HC Deb 14 December 1981 vol 15 cc12-3W
Mr. Pawsey

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether he has any plans to introduce a monitoring system to ensure that all the LD50 tests undertaken on animals in connection with research are strictly necessary;

(2) whether he will ask his advisory committee on the administration of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 to examine methods of ensuring that animals subjected to the LD50 test do not suffer unnecessary pain.

Mr. Raison

My right hon. Friend has no plans for such action. The Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 requires that every painful or potentially painful animal experiment must be performed with a view to the advancement by new discovery of physiological knowledge or of knowledge which will be useful for saving or prolonging life or alleviating suffering.

All LD50 tests currently licensed satisfy one or more of these criteria and the Act gives no power to impose further restrictions on the purposes for which such experiments may be performed. The advisory committee, which reported on the LD50 test in 1979, made recommendations for the additional protection of the animals, which, as outlined in my reply to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) on 27 November have been acted upon.—[Vol. 13, c. 480–81.]