Animal Testing

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Jones (Newport West and Islwyn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Mr Twigg. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for introducing this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. She is a fantastic, tireless champion of the rights of animals and does a great job chairing the APPG on phasing out animal experiments, of which I am proud to be a member. I also thank the 211 constituents in Newport West and Islwyn who signed this petition to end animal testing. The fact that the Public Gallery is so full today is testament to how important this subject is to so many across the UK.

We have already heard that the number of procedures in 2024 was some 2.6 million, just 2% lower than the preceding year. Although 2024 marked the lowest number of scientific procedures involving living animals since 2001, the pace of reduction is far too slow. Britain, as we have already heard, is proudly badged as a nation of animal lovers and a world leader in animal welfare, but it is critical that we do not rest on our laurels. Indeed, continued leadership requires urgent commitments on further reforms to the regulatory, licensing and inspection regime governing the use of animals in science on the UK. I aim to touch on each of those areas in my speech —but I will be brief, as I can see the Chair’s eyebrows raising.

I first turn to regulation. I greatly welcome the Labour Government’s new “Replacing animals in science” strategy, and their clear ambition for phasing out basket grouping of unnecessary tests on animals in the near future. I particularly support funding for a new UK centre for the validation of alternative methods and investment in non-animal method technologies.

Although the strategy is detailed and comprehensive, I still believe that there are areas where we can go further. Embedding the targets to phase out routine tests prioritised as part of baskets 1 and 2 in law would provide absolute certainty to both the scientific community and campaigners of our commitment to end the use of animals in testing. Such a step could also bring in wider investment in UK scientific research, strengthening our position as a global leader in the development of animal-free testing methods. I therefore urge the Minister to commit to introducing Herbie’s law and enshrining the targets committed to in the recent strategy in legislation.

I turn to licensing, which I have raised previously in Westminster Hall debates. I continue to believe that the Animals in Science Regulation Unit needs urgent reform. One of the key roles of the ASRU is administering the licensing regime created by ASPA. That is critical to reducing the number of animals used in scientific testing, as the Act already requires proactive consideration of the three Rs framework: replacing, reducing and refining the use of animals in such experiments. That is supposed to ensure that animals are used only as a last resort, but the embedding of the approach needs strengthening. That was a key reflection of the Rawle report, published in 2023, which voiced concerns that the welfare inspection regime risked embedding a focus on “box-ticking” rather than ensuring a culture of genuine commitment to advancing the three Rs.

I greatly welcome the Government recognition of the need to strengthen the ethical review approval process to ensure that animals are used only where there is no alternative in line with the findings of the Rawle report. I therefore ask the Minister to report on the progress being made by his Department in strengthening the application of the three Rs following the publication of the Animals in Science Committee’s January report, and in advance of its forthcoming report in September.

Of particular importance is strengthening the ASRU’s understanding of the rapid developments in non-animal methods—NAMs. That is essential to ensuring that the application of the three Rs is effective and in line with international best practice, such as that now being implemented by the US Food and Drug Administration as part of its road map. It is interesting that the US is now ahead of us in this area. I urge the Minister that we need to get back on top here.

Responsibility for driving this change sits directly with Ministers, with statutory duties to assess for the three Rs—particularly replacement, which sits with the Home Secretary. As such, Ministers must drive the necessary reform of the ASRU, ensuring that it has the expertise to effectively and independently verify whether applications have been appropriately evaluated against NAMs.

The ASRU has typically been composed of vets, who unfortunately, given the fast-moving nature of the field, do not always have up-to-date expertise in modern NAMs, including organs on chips and computational biology. Those handling applications need to be well versed in those technologies and able to engage in critical questions around scientific methodologies and data validation, rather than reliant on a replacement checklist. ASPA requires that scientifically satisfactory NAMs are used “wherever possible”. Given that, and the section 2A duties on the Home Secretary—I appreciate that is a different Department—I ask the Minister what steps they are taking to improve the training and expertise available to ASRU inspectors to allow them to effectively and independently verify application compliance with ASPA.

Of particular concern are tests taken under the so-called “generic” project licences as highlighted by Animal Aid and Animals International. Those licences are granted without knowing the substances being tested, and as such, a harm-benefit analysis cannot have been done. I therefore ask the Minister what specific steps he is taking to review “generic” project licences to avoid unnecessary harm and strengthen application of the three Rs. I appreciate that relates to a different Department, but I am sure that his Department will be working in lockstep with the Home Office, so I look forward to the response.

