Animal Testing

Peter Swallow Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Irene Campbell]

I agree with everything my hon. Friend said, and I will say more about that.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. A conflict is sometimes presented between our understandable concerns about animal welfare and good science, but, as she set out, there is no such conflict. The really heartbreaking, frustrating thing is that many of the ongoing experiments that cause animals to suffer are far less rigorous than some of the alternatives that we already know work better but are not yet regulated in the same way. Does she agree that the Government’s road map fires the starting gun to make sure we have regulated alternatives in place as quickly as possible? Will she join me in urging the Government to move as quickly as possible so we can get better, more robust science and protect animals? It is an “and”, not an “or” or an “either”.

[Irene Campbell]

I agree with everything my hon. Friend said. I will speak about some of this later on, but I have on occasion met the relevant Minister and we are due to have a meeting soon. At one meeting, I asked specifically that we remove dogs immediately from medical testing. I was very disappointed by the answer, but we need to keep up the momentum on these serious issues.

There are alternatives to animal research—known as new approach methodologies, or NAMs—that are constantly being researched and developed. For example, any Members here who attended last year’s Lush Cosmetics event would have seen their soaps depicting organ-on-a-chip technology; they are plastic chips that can mimic human organ and tissues for experimentation.

AI is another great and exciting opportunity for replacing animal testing. A software called AnimalGAN, developed by the US Food and Drug Administration, aims to accurately determine how rats would react to chemicals without the need to do new rat tests.