HC Deb 15 December 2003 vol 415 cc633-4W
Mr. Beggs:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many experiments on animals were carried out in UK laboratories in 2002–03; what action he is taking to encourage alternative methods of experimentation; and if he will make a statement. [143178]

Caroline Flint:

For the year 2002, the most recent year for which complete annual statistics are available and published, 2,752,278 scientific procedures were carried out on animals in the UK. Mice, rats and other rodents, along with fish and birds, were used in some 96 per cent. of the total.

The use of animals in regulated procedures is prohibited by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 in cases where a scientifically valid non-animal alternative is available. The Act also requires that, where replacement of animals is not possible, the number used in any licensed project must be reduced to the minimum, and the procedures must be refined to ensure that no unnecessary suffering is caused. This approach—of replacing, reducing and refining—is known as application of the 3Rs.

Most work on the 3Rs is neither done by Government nor with Government money, as industry spends many millions of pounds each year on the search for and development of alternatives. Nonetheless, every year the Home Office makes available to the Animal Procedures Committee a budget for research aimed at developing or promoting the use of the 3Rs. Details of completed research projects are published in the annual report of the Animal Procedures Committee, which is available from The Stationery Office. The amount made available to the Committee for 2003–04 for this specific purpose is £280,000.

This is not the only money spent by the Government on the development of the 3Rs, as other Departments and public funding bodies are also active in this area. Indeed, it is estimated that the total spent across Government is in the region of £2 million to £10 million each year.

To take this further on an international level, we continue to support the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) through contributions to the European Union, and last year we co-sponsored the 4th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences.

The Government support and encourage the development and promotion of the 3Rs in a number of other ways. For example, we are currently exploring the recommendation by the House of Lords Select Committee on Animals in Scientific Procedures, which reported in July 2002, that there should be a United Kingdom centre for research into the 3Rs. This is being considered by the Inter-Departmental Group on the 3Rs, led by the Home Office.

The Inter-Departmental Group is also reviewing the effectiveness of the Inter-Departmental Data Sharing Concordat announced in August 2000, which commits United Kingdom regulatory authorities to help resolve legal and other obstacles to data sharing between clients, in order to reduce animal testing.

In the longer term, we believe that further significant reduction in animal use will, and must, continue to rely largely on the scientific community's own efforts to develop, validate and adopt more advanced methods based on the 3Rs. This is not an area where quick gains can be expected, but any lack of progress in research into alternatives is more often due to the limitations of science, rather than to inadequate funding.