That this House has considered e-petitions 633591 and 645885 relating to animal testing and non-animal research methods.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Caroline. On behalf of the Petitions Committee, I would like to introduce two petitions dealing with legislation on animal testing and the promotion of non-animal research methods. I stress that we are here once again—this is becoming an annual debate. That demonstrates the strength of feeling of our constituents and of people across the UK, a nation of animal lovers, that these procedures and processes really must start being brought to an end.
I will start by reading the prayers of the petitions. The first, e-petition 633591, advocates for the ending of animal toxicity tests and the prioritisation of non-animal methods, or NAMs. The petition was started by Maria and closed in September 2023 with 109,378 signatures, including 233 from my Carshalton and Wallington constituency. It argues that NAMs are
“more predictive of human biology, more economically advantageous,”
and prevent animal suffering. E-petition 645885 calls for the banning of the use of dogs for testing and research, citing their cognitive abilities and emotional range. The petition was started by singer-songwriter and actor Will Young, who I am delighted to see in the Public Gallery today. As of now, it has over 30,000 signatures, including 35 from Carshalton and Wallington.
Let me begin with a bit of background information. Animal testing is covered by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which was amended in 2012 to include cephalopods as protected animals. Regulated procedures include acts that may cause pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm to animals. Animal testing is often cited by some in the industry as being necessary for various purposes, including drug development, veterinary medicines, and chemical or environmental safety testing. However, we have already made movements away from it, for example in the 1998 ban on testing of beauty products and cosmetics, and in a recent written answer, the Government confirmed that there are no laws mandating its use. Nevertheless, we are still in a very challenging situation, and these practices continue.
I want to reiterate some of the data that we spoke about last year. In 2021, over 3 million scientific procedures were conducted on animals. If that number were not bad enough, that was actually an increase on previous years—an increase in the use of dogs by 3%, of cats by 6%, of horses by 29% and of monkeys by 17%. We can only speculate why the number increased, but that certainly does not tie in with the messages we hear that the use of NAMs is on the up and the use of animals on the down.
The issue is not just that these procedures are happening to animals, but the awful conditions that animals are often kept in while waiting for procedures to be done to them. A recent report from the Animals in Science Regulation Unit described “deeply troubling” animal welfare standards in British laboratories between 2019 and 2021. I am sure that many of us will have received emails containing pictures and videos of some of those procedures. I have seen some pretty awful things that are happening to animals here in the UK, despite the industry telling us that it upholds the highest possible animal welfare standards. Failings include a non-human primate dying after becoming trapped behind a restraint device; 112 rats being crushed alive when they were moved in error to a compactor; and numerous incidents of animals being left without water or food.
As I said, the UK purports to be a nation of animal lovers, and I truly believe that it is, but we need to ensure that we update our laws to truly reflect that fact. I acknowledge that efforts are being made to promote NAMs—including cell cultures, human tissues, computer modelling and volunteer studies—and that organisations are trying to invest in and improve the use of NAMs to reduce reliance on animal testing. However, I want to pay particular attention to the second of the two petitions that we are debating, which relates specifically to dogs.
Dogs are most commonly used in secondary species testing. That is where a test on an animal, normally a mouse or rat, has already been conducted but some researchers go on to conduct a secondary test on a different species, and dogs are commonly cited as animals used for that. However, the industry itself says that that is almost completely unnecessary now. Companies such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca have stood up at global health forums and said, “We don’t want to do secondary species testing any more. Please help us find the road map to get us out of the need to do this.”
I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene; he is making a passionate speech on such an important matter. My constituency is Ynys Môn, and we are an island of animal lovers—animals ranging from dolphins and red squirrels to sheep and cattle and our feline and canine friends—so it is no surprise that many of my constituents actively campaign for the rights of animals and support reducing the use of animals in scientific experiments. They and I would like to know what steps the Government are taking to support the pharmaceutical industry in the development and use of non-animal testing models.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention; I think that more than 100 of her constituents signed this petition too. I hope that the Minister heard her request—indeed, I am sure that it is an ask of all of us in the Chamber today. What is being done, and what more can be done, to try to encourage people out of using animals and into using non-animal methods?
I want to pick up again the point about animal welfare. Many people will cite the regulations that are in place in the UK for animals in experiment environments. However, this statistic might shed some light on why welfare standards are so low. As of 2021, there were only an estimated 23 full-time equivalent inspectors in the United Kingdom. That is 23 inspectors trying to look at 3 million different procedures. The fact that so much self-reporting is going on in the industry and there are so few inspectors leads, again, to the argument that non-animal methods are a much better use of money and bring with them higher ethical and moral standards.
