Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of reviewing plant protection product testing to remove the need to use dogs for testing.

GB pesticides regulations contain rules that require sharing of tests and studies involving vertebrate animals between pesticide companies to ensure that such testing is minimised. The assimilated regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 requires that testing on vertebrate animals shall be undertaken only where no other methods are available and that duplication of tests and studies on vertebrates undertaken for the purposes of pesticides regulation must be avoided.

It is an offence to carry out animal tests in contravention of the regulations. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) implement and enforce these requirements as the competent authority for these regulations, acting on behalf of the UK and Devolved Governments in Scotland and Wales.

The Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations state that approved pesticide active substances are to be regarded as fully registered and therefore there is no occasion for additional testing of pesticides for the purposes of REACH registration.