The duplication of experiments is nonsense—I do not think anyone could argue with that—and we are delighted that the UK no longer experiments on animals for household products or cosmetics. As I am sure the hon. Lady knows, however, the problem is that the new REACH—registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemical substances—regulation will revisit many of the compounds that are used in everyday chemicals because of the need to test the toxicity of each one. That will cause a real problem. A driver of that regulation is the need to control information more centrally.

We do not want just a simple debate on statistics and numbers; we want a debate on why we are using animals in science. More than 3.2 million procedures were started in 2007—a rise of 6 per cent. on the previous year. There have been significant rises, year on year, in the number of animals used in science, and it is absolutely right that we put those statistics on the table. Since 2000, the number of scientific procedures performed on animals has risen, and we have to ask why. This is where I disagree with the hon. Member for Sunderland, North, because, as Dr. Gibson has mentioned, the rise in the number of animals is due largely to the increasing use of genetically altered animals—mostly mice, not primates, cats or dogs. Genetically altered mice are engineered to have particular diseases, and drugs or chemicals are created to knock out that disease. There has been a move to improve medical science by using genetically altered animals.

I have heard strong condemnation of the work on the three Rs, which was an incredibly positive development set up by Lord Sainsbury when he was Minister for Science and Innovation. Rather than being a barometer of the lack of progress for the three Rs, statistics have provided an indicator of current trends in research. An increase in numbers can reflect an increase in the overall amount of research done, and therefore of the benefits to patients.

The central driver for the vast majority of research using animals is the laudable objective of improving human health. As the UK is particularly successful in biomedical research—we are second only to the United States, so we are leaders in that key area—it is not unreasonable to think that there will be an increase in the number of animals used in the UK for such research. One particular statistic is worth noting because it has been produced by the Home Office and the Department of Health—the proportion of animals used, despite increases in biomedical science, is going down.

Let me return to the point that Mr. Amess made about the European directive. There have been slight misunderstandings regarding FRAME's position and the way in which the new scientific directive, directive 86/609/EEC, is being considered and discussed. We in the UK are proud of our high standards in the treatment of animals in science. Covance—a private, US-based company—has laboratories in my constituency where a significant amount of testing on animals is done. I have visited those laboratories many times, and I have been astounded by the efforts that are made to maintain and look after the animals, with the best of husbandry. Recent efforts being made in England include bringing in animals in colonies, rather than in individual breeding pairs, to replicate their home conditions. In this area, we lead Europe, and it is important that the directive is used to ensure that the standards of animal care throughout the EU come up to ours, rather than go down.

I agree with the hon. Member for Southend, West that the directive is badly worded. It needs considerable revision before it becomes law. There is misunderstanding about the fact that any European directive has to be framed in the image of each particular nation, and it is up to the UK Government to frame the directive in British law according to how we want it. The hon. Gentleman's party has accused the Government of gold-plating EU directives, but this one does not need gold-plating. Indeed, we should maintain the high standards of openness and transparency on which Labour Governments of the past 12 years have a decent record.