I want to go through some of the proposed solutions before I hand over to some of my colleagues. PETA—People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—has proposed a solution known as the research modernisation deal, or RMD, which offers a strategy to eliminate the use of animals in biomedical research, regulatory testing and education. It prioritises non-animal methods, conducts critical reviews to assess the necessity of animal use, and reallocates funds to non-animal methods. This is aimed specifically at making the UK once again a leader in innovative, ethical scientific practices. Furthermore, we have seen advances in technology such as in vitro and in silico tests, and innovative technologies such as organs on chips, which offer higher levels of protection and prediction accuracy.
My hon. Friend makes the really important point that non-animal methods can be much more accurate than using animals in these experiments. Does he agree that companies such as Lush, which came to Parliament before Christmas to advocate for those methods, have shown the way in which, through science, we can do better?
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. This is something that we cannot stress enough in this debate: it has been proven in the data time and again that non-animal methods are highly accurate, and much more accurate when it comes to predicting human responses than animal testing is. In fact, animal testing has such low levels of success when it comes to measuring how a drug or something else might affect a human that we would not accept that in any other form of business. When the levels of prediction are so poor, why are we still accepting it? It does not make any sense—not when we have alternatives that can offer much greater clarity about to how humans will react to products and drugs.
However, there are challenges standing in the way, and one of them remains funding for NAMs. Pfizer and AstraZeneca have said that they do not want to do things such as secondary species testing, but regulatory guidelines often expect new drugs to be tested on animals and there is a lack of consensus on possible transition timelines. There is also push-back from the industry, which is resistant to change. However, in advance of this debate I spoke to many scientists and industry leads who said they are crying out for change and want to be at the forefront of non-animal methods. We need to give them the tools to do so and look at the way we fund research.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. He is standing up for all the animals that do not have a voice in the industry and speaking for those across the UK who want to support them. Several organisations contacted me and talked about the need for change. They said that we must look after animals—particularly beagle pups—post testing where possible, but they pointed out that the industry has been very resistant to engaging with rehoming centres, even when the beagle pups have not undergone lethal testing. Surely we can do better. Whenever an animal can have a life in a loving home afterwards, we must make that happen.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I hope the Minister heard that.
Commercial breeding—in particular, of beagles—is hard for this country to accept. The data shows that a lot of such testing, if not all of it, is unnecessary because the accuracy of the tests is so low. Given that secondary species tests on dogs seem so unnecessary, why are we still allowing them to happen?
Since the debate last year, there has been some welcome news internationally: Canada, Australia and countries within the European Union have come up with road maps for ending animal testing. It is critical that we ask the Government to consider how we do that. We need a strategy and a road map to work with the industry, campaign groups, charities, other organisations and the people who are in the Public Gallery today, to move us away from the use of animals and towards non-animal methods as the default standard. I appreciate that some countries have found it difficult to come up with precise timelines because of disagreements within the sector, but that does not mean we should not try. That is the key thing to take away from this debate.
There are things that we can do in the immediate and interim terms, one of which is to look at animal welfare standards. Twenty-three people looking at 3 million procedures simply is not enough. We also need an immediate review of the necessity of secondary species testing. Whatever happens next, it is imperative that we prioritise the development and adoption of non-animal research methods. The fact the number of scientific procedures conducted on animals went up in 2021—we actually stopped collecting data after that point, so we are not entirely sure how many we are doing, which I think is a mistake—demonstrates that there is not enough impetus behind the agenda of moving towards non-animal methods.
I ask the Government to invest in and fund NAMs properly by reallocating existing funds and promoting collaboration. They have an incredible ability to bring together the industry, researchers, advocacy groups, campaigners and others to create a road map and a strategy so we can truly say that the UK does not need to use animal testing methods any more. We can stop the use of animals and hold ourselves up to an incredibly high international standard as a nation of animal lovers.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Caroline. I congratulate the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) on leading the debate in such a detailed, passionate and knowledgeable way.
My constituents, like all others, are passionate about animals, and many have contacted me to oppose their use in laboratory testing. It is upsetting for all those who love animals to learn that, in laboratories across the country, so many animals—including dogs, which we often describe as our best friends—are subjected to awful experiments under the guise of the public good.
