Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if his Department will undertake a review of all animal procedures to (a) identify and (b) remove (i) redundant, (ii) duplicate and (iii) wasteful methods of animal testing.

The Home Office Regulator reviews every project licence application to use animals in scientific procedures. A licence will only be granted when the Regulator is satisfied that there are no practicable alternatives, that the number of animals used is the minimum needed to achieve the scientific benefit, and that any harm to animals is limited to that needed to achieve the scientific benefit.

The National Centre for the 3Rs, which receives core funding from UK Research and Innovation, supports these aims by working to accelerate the replacement, reduction and refinement of the use of animals in research.