Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce use of live animals in experiments.

The Home Office ensures that animal research and testing is carried out only where no practicable alternative exists, and under controls which keep suffering to the minimum. This is achieved through robustly applying the principles of the 3Rs which require that, in every research proposal, animals are replaced with non-animal alternatives wherever possible; that the number of animals used is reduced to the minimum needed to achieve the results sought; and that, for those animals which must be used, procedures are refined as much as possible to minimise their suffering.