Dame Chi Onwurah
MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West · Labour · United Kingdom
“An extraordinary debate is going on right now inside and outside AI companies about whether the possibility of AI destroying humanity is more or less than 10%. The European Union is moving ahead with a comprehensive AI regulatory framework, but the UK continues to rely on existing regulation.”
“The Pope also highlighted how the billions of online digital twins constitute an unprecedented concentration of power in the hands of a small number of men. Among the many consequences of the 40 years of neoliberalism repeatedly called out by the Prime Minister is a libertarian attitude to technology.”
“But this stealth digital twinning violates the integrity, uniqueness and very personhood of our constituents and of all of us. Digital twins can take many forms, from content creation algorithms and deepfakes to chatbots that reflect aspects of our personalities back at us. It is particularly worrying when children are the target.”
“The automated version of our kids will grow with them, using the power of AI to target advertising and products at them, and worse. The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has heard about some of the tragic consequences of online grooming by algorithms and chatbots—a vulnerable boy persuaded to kill himself; a vulnerable girl fed…”
“In the arts, entertainment and tech industries, many performers are agreeing to the creation and use of digital replicas as part of their work—think of ABBA Voyage. But performers increasingly encounter unauthorised digital replicas of themselves, which pose a threat to their career, livelihood and reputation.”
“Since then, deepfakes have proliferated. The hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) was shown crossing the Floor in Parliament to join Reform, to his constituents’ consternation and his own—it was a fake. Then there were the horrendous photos of naked women and girls that Elon Musk’s AI created on demand.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,139 lines we hold for Dame Chi Onwurah, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 10 of 103.
“Although there remain challenges to overcome, our regulators must be responsive to innovation in the space sector, from in-orbit manufacturing, as we have heard about, to space-based renewables. Labour’s regulatory innovation office would rewire regulators to support innovation, including the space sector. The office would set and monitor targets for approvals, benchmarked internationally, and give regulators steers from Labour’s industrial strategy, which would help ensure that space was seen as an industry and not as a project, as the hon. Member for Wyre Forest suggested. We would also support the Regulatory Horizons Council, with deadlines for the Government to respond to its work.”
“The space industry impacts everybody and everything, from climate change monitoring and rural broadband to transport and agriculture. It is vital for security—just look at Ukraine—and for telecommunications. In 2021 I spoke in a debate on space debris, which has been mentioned. That creates challenges and opportunities that literally go over most people’s heads. Labour’s first mission in Government is to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7, and space provides key opportunities for growth. Our aerospace research and development is a long-term endeavour, and our industrial strength is the result of decades of support by successive Governments—and Labour would build on that legacy.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Murray, and to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan). I congratulate the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) on securing the debate; as a member of the all-party parliamentary group for space, I can bear witness to what an excellent chair he is and what a great champion he is for the industry. We all know that space is not just for the stars. Members from constituencies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and England have all emphasised—I am sure Members from Wales would, too—the potential and actual contribution that it makes to their economies. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) particularly emphasised that point.”
“Q10. My constituent Lisa cares for her mother. She works part-time at WHSmith and was sure to keep the Department for Work and Pensions informed so that she would not be overpaid carer’s allowance. However, because of a DWP blunder, she now faces a bill for £4,000. The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology cares for her career. She works part-time as a woke detector. However, when she blundered, calling a top scientist a Hamas supporter, the bill—tens of thousands of pounds in costs and damages—was picked up by taxpayers like Lisa. Why?”
“The attention paid to the conflict in Sudan does not reflect the enormity of the suffering there, with millions displaced and facing famine, violence and insecurity. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Africa, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) for securing the urgent question. The Minister spoke about the limited arms embargo, such as it is. Is he aware that it is being broken on a grand scale, and that there is a pervasive flow of arms into Sudan? What is he doing to monitor that, and to try to reduce that flow of arms, which is fuelling the conflict?”
