Animals in Science Regulation Unit: Annual Report 2024

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) on securing this debate, and thank hon. Members for their contributions.

It is important to start by reflecting on the horror of some of the stories we have heard and some of the cases that have been reported regarding animal treatment. I question whether anybody in this House would want that to continue. I suspect we are all united in wanting to phase out animal testing as quickly as possible. It is understandable that there are Members of this House who are pushing the Government to go much faster than we already are, but we are all heading in the same direction and trying to get the same outcome. It is right and proper that campaign groups, Members of Parliament and others continue to push us to do everything we can, because we need to do that.

The transparency of the report was important. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones) said, we need to understand picture, and the more information and data we have, the more we can see where the challenges are. I agree with that point; we need more transparency in the system to make sure we get to where we went to be as quickly as possible.

As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns), said, our laws are unequivocal that animal testing cannot be authorised where a scientifically valid non-animal alternative exists. That is the law, and we need to make sure it is implemented. It is a fundamental principle for us all, in terms of the care that we have for our animals and the need to avoid unnecessary harm. As the shadow Minister also said, at the moment, despite rapid progress in science, there are not validated alternatives for every area of research and safety testing.

[Ruth Jones]

The Minister says there are not alternatives, but there are. The forced swim test is a classic, as is the LD50. These need to be phased out; we do not need them any more. I gently encourage the Minister to tell us how we can phase these out as quickly as possible.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for her persistence with me; I expect her to continue to be persistent. We can go faster with some things than others, and I will come on to the strategy that the Government have published, which has been broadly welcomed across the House. We want to go as fast as we can in the work that we do. Obviously, we are focusing today on the animals in science regulation unit, and the annual report that it published. It is not actually a statutory responsibility for it to publish that report, although maybe it should be, so I welcome its publication.

[Navendu Mishra]

The Minister is making an important speech. I am pleased to learn that pretty much everyone in this debate shares the vision of phasing out animal testing. I have two questions: first, does the Home Office have enough resources for tackling illegal and unethical animal testing; secondly, would she work with the MPs in this debate to make that report a statutory requirement?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for jumping on something I have said and holding me to account for it, which is very good. We had a similar debate to this one last week or the week before, and what came out of it—I will come on to this—was an understanding that the regulator is going through a period of reform and increasing capacity. Good things are happening in that space, but there is concern among MPs that that is not going fast or widely enough.

In the last debate, I suggested that we should meet as a group of MPs with the regulator, have these conversations and try to flush out some of the things that MPs are concerned about. The MPs who were taking part in that debate had not had the opportunity to have those conversations with the regulator, so I took back as an action that we should sit collectively and have that conversation, which I am happy to do. The reason I am not directly giving my hon. Friend the immediate response that he is asking for in terms of changing the statutory responsibility of the regulator is just because it does not sit within my remit. I want to make sure that hon. Members are satisfied that we are going as fast and as far as we can, and perhaps a meeting with the regulator would be useful on that front.

The reform that I had begun to talk about, which is overseen by my noble Friend Lord Hanson in the other place and was agreed last year, has involved an increase. Members have rightly said, “Are there enough people focused on doing this work?” We have seen an increase in inspectors from an average of 14.5 full-time equivalents in 2023 to 22 by March 2026. By expanding its capabilities, it is able to do more; the conversation that we would want to have with the regulator is about whether it is satisfied that is enough, or whether it thinks we need to go further.

The two-pronged approach of this Government is, first, to phase out the use of animal testing. I pay tribute to the campaigners pushing for Herbie’s law and I absolutely understand the need for pace and for us to be held to account to go as fast as we can. The strategy to phase out the use of animals, alongside a beefed-up regulator, is the response that this Government are taking. We want to maintain public confidence in our animal testing processes and in our research. As the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford said—I have now quoted her three times; I need to stop quoting her so much—we do need to make sure that the life sciences industry, which is important for this country, is not pushing animal testing abroad and that we maintain our standards here.

I heard the message from Members about the fear that we might fall behind our European Union and US colleagues in this space. I am very interested in working across Government with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Lord Vallance, who are leading on the phasing out of animal research work, to push as hard as we can and look abroad. I will take that back as another action and speak to my colleague Lord Vallance—I suspect hon. Members already have—to make sure that we are learning the lessons from other countries and not falling behind; that, in fact, we are keeping pace.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

The Minister will no doubt have highlighted the work of the Government. I know the Government are committed to phasing out animal testing, but the Animals in Science Regulation Unit report highlights the horrors that we unfortunately have in the system. Does she not agree that we need to work at pace to ensure that alternative methods are explored and implemented?

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

I am renowned for my generosity in the Chair and I am extremely open minded about how debates are conducted, but it is not really appropriate to come in two thirds of the way through and intervene when everyone else took the trouble to get here at the beginning. We are all busy, after all.

[Sarah Jones]

Thank you, Sir John, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Of course we need to go as fast as we can.

The strategy that the Government have published includes establishing a UK centre for the validation of alternative methods and 26 commitments for delivery or initiation across 2026 and 2027. It includes a commitment that from this year

“we will publish biennially a list of alternative methods research and development priorities to coalesce UK scientists around these areas and to incentivise partnerships between research organisations”.

In our most recent debate on this subject, we talked about this being an opportunity for UK science and technology to be innovators in this space and push forward new science. We want to go as fast as we can, and we will move as quickly as the science allows. Our commitment is clear: we want to work in step with the scientific community to reduce and ultimately replace the use of animals in research.

As hon. Members know, we have a three-pronged regulatory framework. It requires a personal licence—about 13,000 people have one. The procedures must form part of an approved programme of work, which must be licensed, and the work must be carried out in a licensed establishment. Our licensing is robust, in terms of the processes that people must go through before they do something as serious as test on animals. Even before a proposed project to test on animals reaches the regulator for consideration, it must undergo multiple layers of scrutiny to ensure it is justified and ethical, including from funders and animal welfare and ethical review bodies at scientific establishments. That is important.

On the work of the regulator, the transparency that we want to deliver and the changes that we have pushed through, we want to ensure we get this right. My noble Friend Lord Hanson commissioned the Animals in Science Committee—an expert committee that advises the Government on animal protection—to provide recommendations on improving the accessibility of the publicly available animal testing project summaries, and proposals are now being considered. That reflects our commitment to openness, accountability and continuous improvement.

Several hon. Members spoke about the point at which audits are made and checks are carried out. They are concerned about self-reporting. I heard that in the previous debate, and I have heard it today; that is an important part of the conversation that we need to have with the regulator. There is an important question about whether we are doing enough unannounced audits, and I am committed to going back and testing that. With the support of hon. Members, we can look at that properly.

As lots of Members said, 2.5 million procedures were conducted in Great Britain in 2024, so this is a big landscape and we need to get it right. I recognise the potential for error and wrongdoing. I want to ensure that hon. Members and campaigners are as satisfied as possible that the regulator is doing what it needs to do. There is a programme of reform under way, and we need to test it and see whether it is enough. I am committed to speaking to Lord Vallance. If any Members want to come to a meeting with the regulator, they should let me know; that will be important.

The fact that the Government have put £75 million behind the programme to phase out animal testing shows that we are putting our money where our priorities are. I know that hon. Members across the House will welcome that, but of course we need to go as fast as we can. In that vein, I again thank the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East for securing this debate and holding the Government to account on these very important issues.