It is often said that the UK is a nation of animal lovers, and I think that that is absolutely true. The UK was the first country to instigate animal protection laws, in 1822, and the first to set up an animal welfare charity, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Public opinion is clear, and nearly 100 of my constituents have signed the petition to end the use of animals for toxicity tests and to prioritise non-animal methods, or NAMs. There is enough evidence now that non-animal methods can be more accurate, more cost-effective and quicker than traditional animal models.
Although researchers are already required to use non-animal methods wherever possible, concerns have been raised that the process of checking whether NAMs have been used is not rigorous enough. Cruelty Free International has found cases of animal testing being used despite non-animal alternatives being available. It is therefore disappointing that the Government’s response to these petitions is that there will be no change in the law. Although we should all welcome the fact that we have improved our animal welfare laws over the years, we should not be complacent. At a time when new alternatives and non-animal methods are being developed, we should embrace this opportunity for leadership and to make regulations more stringent.
This is an incredibly important debate, which has been brought about by these two petitions. In 1986, this country introduced the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act. At the time, it was seen as world-leading and as the gold standard, with its three Rs principles: to replace animal testing wherever possible; to reduce animal testing where it was not possible to replace it; and to refine it to reduce suffering where it occurred. However, it is increasingly clear that a review of the legislation is now needed and that we need to make further legislative improvements. We have always been ahead of the United States on animal welfare issues, but this is one area where, arguably, we have now fallen behind them. Until recently, the US required animal testing for certain product authorisations, but it has now brought forward legislation to modern its statute and make it explicit that there is no need for animal testing for any of those products.
In the UK, we have a degree of ambiguity. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency does not explicitly require animal testing, but there is a degree of ambiguity because it is equally cautious about saying that there should not be animal testing. I will come on to that later.
In debates such as this we should always give credit where credit is due, and it is important to note that the Government effectively banned the use of animal testing in the development of cosmetics in 2023, or at least made it clear that there would be no new licences for such activities. That followed the huge progress made by companies such as Unilever and others to phase out the need for animal testing on their products. However, the greatest concern for me is that despite exponential growth in non-animal methods and huge leaps in that technology over 20 years—with the development, for instance, of organ-on-chip technology and bioprinting—the number of animals used in animal tests remains stubbornly high, at around 4 million per year, principally mice.
I have always thought that one of the problems—as a former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will have insight into this—is that animal welfare sits with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs but the Home Office is in charge of licensing. Usually it is in the hands of a Minister who has 101 other things on their plate, and it is a small part of their brief. Today, we have the team from the Science Department here, and I hope they are looking at the more progressive view. Is the problem that there is no one Minister who can take ownership of the issue?
That is part of the problem. I am sure that the Minister has a busy diary, and there is an argument that the issue falls partly on the Science Department and partly on the Home Office. At the moment, the unit that processes the licences sits in the Home Office but, as I will say later, there is a strong case for a machinery of government change that relieves the Home Office of that burden, which it is not really qualified to carry out, and transfers it to a Department such as DEFRA, where there are vets and where the legislation can be treated, rightly, as a piece of animal welfare legislation, rather than a piece of scientific licensing.
I want to explain why we have this problem. Three types of licence are needed to carry out these scientific procedures. An individual has to have a licence, and there is a licence on the establishment, which is fairly uncontroversial. The difficulty comes with the project licences. Universities and research institutions have internal animal welfare and ethics boards, which assess applications before they go to the Home Office. But how hard do they challenge requests from academics working in their institutions? Perhaps they occasionally ask a few questions and challenge a bit, but it appears that they, effectively, defer to the judgment of the academics who put in the requests, and the academics then agree. The ethics board agrees to the application, which is then submitted to the Home Office.
Let us bear in mind that the team in the Home Office have to process around 4,000 project licences a year. They are overworked and stretched. They will see that an ethics board, with professors and people with “Dr” in front of their names, has assessed that the project is necessary. They will defer to the scientific knowledge of those boards—and perhaps wrongly so. Although scientists are qualified to give good technical analysis, they are not, by and large, qualified to make good decisions, least of all when it comes to decisions relating to policies underpinned by laws made in this House. Only the civil service, backed up by Ministers, can make those kinds of decisions.
As always, Dame Caroline, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) on his excellent introduction to this debate, which set out all the issues in his usual informed style.