“I hope the Secretary of State will join me in congratulating Newcastle United women on their promotion to the championship. This season, they have helped inspire more than 300 young girls to take part in Newcastle United Foundation’s Premier League Kicks sessions, but with a third of young people in Newcastle inactive and our childhood obesity rates the highest in the region and among the highest in the country, we cannot leave it all to the foundation. How frequently does the Secretary of State meet the Department for Education to ensure that disadvantaged young people have access to sporting opportunities in schools? Specifically, what comparison has she made between sporting facilities in the state and private school sectors?”
“The “Space Investigators” exhibition at the Great North Museum celebrates the amazing history of the north-east in designing and manufacturing telescopes. What support does the Minister offer so that regions such as ours can better understand and promote our great industrial heritage?”
“May we have a debate in Government time on the role of regional Mayors? Lord Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley Mayor, seems to believe that his role is to benefit his mates, while distancing himself as far as possible from the Conservative party in whose name he is standing, whereas Chris McEwan, our Labour party candidate, and Kim McGuinness, our fantastic candidate for North East Mayor, believe that their role would be to bring opportunity to every corner of the region, and to be a voice for everyone in the region. Who is right?”
“I hope the Minister remembers Hind Rajab, the six-year-old Palestinian girl who was trapped in a car with nothing but a mobile phone and her own cries for help while the paramedics were struggling to get to her. They and Hind were killed that day. An IDF investigation concluded that its forces were not present within firing range of the vehicle. A subsequent Washington Post investigation disagreed. I raise that case not only to remember Hind but because whenever the Israel Defence Force’s actions result in increased civilian suffering or reduced humanitarian aid—as in the killing of aid workers—the Government’s response is to call on Israel to investigate itself. Is that really the only way to ensure accountability and reduce suffering?”
“In 1823, Robert Stephenson and Company set up the world’s first locomotive factory in my constituency. Is the Conservative idea of an anniversary present to the north-east to end 200 years of railway manufacturing and innovation? The Minister has said this is complex and challenging, but for the sake of Hitachi workers and for our entire region, will he commit to the future of railway manufacturing in the north-east?”
“Some constituents who have contacted me see in the Cass report a vindication of their long-held views on sex and gender following years of abuse, sometimes violent. Others who have contacted me fear that the Cass review represents an attack on their very existence as trans people and fear the abuse to come. Will the Secretary of State set out that she opposes utterly the toxification and politicisation of questions of sex and gender? Will she also set out that she will collect the additional evidence that the Cass review calls for, without which there cannot be an evidence-based approach? Will she also set out that she will put in place the resources our young people need in terms of healthcare to ensure that they receive the healthcare appropriate to them?”
“Our probation service is in crisis, with staff overworked, overstretched and undervalued. The expansion of the early release scheme will put yet more pressure on them, so what is the Minister doing this year to help our probation staff face that extra workload?”
“Does he have confidence that no British exports are part of what seem to be vile and potentially criminal acts on the part of the IDF?”
“The UN resolution is welcome and long overdue, given the humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in Gaza, but I wish to press the Minister on the licensing of arms for export to Israel. He said that the process is robust and regularly reviewed, implying that because no action has been taken, those reviews have not raised any risks. I have previously asked him to condemn the many videos circulating on social media that show Israeli soldiers filming themselves performing acts that range from the unbelievably crass, such as posing on the bikes of dead Gazan children, to the vilely violent, such as setting fire to food stores or bombing residential buildings—violent and potentially criminal. Will the Minister say whether he has seen those videos, and if so does he condemn them?”
“Walking and cycling prevent 1,500 serious long-term health conditions on Tyneside every year, according to the walking and cycling index, and they bring in £400 million in economic benefits, so it is no wonder that half of Tynesiders want to walk or wheel more, and that two fifths want to cycle more, but if they are to do that, the streets need to be made safer. What is the Minister doing, apart from undermining low traffic neighbourhoods, to make our streets safer for walking, wheeling and cycling?”
“I thank the Minister for buses, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), for sharing with me the list of actions he managed to elicit from north-east bus operators following my debate on real-time bus information. However, no dates were given. This afternoon, our fantastic candidate for North East Mayor, Kim McGuinness, is launching her vision for transport in the north-east. Can the Minister confirm that those actions will be fulfilled to enable her to deliver on her commitment to real-time bus information as soon as possible?”
