HC Deb 21 March 2001 vol 365 c218W
Mr. Cox

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the number of animals that were used for experimental purposes in England and Wales during the last 12 months. [154458]

Mr. Mike O'Brien

Information relating to scientific procedures performed on living animals is collected and published for each calendar year and laid before Parliament in a Command Paper in late summer the following year. The number of animals used in scientific procedures which were started in 1999, the latest year for which figures are available, was 2.57 million. More detailed information is given in Table la of the publication Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain, 1999, a copy of which is in the Library.