I have spoken about animal welfare on many occasions in Parliament. It has consistently remained at the forefront of the issues that my constituents write to me about. I am honoured to represent them in this debate. I have always maintained that we are a nation of animal lovers; I believe that the nearly 110,000 signatures that e-petition 633591 gained is proof of that, along with the 31,000 that e-petition 645885 has so far gathered.
In 2022, 2.76 million scientific procedures involving live animals were carried out in Great Britain. Of those, 55% were for experimental purposes; creating and breeding genetically altered animals accounted for the other 45%. A smidgen of good news is that between 2021 and 2022, there was a 10% decrease in the number of procedures, which reached the lowest numbers since 2002, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) pointed out. Although 4,122 procedures were used on dogs, that was a 2% decrease on 2021. The problem is that there are still too many of these experiments taking place.
In a recent YouGov poll, nearly three quarters of respondents were opposed to the testing of both ingredients and completed cosmetics on animals. This included 58% of people “strongly” opposed to both types of testing. While some 47% of people think that testing individual ingredients from medicines on animals is acceptable when there is no non-animal alternative, 30% think that it is not acceptable.
As somebody who has campaigned on these issues for a long time, I naturally fall into the majority view on animal testing with respect to cosmetics; I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth for his work on the issue as Secretary of State. When it comes to medicines, however, I tend to melt into a mess of complexity. Sometimes, personal experiences and those of our constituents can muddy a binary view on this issue. I have absolutely no doubt that the success of my breast cancer treatment is down to past experiments that have taken place on animals. It is hard to remove that from the equation.
I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for opening the debate so comprehensively, as he has done with other such debates. I am delighted to participate in this debate on animal testing and non-animal research methods, arising from e-petitions that have attracted more than 140,000 signatures between them. The petitions call for an end to the use of animals for toxicity tests, the prioritisation of non-animal methods in research, and a ban on the use of dogs for testing and research purposes.
The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) is not alone in receiving a lot of emails about animal welfare. I certainly receive more emails about animal welfare than about any other issue, which is quite remarkable when we consider the issues that we see on the news every day, but which shows the level of concern, commitment and affection that our constituents across the UK have for animal welfare.
We have debated many times the principle of using animals in research—and here we are again. It is frustrating, but those of us who believe that testing on animals must end must keep debating it and making the case until we see an end to these horrific and unnecessary practices. As we have heard, it has long been accepted that animals are sentient beings that are able to have physical and emotional experiences. We know that the public wish overwhelmingly to see an end to animal testing, because it is cruel, causes suffering and, more importantly, is unnecessary, yet 2.7 million procedures involving animals took place across the UK in 2022. That number is very high. Experimental procedures are decreasing, but the reality is that even where alternative non-animal research methods are available, animals are being used for experiments. Of all the distressing aspects, that is perhaps the most difficult for anybody to justify.
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I am sure we all want to minimise the use of animals in scientific experimentation and the cosmetic industry as much as possible, including by funding research into alternatives. We have already heard about Lush and its very successful reception at the end of last year. There are enough companies that are really promoting the use of alternative methods, so we should really listen to industry on this issue.
We know that animal testing can be unreliable and unpredictable and that it causes unnecessary suffering. Humans differ considerably from animals, so the use of animals often leads to poor results. The regulatory requirement that animals be used before human trials is more than 70 years old. Reviewing that, and removing the needless suffering of animals, will finally bring scientific research into the 21st century.
Of course, there are also methods of digital testing, so we really have moved a long way since the law was last revised. A growing number of human-relevant methods are already being developed. Those are made up of innovative technologies that are helping to deliver better results for humans. Despite that, there is a continued misconception that animal testing provides a gold standard for the regulatory approval of a product.
An expert advisory taskforce could play an important role in exploring animal-free innovation. We should also review all animal procedures to remove duplicative and wasteful methods and to prevent the retesting on animals of any material, chemical, food or drug currently in use. Retesting should be conducted using only non-animal methods or existing human data.
The Government have responded to the petition to ban any testing on dogs by saying that welfare standards are already high and that testing would still continue in other countries. Those are valid responses, yet I think that we can do better and provide even more leadership to other countries. That other countries continue to use dogs is not a good reason as to why we should do so in this country.
Although we should be proud that the UK has some of the highest welfare standards in the world, we must build on our robust record and lead by example. To achieve that, greater funding is required to support the development of new technologies and new, innovative testing methods. Sadly, Government funding for such methods currently represents less than 1% of total UK biomedical research. We can do better, and I would particularly like to hear from the Minister on this point. We know that increased research funding often pays back multiple times to the economy—we have had a debate on research funding in this Chamber before—so investment makes good sense.