“T2. Will the Minister clarify when the right moment is to move on from a Tory donor calling for an MP to be shot in the context of hating all black women? Is it when there is an apology for rudeness? Is it when £5 million more has arrived in Tory coffers? Is it when she tires of explaining racism to her party? Or is it when the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) says that justice has been done?”
“The economy has grown at a snail’s pace under the Tories, but that snail is still 30% faster nationally than in the north-east, despite our strengths in clean energy, manufacturing, science and health. On average, my constituents are £11,500 worse off that they would have been had the economy grown at the same rate that it grew under Labour. Is it any wonder that the Public Accounts Committee found no compelling evidence of levelling up? Is a vote for the Tories not a vote for continued economic failure?”
“I am absolutely clear that the hostages must be released. I am also absolutely clear that the situation in Gaza has gone from dire to horrendous to cataclysmic, and my constituents do not understand why it is being allowed to continue. The majority leader in the US Senate has identified Netanyahu’s ultra right-wing Government as a barrier to peace, and the European Union foreign policy chief has said that Israel, one of the richest and most militarily powerful nations in the world, is “provoking famine”. So will the Minister say clearly that it is unacceptable for Israel to prevent aid from entering Gaza? Will he also say clearly what he is actually doing about it—what demands he is making of Israel, what consequences he is setting out to Israel for its actions—beyond wringing his hands?”
“2. What recent assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of regional variations in levels of employment and inactivity.”
“Health Equity North research shows high levels of economic inactivity in the north-east due to disability or ill health—40% above the national average. I visited the jobcentre in Newcastle and was very impressed by the dedication and hard work of the staff, but I know from the Public and Commercial Services union that one in four universal credit managers took time off in 2023 for mental illness, which is three times the figure before 2019. We are the only country in the G7 not to have the same level of employment as before the pandemic. Are those high rates not because of record NHS waiting lists, low staff morale and general Government incompetence?”
“The cosmetics sector is often overlooked, perhaps because we are unwilling to show how dependent we are on that sector, or perhaps because so many of the 550,000 people who work in that sector are women. The Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association manifesto makes it clear that it requires a safe and sustainable supply of chemicals within a robust, internationally compatible regulatory framework. Is it not clear that this ongoing chaos with the chemicals strategy means that what it actually requires is a change of Government?”
“We need a general election, and a change of Government.”
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, because every area of Conservative spending has a dimension of waste or profligacy. Does she agree that the £15,000 of taxpayers’ money spent on settling the attack made by the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology on a British scientist—an entirely unfounded and defamatory attack—would have been so much better spent supporting British scientists to drive British economic growth?”
“This morning on Radio 4’s “Today” programme, the presenter interviewing the Chancellor set out just some of the facts and figures that demonstrate Tory economic failure. The Chancellor responded by saying that such a characterisation was unworthy of the BBC—well, he had just been called “the fiscal drag queen”, which clearly annoyed him, but that is no excuse for saying that facts, figures and evidence are unworthy of our national broadcaster. The Government would do better in reminding their Ministers—in particular the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whose libel bill the taxpayer has just paid—that facts matter. Labour’s evidence-based, mission-driven Government would give the people of Newcastle upon Tyne Central our future back. Yet again, this Budget will only hold them back.”
“Our industrial strategy would bring together our excellent universities across the north-east, our skilled workforce and our deep capital markets to turbocharge growth in constituencies such as mine. In fact, we have a plan for the life sciences —“A Prescription for Growth”, which I highly recommend —to help grow the economy and get the NHS back on its feet. Labour would support businesses in Newcastle through our plans on business rates, skills and the planning system and would get Britain building again. We would bring bills down by switching on Great British Energy, a new British company that will create new, high-paid jobs across the north, reduce bills and leave us less dependent on tyrants such as Putin.”
