it would appear from the evidence that we have seen that, far from failing to maintain adequate oversight of the company’s compliance with their licence conditions, the Home Office in fact devoted significantly greater resources to monitoring the company’s research than would normally have been the case.

Elsewhere the Ombudsman describes how the Home Office ‘sought to explain to Uncaged Campaigns on a number of occasions that the documents in their possession do not provide a complete picture and that reliable conclusions cannot be drawn from them about the assessment and monitoring of the company’s research’. In other words, Uncaged are not bothered by the facts of the case.

The Ombmudsman even describes another one of the complaints at ‘spurious’.

This leaves Uncaged empty handed. Animal rights groups have cost the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds in wasted time, effort and manpower in chasing up ill-founded allegations. The results of these numerous investigations only go to show how empty their case really is.

As it happens the report highlights once again the stringency of UK regulations on animal research. The Ombudsman reports that ‘It was the Inspectorate’s concerns about the limited prospects of success with the company’s preferred strategy that led to the company discontinuing their work in the United Kingdom’. Unlike Uncaged, we don’t feel at liberty to make sweeping judgements about matters when we don’t have the facts to hand. But we only hope the Home Office were right in their assessment. Xenotransplantation is a potentially valuable area of research for the many thousands of people desparately awaiting organ transplants. It would be a great concern if such research was not progressing here.