracy, about the need for research about public opinion. Governments do not do that very well. It is, for example, rather shocking that social science is not very prevalent in the Department of Health. We should think about that very clearly, along with the assessment of these issues.
I am obviously very grateful to my noble friend Lord Turnberg. Both he and the noble Lord, Lord Willis, have spoken from the aspect of the medical
research charities, which do such valuable work in supporting the sort of things that we are trying to do. I am very grateful for this debate; I do not intend to detain the House any longer on a Friday afternoon, as it now is. I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.