Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of project licence applications under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 were returned to the applicant with a request for additional information to address (a) errors and (b) the absence of essential information in each of the last four years.

The Regulator reports that project licence applications for the last four years had a mean number of 2.55 iterations before granting. The Regulator does not collect data on the number of applications withdrawn, but reports that such occurrences are rare.

The Home Office Regulator for animals in science provides comprehensive guidance to project licence applicants and has a thorough and extensive application process; see Guidance at:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6700017e080bdf716392ee63/Guidance_on_the_operation_of_ASPA_-_December_2023.pdf

Applicants may not apply for a licence unless they are doing so under an Establishment licence with all the associated requirements of the legislation, have demonstrable funding and can demonstrate appropriate availability of resources as well as having been through a rigorous process of local checks and balances. First time applications to the Regulator are therefore of general high conformity with legal requirements.