Animals in Science Regulation Unit: Annual Report 2024

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) on securing this really important debate today. I congratulate all the speakers who have participated. I thought they all made powerful and useful contributions to the debate.

The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East powerfully highlighted some of the horrific and unacceptable treatment of animals in research. The Liberal Democrats are champions of animal rights, and I am proud to speak on behalf of the hundreds of animal rights campaigners from my constituency today. I must add a special mention of my constituent from Bude, Steph Jones-Giles, who is a true animal rights champion and has spoken to me about this on many occasions. I see Isobel Martin from Animal Free Research UK in the Gallery; she is also an excellent advocate on this issue.

Fundamentally, Liberal Democrats believe that this country should expect only the absolute highest standards of animal welfare in the scientific experimentation and cosmetic industries. We want to get this country back on track as a world leader in this area and take concrete steps to raise animal welfare standards and get the balance right. The latest annual report by the Animals in Science Regulation Unit, the subject of our debate, shows a number of welcome steps and intentions facing the right direction of travel. It rightly places a strong focus on avoiding the use of animals in scientific testing wherever possible.

I am proud that we Liberal Democrats are at the forefront of raising these issues. Lord Clement-Jones, a colleague from the other place, is applying the right pressure to ensure that regulation in this area remains precise and adequate, with encouragement to properly prevent and punish any non-compliance that causes undue harm to animals, which has been mentioned by many hon. Members today. However, it is alarming to read, in the latest report, of the 146 cases of non-compliance in 2024. As many Members have pointed out, those are only the cases that have been reported. Although marking a drop in cases compared to the previous year, those were largely failures to provide proper care such as food and water to the animals being tested on, as we have heard, and to adhere to the strict licence conditions.

Those countless cases of malpractice involved more than 22,000 individual animals, with most being mice. It is a truly shameful statistic. In October 2024, the Regulation Unit made some welcome reforms by increasing their team of full-time inspectors and establishing a new governance board for the unit for greater oversight, which has made a welcome and positive impact.

On a wider point, I am proud to have voted against the draconian measures that were put before the House just over two weeks ago, along with my Liberal Democrat colleagues. We stood firm against expansion of the Public Order Act 2023, which bans legitimate and peaceful animal rights protests and criminalises those activists demanding better welfare for animals involved in testing. I reiterate that once more: I am talking about peaceful campaigners who are raising genuine ethical concerns being treated like terrorists under the guise of threats to our national security. Time and time again in years gone by, the Conservative party undermined our right to peaceful protest by introducing sweeping, overreaching powers that go far beyond what is needed to maintain public safety. The police already had strong powers to deal with dangerous or obstructive behaviour before the current Government and their Conservative predecessors imposed those totally unnecessary extra measures.

I will briefly refer to some hon. Members’ speeches. The hon. Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones) highlighted the starvation and injury of primates and, again, the possible under-reporting of non-compliance in the self-reporting system we find ourselves with, which means we may have only scratched the surface of illegal animal abuse. The hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) highlighted the 5 million animals that are to be used in experiments in the coming years, and made a powerful case for Herbie’s law. The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) has been a long-standing champion on this issue; I think I am already a member of her APPG but, if I am not, I will make sure to join. The hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) mentioned how experiments have been made on more than 2,500 dogs and 1,000 primates, and, again, highlighted the cases that have not been reported.

Liberal Democrats are unapologetic in wanting to see minimal use of animals in scientific testing and the phasing out of testing altogether wherever possible and as soon as possible. We urgently call on the Government to provide greater funding into viable alternatives. In her response, will the Minister commit to a full, new animal health and welfare Bill that looks at the wider issue of animal welfare and delivers a comprehensive national strategy to safeguard animal wellbeing in this sector? As part of their ongoing reset talks with the European Union, will the Government sign a veterinary and phytosanitary agreement as soon as possible to ensure closer alignment on standards and quality with the trading block? Finally, will the Government commit to solidifying minimum standards for all imported food, so that our own animal standards are met by every other nation looking to do business? That would prevent our British farmers being undercut by poorer-quality foreign imports that do not have the same standards.