How my faith in the Senedd’s Petitions Committee was shattered

Deborah Davies

When I launched a petition last September on behalf of Wales Against Animal Experiments (WAAE), calling on the Welsh Government to stop funding animal testing and instead to divert money to human-relevant technologies, the Senedd petitions process was very new to me.

But I was reassured by the courteous and even friendly support provided by the Petitions Team in helping me navigate these new waters.

On more than one occasion I found myself defending the petitions procedure to people who voiced opinions such as “it’s a waste of time” or ‘“they never listen”. I insisted that the Senedd welcomes petitions because they allow issues of concern to the Welsh public to be identified.

My faith in the system was shattered when at the end of the process – the actual Petitions Committee meeting – our case was dismissed and closed in less than three minutes, discounting 13,931 signatures of support.

After six months of collecting signatures followed by seven weeks of research on our part, the actual committee “discussion” on April 28 was over before it had begun.

Dispatched

I was left feeling that somehow our petition had inadvertently passed through their system without detection and so needed to be quickly dispatched.

Yet the Senedd has a system in place to vet petitions and only those which are relevant and within the powers of Welsh ministers are approved for discussion. A member of the Petitions Team had actually commented that the approach taken, that of asking the Welsh Government to scrutinise its use of public funds, had circumvented the issue that animal procedures per se are not devolved to Wales.

Other than the Chair, only one MS addressed the petition, the other three members declining to comment. He referred only to the arguments made by the Deputy First Minister who had rejected our call for public money to fund human-based research.

While a plenary debate was never a given despite surpassing the required threshold, other options could have been explored such as referring the petition to another committee with more knowledge of the matter.

The only agreed action was to write to Welsh universities undertaking animal testing to ascertain their position. This seemed counter-intuitive given that we had evidenced that researchers cannot be relied upon to limit their use of animals, and that Welsh Government intervention in terms of ending funding streams is required.

Research

As the petitioner, I had in fact been invited to respond to the Deputy First Minister’s comments and been offered the opportunity to conduct further research to provide the committee with additional information. A response document on behalf of WAAE had been duly submitted which addressed, and indeed countered, each of the points made by the Minister.

To my disbelief, none of our evidence was referred to in the meeting and, in fact, no acknowledgement made that a response had been provided by WAAE. To what extent this was due to late circulation of the committee papers (Friday afternoon before the Monday meeting) is uncertain. Or perhaps, due to the politically sensitive nature of the petition, the committee had been advised to discount the response in its decision-making?

For those interested in reading WAAE’s response, it is now publicly available here. It shows that contrary to what has been said, public funding of medical research is not always “hands off” as it does directly fund some studies involving the use of animals, in partnership with other stakeholders. It also evidences that many animal procedures are conducted unnecessarily in universities, in contravention of the law.

Appeal

It seems there is no appeals process and that the committee’s decision is final. Perhaps the Senedd should consider introducing a ruling that if petitioners, as invited, make the effort of doing more research and providing documentary evidence in support of their arguments, in the interests of openness and transparency such input is acknowledged and discussed.

To our written question “Is Wales really going to continue causing suffering and death to sentient beings, irrespective of public opinion, when there is no legal requirement nor scientific basis to do so?”, the answer was sadly “yes”.

If, like us, you feel that the Senedd missed an opportunity to modernise medical research and advance a more humane and effective research model, please show your support by joining our grassroots movement. It is after all with the people of Wales that the power should reside.