Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what funding her Department gives to research councils for the purpose of conducting non-animal tests or research.

The Home Office does not provide any direct funding to Research Councils for the purposes of non-animal tests or research, or tests or research involving animals as it performs predominately a regulatory function. Significant Government funding is deployed to encourage the development and uptake of non-animal tests, largely through the Department for Business, Innovation and Science.

The Home Office does however provide £250,000 per year to the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) to fund its activities, which include developing and promoting alternatives to the use of animals in research. Some research into non-animal methods requires the use of animals for validation and other purposes. It is therefore not possible to state definitively how much of this contribution has been used for the purpose of conducting non-animal tests or research, to fund tests or research involving animals, or for the purpose of promoting the uptake of alternatives.