Mark Spencer: The UK supports work to develop New Approach Methodologies which can provide information on chemical hazards and risk assessment without the use of animals. The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) is the UK regulatory authority for veterinary medicines. The VMD assesses applications submitted by the veterinary pharmaceutical industry in line with national and international regulations and...
Mark Spencer: Animal testing of chemical substances is permitted under UK REACH only as a measure of last resort; this principle is reinforced by the Environment Act 2021. Moreover, UK REACH states that test methods should be regularly reviewed with a view to reducing animal testing and it encourages the use of alternative methods. Testing and assessment of final products is not a part of UK REACH. The...
Mark Spencer: The UK supports work to develop New Approach Methodologies which can provide information on chemical hazards and risk assessment without the use of animals. The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) is the UK regulatory authority for veterinary medicines. The VMD assesses applications submitted by the veterinary pharmaceutical industry in line with national and international regulations...
Mark Spencer: ...trials have been taking place in England and Wales since 2021, following a major breakthrough by government scientists in the development of a new DIVA skin test to Detect Infected among Vaccinated Animals. The aim of these trials is to gather information to enable both the CattleBCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin) vaccine and the new DIVA skin test to be authorised for use and recognised...
Andrew Bridgen: ...is called record-level data to be anonymised and disclosed for analysis. That would allow meaningful analysis of deaths after vaccination, and settle once and for all the issue of whether those experimental treatments are responsible for the increase in excess deaths. Far more extensive and detailed data has already been released to the pharma companies from publicly funded bodies. Jenny...
Baroness Barker: ...speaks volumes about the real motivation behind this legislation. I have to say to noble Lords opposite, and on the Cross Benches, who have repeatedly drawn parallels with the use of analgesia in animal scientific experimentation that they have ignored the fact that in this Bill we are talking about foetuses that are carried in the bodies of women—who are sentient beings capable of...
Seema Malhotra: It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on bringing forward this important bill. Feltham and Heston is a community of animal lovers, and animal welfare is one of the issues that is constantly prevalent in my inbox—I am sure it is the same for colleagues. Constituency-level polling shows that two thirds of my constituents feel...
Chi Onwurah: It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Caroline. I acknowledge the strength of public feeling about animal testing. Together, the petitions that we are debating today received more than 140,000 signatures, including 114 in Newcastle upon Tyne Central. I thank everyone who signed the petitions for bringing these important issues to be debated in Parliament once again. The...
Peter Dowd: ...advance of the Budget, what discussions has the Minister had with the Treasury regarding crucial funding for the development and uptake of human-specific technologies, as opposed to using 3 million animals for experimentation and research in the UK?
Rachael Maskell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department takes to ensure that an equivalent test is not available without the use of animals before issuing a licence for animal experimentation.
Andrew Bridgen: ...the potential for a pandemic—at which point all decision-making powers fall under the control of the WHO. The powers would also include the ability to call an emergency owing to human pathogens, animal pathogens, a perceived environmental threat or even the risk of any of the above; and the freedom to impose lockdown restrictions on all individuals in member states and make vaccinations...
Paul Scully: ..., including £121 million to improve commercial clinical trials to bring new medicines to patients faster. Clinical trials, which were raised in the debate, are not necessarily directly related to animal testing. That said, the UK led the world in trials during covid, providing both the first vaccine and the first treatment. That has wider impacts on the clinical research system, and, as...
Baroness Meyer: ...on ideology rather than factual evidence. We have all read recent reports of children being taught that there are hundreds of genders and that anyone can identify as anything they want—human, animal or object. This is not only dehumanising but is pushing children towards experimental surgery that has long-term and irreversible consequences. Of course, we must be compassionate and...
Samantha Dixon: If there is one thing I know, it is that my constituents care passionately about animal welfare. My inbox is full of emails about the importance of this topic to them. The scrapping of the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill and the prevarication on display today are, frankly, astonishing. I am baffled that Conservative Members cannot see how the withdrawal of the Bill makes constituents...
Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to end experimentation on animals in the UK.
Catherine West: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Government plans to reintroduce the ban on animal experimentation.
Andrew Bridgen: ...think Gavi is the fifth, so if we add those together, they are the biggest donors to the WHO. We have to ask: why are they doing this? They are also the biggest investors in pharmaceuticals and the experimental mRNA technology that proved so profitable for those who proposed and produced it during the last pandemic. Indeed, the WHO said that the contributions of member states to WHO funds...
Emma Hardy: I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. It really is welcome news that we are doing advanced research and using AI and technology. Will she look again at the rules for animal testing and the use of live animals in experimentation? Surely, as we develop our AI research and the technology side of research, we should be moving away from the barbaric and cruel use of animals.
Greg Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress has been made in (a) reducing the number of animals used in experiments and (b) increasing the use of non-animal technologies in scientific experimentation; and if she will make a statement.
Lord Beith: .... It raised the worry in my mind of where else these principles could be applied—for example, to vaccination clinics if they were picketed by anti-vax people, or to scientific laboratories where animal experimentation is carried out and staff are very fearful of their names and addresses becoming known and of walking into work. These are dangerous things to import into our law but...
