Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what her Department is taking to reduce toxicity tests performed on animals for new chemical substances.

The UK has been in the forefront in opposing animal tests where alternative approaches could be used – the “last-resort principle” - and we will retain that principle moving forward, enshrining it in the Environment Bill

We are working collaboratively with partner countries at the OECD as part of their test guidelines programme to develop new methods aimed at reducing the need for performing tests on animals for new chemical substances.