“Fortunately, Kim McGuinness, our excellent Labour candidate, is determined to hand power to our communities and to create real opportunity for everyone who lives in the north-east, and a Labour Government would be the partner she needs. This Budget has been determined by politics and by attempts to manage Tory divisions and to desperately save the skin of Tory Members, instead of doing the responsible thing. Look at the way the Government have adopted some of the Opposition’s proposals on non-dom tax regimes—not as part of a long-term plan, but because they have been bounced into it. My constituents do not care about Tory infighting; they are sick of it. They want to see real action to kick-start our economy through stability, reform and investment. That is what Labour is offering.”
“The Chancellor and the Government have failed my constituents, failed to make work pay and failed to get the economy growing. The tax burden is at a 70-year high, so I of course welcome the cut to national insurance contributions. However, Rishi’s tax double take means that households will be £870 worse off on average. I also welcome the new devolution deal for the north-east, but my constituents would be much better off if the Conservatives got the basics right in our economy, providing the vital change we need in housing, energy, industrial strategy, transport and so on. The North East Mayor, who will be elected in May, will have a difficult job to fix the Tory’s mess.”
“If we had had Labour’s workforce plan in place, the NHS back on its feet and able to provide consistent, high-quality care and productivity improvements, Labour’s new deal for working people to give people security in work, and action on housing, poverty and bills, the difference that that would have made would have been life-changing and lifesaving. I was disappointed to hear nothing in the Budget about the Government’s approach to the loan charge scandal. A constituent who retired after a lifetime of hard work is being bombarded with letters from HMRC threatening him with retrospective demands and a possible bill of £50,000—we can imagine how he is enjoying his retirement. The issue absolutely needs an independent review.”
“Our economic troubles and the running down of public services have meant that many Geordie women face spiralling problems with debt, poverty and housing and are struggling to access mental and physical healthcare. In its recent report, Changing Lives, a charity working with vulnerable women in the north-east, found that “women living in the North East are more likely to live shorter lives, to spend a larger proportion of time living in poor health, and to die prematurely from preventable diseases.” At-risk women in the north-east are 1.7 times more likely to die early as a result of suicide, addiction or domestic murder, compared with the average for England and Wales. That is just a disgrace—a Tory disgrace—and it perfectly demonstrates the human cost of bad government.”
“Shamefully, child poverty across the north-east of England has climbed by more than a third since 2014-15 according to the End Child Poverty coalition. Increasingly, those children’s parents are in work. The North East Child Poverty Commission found that the proportion of north-east children in poverty who are from working families has risen from 56% to 67%—more than 10 percentage points—in under a decade. I put on record my gratitude to both those organisations and to other researchers for their work. I only wish that the Government would take their evidence as seriously as it demands. Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to wish you and all women, as well as our allies, a happy International Women’s Day for tomorrow. I also want to highlight the particular struggles of women in my region.”
“My constituents work incredibly hard to provide for themselves and their families, and local businesses are also working hard through the Tory economic gloom. We can see that in our fantastic start-ups, spin outs and scale-ups and Newcastle’s world-renowned hospitality sector, which offers so many from all over the world a great Geordie welcome as well as adding £361 million of gross value added each year to my constituency. I note that UKHospitality said that the Budget offered little for this sector with so much growth potential. Labour Members believe that work should pay; the Tories’ broken economic model increasingly means that, too often, it does not. The average person in the north-east is £11,500 worse off since 2010 than if the economy had grown at the rate it did under Labour.”
“We then had covid: a global pandemic, but one that disproportionately impacted the very communities—the poor, the black and minoritised, the unwell and infirm, and the disabled and disadvantaged—which austerity had undermined and weakened, while straining our NHS to breaking point, yet members of the Conservative Government saw it as an opportunity to help their mates get rich. My hon. Friends in the Opposition have destroyed the fake Tory fig leaf that everything was rosy before covid. Then we had a cost of living crisis made in Downing Street, with energy and food prices, mortgages, rents and transport costs all soaring. The Budget was the Tories’ last chance to try to repair the damage they had done and stop the rot, and what did we get? More of the same failed economic policy that has plunged us into recession.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I shall of course be guided by you. It is now almost 14 years since I first had the immense honour and privilege of being elected to the best job in the world—Member of Parliament for Newcastle Central —but over those 14 years it has been heartbreaking and outrageous in equal measure to see the consequences for my constituents of Tory economic failure. First, we had austerity: the cruel gutting of communities, public services and jobs, which dampened growth instead of driving it. Tory austerity is why the Resolution Foundation tells us that the average wage will not return to its 2008 level until 2026.”
