Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that animal testing does not cause undue harm.

Delivery of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, through the UK’s regulatory system, ensures that animal research and testing is carried out only where no practicable alternatives exist, and under controls which keep suffering to the minimum.

This is achieved through robustly applying the principles of the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) which require that, in every research proposal, animals are replaced with non-animal alternatives wherever practicable; that the number of animals used is reduced to the minimum needed to achieve the results sought; and that, for those animals which must be used, procedures are refined as much as practicable to minimise their suffering.

All applications for animal research are assessed by Home Office Inspectors to assess the harms, benefits and likelihood of delivery, including the effective implementation of the 3Rs. A judgement is then made, in a harm benefit analysis, as to whether the likely harms are justified by the expected benefits. Only after completion of this process will the Home Office consider granting a licence for the proposed work to go ahead. Once a licence is granted, establishments are regularly inspected by Home Office inspectors for compliance with the terms of their licence and the legislation.