Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister and the department on bringing forward these regulations, which I believe reach the right balance. As the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, who has great expertise in the field of science, has set out, there will be certain circumstances in which we will have to continue, for a short time into the foreseeable future, with these scientific regulations. I would like to ask some questions, if I may. Are the regulations going to impose an additional burden on the Home Office? Does the Minister feel that he and the department have the resources to deal with that? At some point in this parliamentary Session, we will receive and consider the Brexit reset Bill. I assume, rightly or wrongly, that these regulations will not have a further review as part of the reset because we have now incorporated them into retained EU law. My understanding—perhaps this is wrong—is that, if there were to be any changes to the regulations over and above what we are discussing and adopting today, that might require primary legislation. It would be helpful to know what the vehicle for that legislation would be. Would it be the Brexit reset Bill, or can we be assured that there will be no further changes? There is a link between the Home Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Is the Minister confident that his department can take all the decisions they need to take? Where is the decision-making going to fall? Will it be entirely within his department, collaborating with DSIT, or are they going to have to work in collaboration? Who will actually make the final decisions? Lastly, I understand that the target is that there will be a 35% reduction in the use of dogs and non-human primates in such experiments by 2030. Is that still the case? Are we on course to achieve that? I put on record that I think that we have reached the right balance here on what can be perceived as a very vexatious issue. I congratulate the department and the Home Office on bringing these regulations forward.