https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.99.10

General Election 2015

The Election results confounded everyone with a Conservative Party majority albeit a small one.  At the time of going to print we know that Jo Johnson has been appointed Minister for Universities and Science.  The Society is in the midst of writing to Mr Johnson welcoming him into his new role and we hope to know the formation of relevant committees in due course, i.e Science & Technology.

The Government is likely to conduct a spending review over the summer, and this will determine departmental budgets and how much money the government will invest in science and engineering.

The Conservative manifesto commits them to balancing the overall budget by 2018, and not just everyday spending, giving them less room to borrow for investment .  This enables them to finish their ‘long-term economic plan’ to eliminate the deficit and reduce national debt.  Regarding Science and Innovation the Prime Minister and Chancellor have repeatedly asserted they are at the heart of their plan (sparing them from heavy cuts in the last term), however the 2015 manifesto contains no new money for science or commitment to continue the Science Budget ring-fence.

For investment in science and engineering, the manifesto commitments are:

• Continue with the measures in the Science and Innovation Strategy, including investing £1.1 billion in science capital each year, rising with inflation up to 2020/21
• Direct further resources towards the Eight Great Technologies – among them robotics and  nanotechnology
• Seek to ensure that the UK continues to support world-leading science, and invests public money in the best possible way through the Nurse Review of the Research Councils
• Put the ‘NHS at the frontier of science’ and prioritise funding for dementia research in the NHS

European Citizens’ Initiative – Stop Vivisection

The last few months have been dominated by a new effort to ban animal research in Europe.

The Stop Vivisection European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) called for ‘the European Commission to abrogate directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes and to present a new proposal that does away with animal experimentation’.

Under the Citizens’ Initiative programme, EU citizens can propose changes in legislation to the European Commission.  To warrant formal attention from the Commission, the ECI must gain one million signatures across from at least seven member states.

Stop Vivisection collected 1,173,130 signatures across 26 of the EU’s 28 member states. The majority  are from Italy, where anti-animal research sentiment is high.  It is the third citizens’ initiative to receive a public hearing at the European Parliament, and took place on the 11th May 2015.

Speakers at the hearing included initiative organisers Gianni Tamino and Claude Reiss, as well as Dr Ray Greek of Americans for Medical Advancement (AFMA), Emily McIvor of Humane Society International and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi,  winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine.

Ahead of the hearing and in response to the initiative, over 120 organisations—including The Physiological Society, other learned societies, patient groups and leading universities signed a joint statement supporting European Directive 2010/63/EU. The statement calls on the European Parliament to oppose the ‘Stop Vivisection’ initiative, explaining that repealing the Directive would represent a major step backwards both for animal welfare in the EU and for Europe’s leading role in advancing human and animal health.

Furthermore the Society prepared a template letter for members to help them contact their MEPs, articulating the necessary use animals in their research and why, urging their MEPs to oppose the Stop Vivisection Initiative.  While we do not have exact figures, we can confidently say a significant number of members were mobilised to take action, and many also received encouraging responses from their MEPs.

At the time of going to print, we are cautiously awaiting a formal response from the European Commission on 3 June 2015.

Interested in these or any other policy related issues? Please contact us via policy@physoc.org