Turning to enforcement, adherence to ASPA within licensed premises also continues to be a site of significant concern. The latest annual report from the ASRU made extremely grim reading. The 146 reported cases of non-compliance with legal requirements of licensing conditions highlight an ongoing failure to prevent appalling animal suffering in laboratories. That includes extreme cases of animals drowning or starving to death. In total, those cases detail the suffering of more than 22,000 animals. Those numbers are significant, but unfortunately they only reflect breaches self-reported to the ASRU. My fear is that the numbers are far greater than those documented. That only underlines the importance of an effective inspection regime and promoting a proactive culture of safeguarding animal welfare.

Despite the ASRU issuing more than 15,000 licences in 2024, at the end of that year, the ASRU had only 8.2 full-time equivalent inspectors. That means that just 68 establishments were inspected in 2024, with only 10 of those inspections being unannounced. I therefore welcome commitments made by the Government to increase the number of veterinary and medical inspectors working for the ASRU, and I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether the Government have been successful in recruiting to meet the previously stated target of 22 inspectors by March this year.

In closing, the continued testing on animals demands moral leadership. That requires urgent implementation of the replacing animals in science strategy, strengthening enforcement of ASPA, and using Britain’s unique position as a global leader in animal welfare and pharmaceuticals to chart a global path towards ending animal testing once and for all. I thank the Petitions Committee for bringing this debate to Westminster Hall, and I urge the Minister to go faster in eradicating animal testing. The public is impatient and wants change quickly, and so do we.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

Who has the cat called Chairman Meow, then? It must be somebody else. My hon. Friend was right to mention the Competition and Markets Authority investigation into vet costs. We want to achieve our manifesto commitment on that issue; it was a very clear part of our manifesto and we all want to see the same outcomes from that. The hon. Member for Yeovil mentioned AI and asked us about the action so far, which I have run through.

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones), we agree with the principle of Herbie’s law. We cannot set arbitrary timelines for things that we may not be able to achieve, but we have set some strong ones already, including the 35% reduction by 2030. If we can go faster and further, of course we will; it will depend on whether we can get validated scientific research in place. We will write to her on the finer details about whether we have those 22 inspectors in place.

Let me go into why we would not put Herbie’s law on a statutory footing. In line with international practice, we are using the three baskets approach to group animal tests and prioritise their replacements—this is mainly about dogs. Basket one covers areas where there is a mature replacement tech: for example, the strategy aims by the end of 2026—this year—to use only alternative methods for skin irritation testing. Basket two covers areas where there are medium-term replacements: we aim to replace the use of fish acute toxicity tests for chemicals regulated by REACH, the regulation on the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals, by the end of 2028. The strategy does therefore have defined end points, where they can be defined. Basket three covers complex end points and long-term aims. By the end of 2035, we aim to include alternative methods and regulations for endocrine disruption tests—I do not know what that means, but maybe one of the vets in the Chamber can tell us. Those aims are not on a statutory footing, but they are Government commitments. They are gateways that we want to go through with the three baskets approach.

[Ruth Jones]

I understand the timetable that the Minister is outlining, which is great, but there are still millions of tests being undertaken every year unnecessarily. We know about the forced swim and LD50 tests. Could the Minister outline a bit more the review of the generic project licences? How can we issue a licence for a generic project when we do not know about it? How can we evaluate and assess the risks there?

[Ian Murray]

We will write to my hon. Friend with the details on those individual projects—the regulations are run by the Home Office, so I will write to her on those three specific issues and make sure that everyone in the Chamber has a copy.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) said that the scale of the suffering prevented should overwhelmingly outweigh the suffering involved in testing. I think we would all agree with that. That is exactly the proportionate way in which we need to look at the issue. It is undeniable that huge pharmaceutical and medical progress has been made on the back of animal testing—the covid vaccine was a good example of alleviating suffering—but he is right to challenge us on that moral issue. That is why the strategy is in place.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) is right that replacing animals in testing is the right thing to do and that the public want to see action. We agree; that is why we are taking action. The strategy should seed that innovation. It is not just about the Government saying, “This is what we want to achieve.” Hopefully, the industry and innovation will seed that through. We have seen that with other advancements, such as the ban on cosmetics testing that my hon. Friend talked about. Hopefully, that will seed industry to move forward and find innovative ways through, backed by the Government strategy.

