BLAIR ACCUSED
Monkey lab objection
The following extract concerning the proposed Cambridge
primate labs is from the Daily Express, Saturday January 3, 2004. See also
the coverage in the Guardian and our press
release.
 Tony
Blair will next week be accused of abusing the planning system over the Government's
green light for a £32 million monkey research laboratory.
The National Anti-Vivisection Society and Animal Aid are to launch a High Court
challenge to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's controversial approval of
the scheme. He overruled his own planning inspector in November after Mr Blair
declared his support for the scheme. Another prominent supporter is science
minister Lord Sainsbury who has personally bankrolled the Labour Party to the
tune of £11.5 million.
The legal challenge will describe Mr Prescott's decision to reject the planning
inspector's advice as "perverse, unreasonable and unfair". The Cambridge
University lab will damage monkeys' brains in pursuit of cures for Parkinson's,
Huntington's and other diseases. Animal welfare groups argue that the experiments
will be cruel, the results will have no value for humans because monkeys have
different brains and more humane alternatives exist.
Mr Prescott backed the Green Belt scheme even though the inspector ruled that
Cambridge University had failed to show that there was a "national need"
for the laboratory. The local authority has also twice rejected the plan.
The appeal will argue that Mr Blair's public support and letters from Lord
Sainsbury backing the lab influenced the decision.
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