Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's document entitled Annual Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals Great Britain, for what reasons the number of animal experiments for protection of the natural environment increased from 12,264 in 2018 to 29,343 in 2019.

With reference to the report entitled Annual Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals Great Britain 2019, published in July 2020, the baseline numbers of scientific procedures are influenced by a range of factors – including the programmes of work and available funding. This includes numbers related to: experiments for protection of the natural environment; an increase in the use of beagles born in the rest of the world in experiments; and, a decrease in experiments on animals relating to skin sensitisation.

Dogs are a specially protected species under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. The Home Office will only grant a project licence for a programme of work using dogs where the purpose of the programme of work specified in the licence can only be achieved by their use, or where it is not practicable to use other suitable animals.

The Home Office assures that, in every research proposal: animals are replaced with non-animal alternatives wherever possible; the number of animals are reduced to the minimum necessary to achieve the result sought; and that, for those animals which must be used, procedures are refined as much as possible to minimise their suffering.