The Rt Hon David Willetts MP

Minister of State for Universities and Science

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

1 Victoria Street

London SW1H 0ET

Date: July 17^th 2013

Dear David,

As a sponsor of Early Day Motion 442, I am writing to express my concern about a continuing increase in the number of animals used for scientific procedures. As I am sure you will know, according to statistics recently published by the Government[1], the number of animals used in scientific procedures during 2012 was 4,033,310. This represents a rise of 8.7%, or 317,200 procedures, on the figure for the previous year, and, shockingly, the highest number at any point since the current statistics regime was introduced in 1986.

This completely contradicts the Coalition’s pledge, set out in the Coalition Programme for Government:

‘We will end the testing of household products on animals and work to reduce the use of animals in scientific research[2]’

I hope you will agree that this is a shocking state of affairs and that my constituents will not be placated by the kind of non specific response given to the Honourable Member for Crawley recently (reproduced below for reference).

I would therefore be grateful if you could outline what specific action this Government plans to take in order to deliver on its pledge to reduce the number of animals used for scientific procedures.

Yours sincerely,

Caroline Lucas, MP, Brighton Pavilion

Animal Experiments

Henry Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on reducing the number of animals used in scientific procedures; what steps he is taking to reduce the number of animals used in such procedures; and if he will make a statement. [159402]

Mr Willetts: Ministers in this Department and the Home Office are in regular contact on a range of policy areas. As a key commitment in the Programme for Government, our Departments are collaborating closely to work to reduce the use of animals in scientific research.

The use of animals in scientific research continues to play a vital part in developing improvements in health care and the environment. The UK has one of the most rigorous systems in the world to ensure that animal research and animal testing is only carried out where no practicable alternatives exist and under stringent controls where suffering must be kept to the minimum.

This Government is committed to working to ensure that the opportunities presented by scientific advances are used to replace or reduce animal use wherever possible, and to refine procedures to minimise suffering. It is backed by strong regulation delivered through a stringent licensing regime operated by the Home Office.

Together with the Home Office, we are working with The National Centre for Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) and cross-Whitehall Departments to further develop the strategy to promote the 3Rs (replacement, reduction and refinement) to deliver the coalition commitment. We will provide an update on this work in due course.