Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals Great Britain 2018 report published in July 2019, for what reason there has been a 16 per cent increase in dog use since 2017 in the context of dogs being given special protection under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986; and what steps the Government is taking to reduce and replace the use of dogs in experiments.

The Home Office assures that, in every research proposal: animals are replaced with non-animal alternatives wherever possible; the number of animals are reduced to the minimum necessary to achieve the result sought; and that, for those animals which must be used, procedures are refined as much as possible to minimise their suffering.

The Home Office has made no assessment of why there was a 16% increase in the use of dogs since 2017.