Animals: Use in Defence Research (Hansard, 27 July 1999)

§ The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Gilbert)

The independent Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, chaired by Dr. Jeremy Lucke, has recently published its third annual report. The committee was set up in 1996 specifically to keep under review the care and welfare arrangements of animals used in defence research. We are placing a copy of the report in the Library of the House.

The use of animals in defence research is concerned with providing the Armed Forces with safe and effective protection against hazards they may encounter while 180WA conducting their duties, and is kept to the absolute minimum.

The committee's report highlights the work being done by the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency to find alternatives to the use of animals. In particular, the increasing use of in-vitro studies will lead to a reduction in the number of animals used. For example, use of such technology has meant that experiments to test the effectiveness of decontaminant and barrier creams against a chemical warfare agent, which would otherwise have needed up to 90 animals, were satisfactorily performed without using any animals at all.

There is still much to be done in developing technologies which allow the use of animals in experiments to be further reduced. We welcome continuing scrutiny by the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee and aim to minimise the use of animals as far as possible against the continuing requirement to research effective measures to counter the hazards faced by the armed forces in the conduct of their duties.