Animal Testing

Samantha Niblett Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 736578 relating to animal testing.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on phasing out animal experiments in medical research, for which Animal Free Research provides the secretariat. I am a long-time campaigner in this area, as well as on many other topics relating to animal welfare. It is important to me and many others that animals are replaced in research as soon as possible.

The petition, created by Maria Iriart from Camp Beagle, is titled: “End testing on dogs and other animals for development of products for human use”. It reads:

“Many tests on dogs and other animals cause unimaginable suffering. They can translate poorly into effective treatments and cures for human diseases or provide safety and efficacy data that is not relevant to humans. Over 90% of drugs that appear safe and effective in animals do not go on to receive FDA, USA approval.

In 2023, 2,605,528 animals were used for the first time in scientific procedures incl. 2,477 dogs & 1,815 primates. Animals are bred & housed in bleak conditions and then used in tests that can cause immense physical and psychological suffering. We think government-led action is required to radically divert funding and evolve policy to implement the use of existing and the development of new Non-Animal Methodologies (NAMS). We believe the current testing paradigm is failing both animals and humans and is holding back medical advances.”

The petition has attracted almost 121,000 signatures—that is a great achievement, and it is good to see Maria in the Gallery today—of which 121 are from my constituency.

I know that people care deeply about this topic and I have received many emails from constituents, as well as from members of the public living in other constituencies. In the past week, many of them have referenced the exposés in The Mail on Sunday and Daily Mirror, which showed incredibly disturbing footage of what is going on in UK laboratories. In particular, there were shocking images of long-tailed macaques being force-fed new weight-loss drugs and suffering from extreme distress. It is horrible to think about the pain and torture that innocent animals have to be put through so that humans can be helped to lose weight. It is important to note that those images being circulated are from laboratory sites that are regulated and operating within the law. There are more experiments that I would like to talk about in greater detail, such as testing of anti-inflammation drugs on beagles and of skin treatments on pigs. However, the content is so distressing that I feel it is too disturbing to share during the debate.

[Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)]

We are a nation of animal lovers—my very first Westminster Hall debate was on animal welfare—although, as a constituent pointed out to me, if we love animals so much, we should not need an animal welfare strategy. I welcome the Government’s animal welfare strategy and the move towards ending testing on animals, but does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that beagles are used because they are placid is utterly heartbreaking, and that any move to expedite the end of animal testing would be welcomed by many of our constituents?

[Irene Campbell]

I agree with both my hon. Friend’s points. It is important that this issue is dealt with sooner rather than later, and I will say more about that later.