“I thank the hon. Member for giving way again. As he knows, we have set out our spending commitments, and crumbling services are a consequence of the Tories’ absolute failure to give growth to our country and our fantastic businesses, which can drive economic growth across our country.”
“As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Africa, I met David Neal a number of times. He was incredibly impressive, robust, well-informed, all over the detail, and entirely independent. It beggars belief that the Government ignored his reports for so long—publication is essential for scrutiny—sacked him over Teams, and dumped all the reports out at once. Does the Minister believe that the Home Office is so perfect, and that everything is going so well, that it should be above scrutiny? Or is it more the case that everything is going so badly, including on Rwanda, the asylum backlog and our border security, that there is no hope of improvement until we have a change of Government?”
“I, too, pay tribute to the family of Sarah Everard. In Newcastle and across the country, her vile murder led to an outpouring of grief and horror, but it did not, as the Home Secretary said, start a conversation about violence against women— [ Interruption. ] That is what he said. Rather, it showed that the voices, the pain and the fears of women were being ignored. He says that he takes violence against women seriously; his language and his actions need to reflect that. Will he speak specifically about recommendation 11 on information sharing between forces so that predators like Couzens cannot move from force to force? This is not an issue for the Met alone.”
“The possibility of an end to the killing—whatever we call it—brings hope in Gaza, Israel and, indeed, here, but I fear that divisions in our communities will remain. Many constituents have written to me upset at the difference they see in how Palestinian lives, Palestinian dignity and Islamophobia are valued in comparison with Israeli lives, Israeli dignity and antisemitism. Can the Minister go some way to perhaps addressing those concerns by condemning, for example, the Israeli Ministers and others who have ruled out a Palestinian state? Will he condemn the occupation, as well as settler violence? Will he condemn the Israeli soldiers who filmed themselves posing on the bicycles of dead Gazan children or rifling through the clothes of dead Gazan women?”
“I thank the Minister for his generosity with his time. It is not only companies that are exploiting leaseholders; the St Mary Magdalene and Holy Jesus Trust in my constituency refuses to allow its leaseholders to extend their lease or buy their freehold. The charitable exception is very complex, and nobody wants historic houses to be sold, but these are ordinary terraced houses and the charity used to sell the freehold and, indeed, extend leaseholds in the past. Is it possible for the Minister to meet me or my constituents to look at how this issue can be addressed in the future?”
“Like most Members, I receive hundreds of invitations every week, and much more spam. It takes a member of my team hours—sometimes days—to go through them all. That is time that could be much better spent supporting constituents, particularly in a cost of living crisis. There are digital tools that can help with that; none that the hon. Gentleman mentioned will do so. Microsoft recently demoed its Copilot tool, which uses artificial intelligence. Other tools are available. While there may be issues of privacy, security and bias with such tools, as with much AI, can he confirm that the Commission is looking specifically at AI tools to help us in our work for our constituents?”
“The Post Office Horizon scandal is now commonly called one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history—so many lives devastated, some lost. An inevitable consequence of that is to undermine public confidence in the Post Office, in technology, as misrepresented by the Post Office and Fujitsu, and in the Minister’s Department, particularly following the performance—that is the right word for it—of the Secretary of State on Monday. What is he doing to restore public confidence in the Post Office, in technology and in his Department? Does he recognise that swift payment of compensation is an important part of that?”
“British researchers are among the best in the world. We are not so good at turning our brilliant research into the growth that our economy so desperately needs, which requires collaboration between businesses and universities throughout the long years of discovery, testing, adoption and commercialisation. Funding science in chunks of three years or less does not help, so universities, businesses and researchers have all welcomed Labour’s commitment to set 10-year budgets for funding bodies in key institutions. Does the Secretary of State agree, or is that too much to expect from a short-term, sticking-plaster Government?”
