Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the publication of the annual statistics of scientific procedures on living animals in Great Britain for 2020, what factors have contributed to the increase in procedures using dogs, cats, horses and rats.

The numbers of animals used each year depends on a number of factors, including the scientific requirement for the programmes of work.

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 an increase in procedures using dogs, cats, horses and rats