There is no excuse for animal cruelty, and we must do all we can to ensure that the humane treatment of animals is upheld everywhere. The moral and scientific case for tighter regulation of laboratory testing is clear. It is time that the Government listened to increasing numbers of scientists and voters.
The 1986 Act is deficient in some minor but quite obvious ways. When it was originally drafted, it simply covered invertebrates, which was consistent with the animal welfare legislation we had at the time. In 2012, the coalition Government decided to add cephalopods to the legislation—for those not familiar with that terminology, it essentially means species from the octopus family—but they did not add decapods. As the Minister will know, the recent Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 now recognises both cephalopods and decapods as being sentient species. At the very least, therefore, we should bring the 1986 Act into line with our current animal welfare legislation, which would require the addition of decapods as protected species.
My more important concern is that if the three Rs had been applied correctly, given the exponential growth in technology that we have seen in the last 20 years, we would have expected to see a correlation and a sharp reduction in the number of animals being used, as the replacement principle was applied. Instead, over the last 20 years the number has really drifted along sideways. I appreciate that it has dipped at times, but it is telling that in the first year of lockdown, when the number of animals being tested fell quite significantly, it was said that it had fallen to the lowest level since 2004. That is quite damning in itself, because if an anomaly year, when the amount of testing was at an all-time low, meant that the level had still got back only to the level it was at in 2004, that suggests that something is going wrong and that the application of the three Rs is not having the effect originally intended by the 1986 Act.
I am afraid that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that what started out in 1986 as a robust regime—perhaps the most robust regime in the world—has probably drifted and coalesced into a rather unsatisfactory system of self-regulation. We have to ask ourselves why those three Rs principles are not being effectively applied. Ultimately, I think it is because everybody defers to process but no one really takes proper ownership. We have ended up with cultural attitudes around the use of animals in scientific procedures that masquerade as science, when actually the science does not require those animals to be used in such numbers at all.
I suspect that there is, in the Home Office, a large degree of deference, which is possibly misplaced, to those animal welfare and ethics boards. That is why the Home Office almost never refuses a licence. I understand that, in response to parliamentary questions on this issue, Home Office Ministers will say, “You cannot really judge the fact that we have not refused a licence as evidence that we are not applying ourselves with voracity to this task, because we will often question things and send applications back for further consideration.” I completely understand that, and it is a fair point, but we have over 4,000 project applications a year. Are we really saying that the Home Office might not judge it appropriate to refuse even one in order to create some boundaries and parameters and to inject some vigour and rigour into the system?
A further cultural problem stems from the MHRA, which regulates medicinal and pharmaceutical products in the UK. Although it has confirmed that it does not require animal testing, and that it is open to individual companies and research establishments to decide what type of research they need, a perception exists within industry and academia that experiments carried out using live animals have greater credibility and acceptability. A clear statement from the MHRA that it is not neutral or indifferent, but will take a dim view of products brought before it that have used animal experiments when they might not have been necessary, would sharpen the process and focus minds as to the need for using animal experiments.
How can we get to a position in which the three Rs are being applied as the original Act intended? One of the petitions calls for more funding for non-animal methods. In the UK, we are blessed with some of the world’s best researchers in this area. The Blizard Institute at Queen Mary University of London, which I visited a few months ago, hosts an animal replacement centre of excellence. It is doing some extraordinary work on organ-on-chip and bioprinting. In dermatological research in particular, there is now no doubt that such non-animal methods are far superior to using live animals.
I have a probing proposal for the Minister. As a way to raise money, sharpen the incentives in the current system and get the three Rs enforced, I propose that we consider applying a levy on the use of each individual animal in testing, as part of the project licence. In some ways, it feels quite incongruous to have to put a monetary value on the life of a mouse to get people to take it seriously, but if researchers are not taking the intrinsic value of that mouse’s life as seriously as they should, let us consider some other incentives that might reinforce the original three Rs. Let us consider applying a project licence levy of £100 or £200 for each mouse used, and see whether that focuses minds on the animal welfare and ethics committees. Let us see if it makes them think twice before saying that they need 100 mice for something when they could do it with less. We should consider something like that. The other advantage of a levy is that we could ringfence all its proceeds and put them directly into research on non-animal methods. That is my suggestion to the Minister.
