Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the new Advanced Research and Invention Agency will provide dedicated funding for research that uses and seeks to further develop (a) the use of advanced cultures of human cells and tissues, (b) artificial intelligence, (c) organ-on-a-chip technology human tissue models and (d) other techniques that do not use animals relevant to disease modelling and drug testing for humans; whether he plans to make an assessment of the potential merits of having as a focus for that Agency the acceleration of the replacement of animal experiments with such techniques; and if he will make a statement.

The CEO and leadership of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), not Government, will be responsible for the strategic direction of their programme portfolio. While there are many UK funding programmes for which Ministers do set the strategic direction, ARIA is specifically being set up without those constraints.