Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the recent publication of the Annual Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain 2023, whether they have considered the merits of legislative action such as 'Herbie's Law', to support a further decrease in the number of scientific procedures performed on living animals and to support the long-term phase-out of animal experiments in medical research by 2035.

The Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) is leading on plans to accelerate the development, validation and uptake of alternatives to animal testing.

As yet, no assessment has been made of the potential merits of introducing Herbie’s Law.