Porton Down: Animal Experiments

(asked on 29th January 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many experiments were conducted on animals by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory on behalf of his Department in each of the last 10 years.


Answered by
James Heappey Portrait
James Heappey
Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
This question was answered on 6th February 2020

The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) makes has an active programme to reduce and replace animal experiments and in recent years we have developed a number of alternative methods for testing that do not require animals. We will continue to look for alternatives so that we minimise our use of animals.

Animal experiments are regulated by the UK Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (ASPA). Under ASPA, “animal experiments” are referred to as “scientific procedures”. In accordance with ASPA, Dstl makes an annual report of scientific procedures to the Home Office.

The numbers of scientific procedures using animals conducted at Dstl Porton Down between 2009 and 2015 have been previously reported to the House as in the table below:

Year

Total

2009

8,452

2010

9,438

2011

9,722

2012

8,830

2013

6,461

2014

4,124

2015

3,249

For the years 2016 to 2018, the numbers of procedures are in the table below. Data for 2019 will be available later this year.

Year

Total

2016

2,747

2017

3,905

2018

1,941

Reticulating Splines