I was a Minister myself for nine years, and I know that it is very easy for people to call for more money for things, but it is not straightforward to be the Minister who has to go to the Treasury and say, “By the way, we’d like just a little bit more money for this one thing that is quite important.” Traditionally, 20 years ago, the Treasury did not like levies and saw them as a hypothecated tax, but we are in different territory post the financial crisis and the many other problems since then. I am sure that if the Minister went to the Treasury and said that he was going to apply a levy of £200 per mouse used in experiments, the faces in the Treasury would light up. They would see the potential to do something useful with that.
Finally, where should responsibility reside for the 1986 Act and the policy under it? I know that that discussion is ongoing within the Government. My view is that the Home Office is a very busy Department and has a huge amount to contend with, and it is very unlikely that its Ministers would be able to give this issue the attention that it deserves. The right thing would be to make a machinery-of-government change transferring full responsibility for animal testing, the 1986 Act and the regulatory regime under it to DEFRA, which has the vets, the scientists and people who would approach this issue as an animal welfare issue. Equally, it has people who understand the importance of science. As our vets have proven on multiple occasions, they are not squeamish about these matters: they will take difficult decisions if need be. Most importantly of all, if the policy were within DEFRA, veterinary science could challenge medical science. Often, we find in veterinary science a better understanding of vaccinations, epidemiology and medicines, with a body of technical expertise that can challenge the medical expertise sitting in other Departments. That is why I think that such a machinery-of-government change should take place.
I hope that the Minister will look favourably on some of those suggestions. I appreciate that it is very unlikely that he could bring forward a levy that might sharpen the implementation of the three Rs between now and the general election, but all parties will be able to think about these issues as they draft their manifestos for the general election ahead.
At the excellent meeting I had with Animal Free Research UK, I was keen to explain my quandary. In the process of doing so, it was good not only to hear of the work being done on human-specific technologies at hubs such as the University of Exeter’s, but to learn of the work that the Association of Medical Research Charities is doing to improve transparency around animal research and animal welfare. It is worth noting that many of the AMRC’s members make it very clear that they support research involving animals only where there is no alternative. Given that cancer survival rates have doubled in the past 40 years, the scientific community ought to be thanked for its painstaking research and analysis. We know that sometimes this involves studying the biology of a disease in a whole body, and not just on individual cells or tissues. However, even those of us who are beneficiaries of that research want to know that good animal welfare practices have been employed and that the use of that research has been clinically justifiable.
How long can we keep doing animal testing when technology and NAMs are advancing so quickly? I would argue that if this country is to become a science superpower, we should lead by example and rapidly accelerate the use of animal-free research with a long-term ambition of zero animal experiments. We need the road map that my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington outlined. Bold action needs to start today if the UK is to keep pace with global action to support human-specific technologies. The US Congress has now passed the Food and Drug Administration Modernisation Act, facilitating the use of non-animal methods for drug testing, while the European Commission has committed to developing a road map for ultimately phasing out animal tests.
Animal Free Research UK and others have made some short and medium-term recommendations, which are reasonable asks. They note that the forthcoming Budget could be an opportunity to launch an ambitious funding call to develop human-specific technologies and attract private investment. They suggest providing dedicated transition grants to leverage the potential of human-specific tech and provide tax relief for companies that are working on these innovations. They also suggest establishing a non-animal science innovation hub, which I am sure would be really attractive to the next generation of scientists, whose animal welfare and environmental conscience seems so naturally embedded.
For what it is worth, I agree with the point that colleagues have made about ministerial responsibility and the challenges that it brings. However, I am pleased that we have a Science Minister who cares about these matters. Ending animal experiments can only lead to positive change in research methods. The Government have introduced a great deal of legislation on animal sentience and animal welfare in recent years, for which my constituents and I are truly grateful. Allowing the continued use of animal testing only undermines the achievements of that legislation. I hope that the House will join us today in upholding the Government’s commitment to animal welfare by supporting these excellent petitions and looking at how we can continue to reduce the use of animals in research so that one day it is not necessary at all.
We know that animal tests are taking place in the UK and Europe where there are accepted, validated alternatives. Over three quarters of adults living in Scotland—76%—believe that alternatives to animal tests should be a funding priority in the UK for science and innovation. A majority of Scots—62%—want deadlines for phasing out animal tests. When it comes to specific species, more than two thirds of Scots think that it is unacceptable to use dogs, cats and monkeys in such experiments. Undoubtedly, and despite huge public opposition, the UK is one of the top users of primates and dogs in experiments in Europe, but it seems that a culture change is needed. That is what we must keep pressing for.
