Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the correlation between the availability of non-animal alternatives and the number of skin sensitisation tests carried out on mice between 2015 and 2019; and for what reason those tests increased by 375 per cent in 2020 compared with 2019.

The Home Office has made no such assessment of non-animal alternatives and the number of skin sensitisation tests carried out on mice between 2015 and 2019; and for what reason those tests increased in 2020.

The requirements for regulatory testing are set by regulatory bodies across Government. The Home Department regulates the use of animals in science through administration and enforcement of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (ASPA) which describes that the evaluation of a programme of work is favourable if it is required by law.

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.