Commercial Breeding for Laboratories

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Elliot Colburn]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The UK led the way on banning the use of animals for cosmetic testing. Indeed, just in this Parliament, we have passed so much animal welfare legislation. This issue does seem to be a glaring omission that I believe we should look at.

We can debate the merits or otherwise of animal testing in the past, but there is growing evidence and a growing consensus in the scientific community that we are reaching—if we have not already reached—the limit of any research potential of animal testing. There has been a lack of progress in many key areas of health that concern all of us, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and many other diseases, especially cancer. Animal experimentation is cited as playing a major role in the slow rate of progress, due to the significant biological differences between species, which prevent the translation of findings from animals to humans.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful presentation. On that point, is it not increasingly the case that animal experimentation is just bad science and, worse still, is actually hindering the development of treatments that benefit humankind? On both scores, it is something we should be consigning to the history books.

[Elliot Colburn]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The evidence demonstrates that animal testing has very little benefit. I think we are in the single figures when we look at the percentage of tests that have gone from being successful in animals to successful in humans. It is a waste of money, and we should therefore increasingly be looking to consign animal testing to the dustbin of history. To give a further example, a 2019 study found that it could not recommend any animal model that could reliably predict the efficacy of potential treatments for Alzheimer’s, which is one of the largest health challenges facing this country.

Finally, I want to talk about what the petition is calling for—a NAMs committee—and expand a little on what NAMs, or non-animal methods, are. Because of technological advancements, NAMs have the power not only to replace animal testing but to improve the robustness of the testing that we do, provide more accurate results and be more cost-effective. They are directly relevant to human patients, so they are much more likely to provide the scientific and medical breakthroughs that we are looking for than animal testing. There is growing evidence that NAMs are able to predict potential harms to patients from new drugs that were not identified by animal tests. For example, a recent study found that Emulate’s liver-on-chips were able to correctly identify 87% of drugs that caused drug-induced liver injury to patients despite passing through animal testing. University of Oxford researchers have developed an animal-free model of stroke by using organ-on-a-chip technology. They were able to replicate the blood-brain barrier and mimic a stroke, which creates new possibilities for testing stroke drugs in human cells.

Without regulatory change, the Government could create a NAMs committee to ensure that the UK legal framework is enforced. An independent NAMs specialist committee could review applications for project licences prior to approval so that a licence is granted only if there truly is no replacement method. If the committee felt that that was not the case, it could refer the application back to the applicant, and those assessing it, with advice on where to find appropriate NAMs to meet the research or testing need. That would help to ensure that, as the 1986 Act stipulates, animal testing licences are granted only if there are no appropriate replacements, and it would promote the wider use, research and development of NAMs. A NAMs committee could be constructed in the same way as the existing, animals in science committee: as an advisory, non-departmental public body that is sponsored by the Home Office. Members would be independent NAMs experts who represent a wide range of expertise.

Those proposals are not something that I or the petition creators have picked out of thin air; they are already being implemented across the world. The most recent development came just in December last year, when US President Biden signed the FDA Modernisation Act 2.0, which will make it easier for researchers to choose non-animal testing methods. I strongly believe that if the US can do it, we can do it too—and make a success of it.

I reiterate, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) mentioned, our fantastic record of implementing animal welfare reforms, including the recent Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, the Ivory Act 2018, the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021, which increased the maximum penalties for animal cruelty, and so much more. However, this issue is a glaring omission. I hope that the Minister can update the House on what steps her Department is taking to address problems surrounding commercial breeding, what investigations there are into the MBR Acres site, and what consideration she has given to establishing a NAMs committee, so that the UK can finally adopt the three Rs, adhere to the letter of the 1986 Act and move away from animal exploitation in favour of innovation.