According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, most drug testing on dogs sees them repeatedly force-fed or forced to inhale substances over prolonged periods to measure the effects of repeated exposure on their major organs. In some factory farms, female dogs are forced to spend their entire lives as puppy-producing machines, allegedly churning out between 1,600 and 2,000 offspring for medical testing each year.
The well-known campaigning group Camp Beagle, some of whose members may be here today, has led calls for the UK Government to ban toxicity testing on beagles of products such as household bleach, cleaning products and weed killers. I am sure we all welcome the fact, mentioned by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, that Canada recently banned the use of animals for regulatory toxicity tests, but we need to see the same happen here in the UK.
The public are appalled to learn that, in the name of animal testing, dogs are kept in overcrowded cages, forced to inhale toxins with funnels strapped to their snouts and undergo immense pain and suffering until they die or are killed. Legally, they can be poisoned with toxic chemicals, shot, irradiated, gassed, blown up, stabbed, drowned, burned, starved, subject to electric shocks, deprived of sleep and infected with diseases, and have their bones broken and limbs amputated. Yet, recent developments in evolutionary and developmental biology and genetics have significantly increased our understanding of why animals have no predictive value for human responses to drugs or the pathophysiology of human disease. Indeed, over 92% of drugs that show promise in animal tests fail to translate into safe and effective medicines for humans.
Cruelty Free International research shows that the UK is in the top 10 of animal-testing countries—that is, it is one of the top 10 users of dogs and monkeys in experiments in the world. That is quite something. In the face of such unnecessary cruelty and suffering, we must again call for rigorous public scientific hearings to reduce the unnecessary harm caused by animal experiments, ban this immoral and unjustifiable practice, and pursue alternatives instead.
There is a need for greater transparency in the animal research industry, as the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford said. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington talked about challenges of funding new approach methodologies, but it is worth remembering that when the UK—as I assume it will—updates its legislation in this area, industry will adapt, just as it will in Canada and in others taking a leading approach. One thing we know with confidence about scientists and researchers is that they are able to innovate; it is their very reason for existence.
It is long past time that the UK updated animal welfare legislation to reflect the ethical and humane rights of animals and to improve animal welfare standards domestically, as so many of us want. It is also past time that we worked internationally to better animal welfare standards globally. New approach methodologies do not use animals and so avoid the inherent cruelty and the problem of animal-human species differences. They use advanced in vitro and in silico technologies to model diseases, test treatments and investigate biological processes in humans. That should be the scientific focus instead of outdated, unreliable animal experiments.
The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act was important because it enshrined the rights of sentient animals, but it did not go far enough. It did not recognise the rights of sentient animals undergoing scientific testing and in Ministry of Defence military experiments. That glaring omission must be corrected. We in the SNP condemned that omission at the time and on Report tabled two amendments to correct it, but the Government voted them down.
The European Union is moving away from cruel experiments on animals and is using cutting-edge replacements, as evidenced by the European Parliament’s vote in favour of developing an action plan to phase animals out of EU science and regulation. It is vital that the UK Government support a new regulatory environment that enables a transition to new approach methodologies.
In 2020, 77 scientists and academics from Animal Free Research UK signed an open letter to the Government and medical agencies calling for a clear timetable for regulatory change to enable the development of medicines without the use of animal testing, and indicating that investment in human-relevant science is a golden opportunity to revitalise medical research, save money, create wealth and improve public health. Last month, leading scientists in human-specific technologies wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking him to consider providing Government support to unlock the potential of future-focused technologies in the upcoming spring Budget; specifically, they recommend tax relief for companies developing and using these cutting-edge technologies, a bold funding call to industry and academia, and transition grants to facilitate a shift away from animal use.
While the Government appear content to let the status quo continue, sentient animals continue to endure horrific and unnecessary suffering, and our constituents continue to be horrified as they look on, helpless, at a Government who are simply not listening to them. Swathes of the respected scientific community and renowned academics also feel that they are not being listened to. It is past time that this unenlightened and unnecessary torturing and testing on our fellow creatures ended, and I hope that the Minister will act without delay. I and many other MPs have been and will continue to be a voice for the voiceless and a voice for common sense. I hope that the Minister’s response today will show that he is ready to add his voice to this growing chorus, which also will benefit science and public health.