asked Her Majesty's Government:What steps the Medical Research Council is taking to support research into teratology.

The Medical Research Council supports research relevant to teratology both in its own establishments and by way of grants to research workers in university departments and medical schools.At the council's clinical research centre studies are being undertaken on (1) the effects of waste anaesthetic gases on operating theatre staff and teratogenic effects in animals and control of contamination, and (2) on the effects of anaesthetics on cardiac contractility, cell motility and division and mutagenesis.The following projects in universities and medical schools are currently supported by the council:

Name of Project	Institute
Positional signalling in chick limb morphogenesis	Middlesex Hospital Medical School
Hamster teratogens in potato sprouts	London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
The effect of aminocentesis and liquor drainage on pulmonary development in the Macaque monkey	University College London School of Medicine

Nutritional mechanisms in the early rat embryo and their susceptibility to modification by teratogens	University of Leicester
Effects of ethyl alcohol on cell acquisition, migration and differentiation in the developing brain	Royal Postgraduate Medical School
Development of whole-embryo culture methods for studying teratological problems	University of Cambridge
Further studies on the effects in rodents of fusarium mycotoxins	Royal Veterinary College, London
Environmental Factors responsible for the appearance of neural tube defects in curly-tail mice	Guy's Hospital Medical School, London

In addition, other basic work is also being carried out under the council's auspices involving or relevant to teratogens in the field of (1) mammalian and vertebrae development; (2) studies in the mechanisms of mutagenesis of human and other mammalian cells; (3) neural tube defects including anencephalia and spina bifida; and (4) rubella and foetal development studies generally.

asked Her Majesty's Government:How many requests have been made by chairmen of boards of visitors and of local benches to the Metropolitan Commissioner to visit prisoners in police cells since the beginning of the prison officers' dispute.

I understand that the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis has received no formal requests, but that at least one such visit has taken place by local arrangement. I regret that information about the precise number of visits that have taken place is not readily available.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What decision they have reached on whether there should be a statutory right to a passport.

After careful consideration the Government have concluded that they should maintain the present system, whereby United Kingdom passports are issued at the discretion of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs exercising the Royal Prerogative.In practice, refusal of passport facilities to United Kingdom nationals is confined to certain well defined categories of which Parliament has been informed from time to time. These are: