I thank the noble Lord for his intervention and agree, although we know that animals kept in good conditions of husbandry are much less susceptible to disease. My first approach is to keep animals in conditions where they are not susceptible to disease, and then you do not need to go
to the expense and effort of developing vaccines or using antibiotics, which have the issues with resistance that were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron.
I was talking about respiratory viruses. Our population is threatened now by not just Covid-19 but a number of other coronaviruses that have long been causing respiratory diseases in humans. We are threatened by rhinoviruses and by flus, all because of conditions that make us prone to respiratory illnesses spreading. Tackling just one of those, as we have done with the Covid-19 vaccine that the noble Lord just referred to, with great effect, does not mean that we will stop all those other forms of respiratory illness.
That has covered the main points. I want to come back to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Winston, which raises some interesting points on great apes. I would extend this to all simians or monkeys. I ask your Lordships’ House to consider whether we actually want to be gene editing great apes or monkeys.
The point about equines is also very interesting when we think about horseracing and the enormous amount of money and the possibly shady characters involved in it. Whether we really want to see gene-editing in racehorses leads us into the companion animals question. It is a real area of concern. On that, the noble Lord, Lord Trees, referred to brachycephalic breeds that are identified as a problem area. If the breed societies were to say that they were going to create really rigid rules and change their definition of what those breeds are supposed to look like, that would be another way, a kind of husbandry way, of tackling the issue.
I will of course withdraw the amendment at this stage, but before I do that, I want to ask the Minister a question. Following on from the noble Lord, Lord Winston, does he think we should leave open the possibility of gene-editing great apes?