Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals Great Britain 2018 report published in July 2019, for what reason there was a 7 per cent increase in the use of animals in higher education and training between 2017 and 2018; what those experiments involved; and at what level of higher education those experiments took place.

The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 provides for the authorisation of licences for higher education and training. The numbers of animals used in higher education and training each year depends on a number of factors that support a trained and skilled workforce, including the required programmes of work and available funding.

Information on the type of procedures conducted during animal experiments is collected by establishments, not the Home Office. The Animals in Science Regulation Unit (ASRU) is required under the legislation to collect annual statistics on the use of protected animals in regulated procedures. This requirement is for the categorisation of the purpose of the procedures but does not include collecting information on the types of procedures undertaken during animal experiments.

The statistics do not differentiate the numbers of procedures at any given level of higher education.