Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make assessment of the potential merits of the creation a new ministerial role with specific responsibility for leading the replacement of animal experiments with human relevant science.

The Government continues to actively support and fund the development and dissemination of the 3Rs (replacement, reduction and refinement) for the use of animals in scientific procedures. This is achieved through UK Research and Innovation’s funding of the National Centre for the 3Rs, which works nationally and internationally to drive the uptake of non-animal technologies, and through research into the development of alternatives by Innovate UK, the Medical Research Council, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

The Government is committed to the development of alternatives to using animals in scientific procedures and to avoiding unnecessary suffering. As laid out in the List of Ministerial responsibilities, I am the Minister with lead responsibility in this area.