Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, regarding the Decapods: call for evidence which closed on 13 October 2023, what consideration they have made of the evidence received, when results will be published, and when a policy decision based on this evidence will be made.

The Government is carefully considering the results from the call for evidence regarding the current use of decapods in science to inform future policy options.

The Home Office intend to commission the independent advisory body, the Animals in Science Committee (ASC), for advice on this issue. The scope of the commission to the ASC will be made public. We will then publish in due course.