The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers), listed the advances in life science innovation; that is tremendous progress, but we need to go further and faster to move away from animal testing. He posed that challenge and we agree with him. He also made the important point that we have a strict regulatory environment for animal testing in this country. I will come on to that in my conclusion, but it is one of strictest in the world, and rightly so.

The hon. Member rightly challenged us by pointing out the danger that if we were to cut animal testing off now, it would go overseas, and in that case we would see a whole raft of additional animals suffering in places that do not have the same standards. That is not to diminish the issue. While we have testing in this country and regulate it to those standards, we should be making sure that the standards are met, notwithstanding all the issues that have been raised by Members today. However, there is a real danger that if we were to cut that off now, without alternatives in place, it would go overseas—an issue that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune), also raised.

We will have to come back to the hon. Member for Winchester on dual licensing for veterinary use. There is an issue with the way in which animal testing works with regard to the licensing arrangements that he set out. Animal testing is also used for the veterinary side of medicines and advancements in technology, and we must be cognisant of that.

I appreciate the tone in which the shadow Minister spoke. There has been a lot done in this area; many Members have mentioned the word “pace”, and that is what we want to see, but the previous Government took a number of actions. Is a 35% reduction by 2030 achievable? We think it is. Many would say that that is not ambitious enough and some would say that it is too ambitious, but we do want to achieve it. That is why the strategy is in place, and why money is a key part of it.

Using animals in science requires us to adhere continually to the highest possible standards of animal welfare. That is reflected in the UK’s world-leading, robust regulation of the use of animals in science through the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. That Act specifies that animals can only be used in science for specific, limited purposes where there are no alternatives, where the number of animals used is the minimum needed to achieve the scientific benefit, and where the potential harm to animals is limited to the absolute minimum. Those requirements are known as the three Rs: replacement, reduction and refinement, as we have discussed.

Dogs are a specifically protected species under ASPA. Projects must justify why animals are needed, why dogs specifically are needed, and why the numbers and procedures are necessary. Projects are only authorised where that justification is robust. The e-petition rightly mentions the conditions in which dogs are kept, and I want to address those claims—not to dismiss them, but to show that the regulatory system in the UK works. The UK has some of the most stringent regulations in the world governing how animals are bred, housed and cared for, with legally enforceable standards, regular announced and unannounced inspections, and a clear requirement to minimise pain, suffering and distress.

The use of animals in science is highly regulated. All establishments are required to have dedicated individuals, including veterinary surgeons, with legal responsibilities for the care and welfare of animals, and an ethical review body that reviews any proposals for the use of animals and promotes the three Rs of animal use. The reality is that the technology is not yet advanced enough for alternative methods to replace the use of animals completely. For now, animal testing and research plays an important role in supporting the development of new medicines and cutting-edge medical technologies for humans and animals—for example, the development of the covid-19 vaccine.

Many Members have mentioned failure rates. Animals are used to assess how potential new medicines affect biological systems, ensuring that drugs are safe and effective before human trials. The petition points out that 90% of drugs that appear safe and effective in animals do not go on to receive FDA approval. However, to say that 92% of drugs fail in human trials despite being tested on animals is to ignore all those candidate drugs that are tested on animals and found not to be suitable to progress to human trials. That is the issue that we are trying to resolve. Animal studies are only one part of a layered system that screens out unsafe or ineffective substances before they ever reach volunteers and patients.

Animal testing is required by all global medicines regulators, including the MHRA; that is another international issue we have to resolve. Although the MHRA does not require all medicines to be tested on two species, safety testing in a second species is required for most drugs, with dogs being one of the species that can be used. The key proposal in the petition calls for the end of testing on dogs and other animals for the development of products for human use.

None of us wants dogs to be used in research, despite how carefully animal welfare is regulated in this country. However, an immediate prohibition would undermine the UK’s ability to test and regulate new medicines and vaccines for humans and, indeed, for the animals themselves. We would be unable to meet our international regulatory requirements for drug safety testing, which would prevent virtually all first-in-human trials in the UK from happening, compromise our capacity to respond rapidly to future health threats, result in slower access to new treatments for UK patients and slow the innovation required to remove animal testing altogether. That is the key challenge that we are seeking to achieve with the strategy.

We want a future where animals are used only in very exceptional circumstances and we are acting as fast as we can to get there through the “Replacing animals in science” strategy and its delivery. We will keep driving the shift to validated alternative methods wherever possible, while maintaining the robust protections that keep people, animals and the environment safe in the meantime. I thank Members once again for their insightful contributions to the debate; I am sure we will have many more in the future, and I look forward to working together as the strategy progresses.