Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the strategy Replacing animals in science, published on 11 November 2025, whether they plan to establish a national platform to catalogue and share non-animal methods and expertise used in research and regulatory testing.

Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The UK National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) Gateway on F1000Research is an established platform to accelerate the dissemination of detailed non-animal methodologies, data notes, and software tools to improve animal welfare and reduce animal use in science. In the ‘Replacing animals in science’ strategy published in November 2025 we commit to increasing the scope of the gateway so that by the end of 2026 it is available to all researchers developing alternative methods.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to implement a national screening programme of children for exposure to lead (1) in general, or (2) in cases where there is a reason to suspect exposure; and what action they plan to take to identify and remove or seal off sources of lead contamination.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is advised on all screening matters by the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent scientific advisory committee which is made up of leading medical and screening experts. Where the committee is confident that there is robust evidence that demonstrates that to offer screening provides more good than harm, they recommend a screening programme.

The UK NSC made a recommendation not to screen children for lead poisoning in 2018. This is because:

- the number of children affected in the United Kingdom is currently not known;

- the test was not reliable enough; and

- treatments in children with mild symptoms have not been proven and may also be harmful.

In 2024 a proposal was submitted to the UK NSC via its open call, to review the decision made in 2018 for screening children for lead poisoning. The UK NSC is planning to undertake an evidence map, which is the first step in the evidence review process.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) advises that exposure to lead should be as low as reasonably practicable. The UKHSA support partners in identifying the pathway and source of lead and advises on appropriate public health interventions to aid in reducing exposure. Interventions include interruption of lead exposure pathways by source identification and remediation or abatement, behavioural interventions, and consideration of whether others may be at risk of exposure. The UKHSA is also involved in raising awareness as many healthcare professionals are unaware that lead still poses a risk in the UK and elsewhere.

The remit of the UKHSA in relation to lead contamination is advisory and does not extend to undertaking any remedial measures.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, and what data they have collected, on the rate of the development of long covid among children and adults of working age.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The most recent data from the Winter COVID-19 Infection Study, a joint study carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the UK Health Security Agency, show that, for the period 6 February 2024 to 7 March 2024, an estimated 1,140,000 people, or 1.9% of the population, in private households in England and Scotland, reported experiencing long COVID symptoms more than twelve weeks after a COVID-19 infection. This includes 66,000 people aged three to 17 years old, and 840,000 people aged 18 to 64 years old.

Data for the four-week period ending 5 March 2023 from the Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK ONS dataset shows that the estimated number of people living in private households in the United Kingdom with self-reported long COVID who first had, or suspected they had, COVID-19 at least 12 weeks previously, was 1.7 million. This includes 59,000 people aged from two to 16 years old, and 1.5 million people aged 17 to 69 years old.

Data for the four-week period ending 5 March 2022 from the Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK ONS dataset shows that the estimated number of people living in UK private households with self-reported long COVID who first had, or suspected they had, COVID-19 at least 12 weeks previously, was 1.2 million. This includes 99,000 people aged from two to 16 years old, and one million people aged 17 to 69 years old.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the strategy Replacing animals in science, published on 11 November 2025, what steps they are taking to reduce and replace the use of animals in basic research; what measurable targets and timetable they have set for doing so; and what steps they will take to report on progress.

Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

Transparent targets and milestones and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the delivery of the Replacing Animals in Science Strategy will be published later in 2026. Any work to phase out animal testing must be science-led, in lock step with partners, so we will not be setting arbitrary timelines for overall reduction, but we will publish timelines for specific actions.