Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to Project 4 entitled Image Guided Therapy for Cardiovascular Disease in the Non-technical summaries for project licences granted April – June 2026 that require a retrospective assessment, published in June 2026, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the information provided by the applicant on the expected severity of procedures in informing the licensing decision; and what is meant by the classification of mice and rats as under severe in that project.

The Home Office keeps the quality and consistency of non-technical summaries published under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (ASPA) under review. In May 2026, the Government accepted recommendations from the Animals in Science Committee to improve the transparency, clarity and consistency of non-technical summaries and retrospective assessments. The Government response and delivery plan are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-technical-summaries-and-retrospective-assessments-response-from-lord-hanson.

For Project 4, Image Guided Therapy for Cardiovascular Disease, the Home Office Regulator was satisfied that the application contained sufficient information to undertake the statutory harm-benefit analysis and inform the licensing decision. This assessment considered not only the prospective severity classification, but also the nature, duration and likelihood of the potential harms, the numbers and proportion of animals likely to be affected, the expected benefits, and the measures in place to minimise suffering.

The expected severity classifications indicate the maximum level of harm that an animal could reasonably be expected to experience under the authorised procedures; it does not mean that every mouse or rat in the procedures will experience suffering at that level. The application also sets out refinements, monitoring arrangements and humane end-points intended to prevent or minimise such harms.