“For example, beagles are used for toxicity testing; they are injected, fed poisonous chemicals and asphyxiated in their numbers. It is impossible not to feel for these animals. At the same time, we must recognise that advocates of that type of testing will argue that it is necessary to save human lives, as the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) highlighted so powerfully.”
“Cell cultures, advanced modelling and donor tissues are already helping to reduce the use of animals in testing. In cosmetics, we have seen great success in using NAMs to predict skin sensitisation. A 2018 study found that they were even better than the once-standard mouse test. One of the petitions calls for an end to the use of dogs in testing. Dogs currently cannot be used in testing if any other species could be used, but in 2022 4,122 dogs were experimented on. I thank the 31,350 people who signed the petition, including 18 of my constituents in Newcastle upon Tyne Central. The other petition calls for an end to toxicity testing in favour of NAMs, and I thank the 109,378 people, including 96 of my constituents, who signed it. The two petitions naturally overlap.”
“Over 1.5 million experimental procedures involving animals were carried out in 2022; 4% of those were assessed as non-recovery—that is to say, the animal died—and almost 4% again were classed as severe. There are real reasons to foresee a better future. We are in the midst of a scientific and technological revolution that is transforming the economy, society and the conduct of science itself. Non-animal or new approach methods—NAMs—for scientific research are developing at great pace, enabled by advances in artificial intelligence and engineering biology. It is true that there are currently limits to the efficacy of NAMs, but that is becoming less true with each passing year and, as has been pointed out during the debate, there are clear limits to the efficacy of animal testing.”
“As the shadow Minister for science, research and innovation, my priority is to enable the best possible science in this country, which will deliver the best possible outcomes for people across the UK, people across the world and, I believe, animals as well. Since the introduction of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, animal testing practices have improved. The three Rs—replacement, reduction and refinement—have already been mentioned, and they remain worthy principles. As the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) emphasised, however, many people are rightly distressed and concerned by the scale and, at times, severity of animal testing.”
“Animals improve the welfare of humans in many ways, ranging from providing companionship and improving mental health, to facilitating rescues during natural disasters. Animals serve as the best companions, offering emotional support and reducing feelings of loneliness. Domesticated animals can help people to recover from severe illnesses, and they help us in speech therapy, occupational therapy and further physical rehabilitation. On Thursday, I visited St Paul’s CofE Primary School in Elswick, Newcastle. I asked them what they wanted from Parliament, and top of the list was an end to food poverty and a support dog. Animal welfare and the love of animals are at the heart of British society and culture.”
“We introduced the offence of causing unnecessary suffering, mutilation and animal fighting, and we banned the testing of cosmetic products on animals in 1998. The last Labour Government had a record to be proud of and, if we are privileged to form the next Government, we will build on that legacy. The British people expect nothing less because, as Members have pointed out, we are a nation of animal lovers. As the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said, the RSPCA was founded in 1824—60 years before the founding of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. I do not think that reflects a hierarchy of concern, but it does reflect the extent to which we are concerned about the welfare of animals, and it is no wonder.”
“As the Opposition spokesperson in the debate, I state clearly and emphasise that the Labour party believes that the unnecessary suffering of defenceless animals is unequivocally wrong. The Labour party was founded to support the rights of working people, and I believe strongly that human rights and animal rights are intrinsically linked. Those who are cruel to animals or ignore their rights often do the same to humans, so recognising and standing up for the rights of animals is an important part of Labour’s record. From the Hunting Act 2004, which banned the cruel practice of hunting with dogs, to the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which put in place strong domestic protections for pets, livestock and wild animals, we have used the power of Government to protect animals.”
“It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Caroline. I acknowledge the strength of public feeling about animal testing. Together, the petitions that we are debating today received more than 140,000 signatures, including 114 in Newcastle upon Tyne Central. I thank everyone who signed the petitions for bringing these important issues to be debated in Parliament once again. The petitioners are calling for an end to the use of dogs in testing and research in the UK, an end to the use of animals in toxicity testing, and the prioritisation of non-animal methods, which are key issues. I congratulate the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) on his expert introduction to the debate, and all those who have made speeches or intervened. All the contributions have been very well informed and thoughtful.”