End testing on dogs and other animals for development of products for human use

On the 28th of April 2025 I lead my third ever debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee, on the use of dogs in scientific and regulatory procedures. Nearly exactly one year later, on the 27th of April 2026, I lead my most recent Petitions debate on animal testing, for a petition called “End testing on dogs and other animals for development of products for human use”. Both of these petitions were created by Maria Iriart, on behalf of Camp Beagle, and it is clear that this topic is not going away anytime soon, for the public or for parliamentarians.

For those who do not know Camp Beagle, it is a permanent grassroots animal rights protest camp, situated outside a company which breeds dogs for animal testing laboratories in the United Kingdom and abroad. In 2024 1,651 dogs were used in experiments for the first time. Only the first time an animal is used in an experiment is recorded, and so we can imagine how much larger the true number of experiments is. In fact, every minute in the United Kingdom, five animals are used in research. It is very distressing to think of how much suffering is happening constantly in these animal testing laboratories.

A statistic which is often quoted is that over 92% of drugs fail in human clinical trials, after having shown promise in animal tests. I recently learnt this rises to a shocking 99.6% for Alzheimer’s disease drugs. The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 rightly recognises that animals have feelings, and so we must question the ethics of forcing animals to go through horrific procedures which are very rarely helpful in finding effective drugs. New Approach Methodologies, also known as NAMs, are novel technologies which do not use animals, and instead use innovative technology for more human relevant science.

For example, artificial intelligence is already being used in many areas of scientific research, and its capabilities continue to grow. The US Food and Drug Administration devolved a software called AnimalGAN which specialises in the reactions that rats would have to chemical testing. There are also 2D cell culture models and more complex 3D “cell balls” which can be used for things like disease modelling and drug discovery.

In the debate I also noted how Lush Cosmetics had recently commissioned research to look into how much more the United Kingdom could be growing these sectors, showing the economic argument for shifting away from animal research. The Common Sense Policy Group and Northumbria University found that between 2021 and 2024 the non-animal methods sector in the UK showed great growth potential, turnover rose to more than £1.2 billion and employment has increased from year to year.

Since my first debate on this topic and the most recent one, the Labour Government has released its “Replacing animals in science strategy”, the first of its kind, and fulfilling a manifesto commitment to partner with scientists, industry and civil society to phase out animal testing. This strategy is great step in the right direction and has a lot of positive aims and targets. The strategy commits to dedicating £75 million to developing and validating NAMs, establishing UK Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods, and ending specific regulatory tests like rabbit pyrogen testing.

During the debate I asked the Minister to go further, and also rescind the current forced swim test licences, given that the strategy itself states “The test has limited scientific validity, particularly its translational relevance to human mental health disorders. Animal behaviour in the FST also lacks information on treatment latency and varies across strains and protocols. Therefore, we would expect the Home Office Regulator’s default position to be that the FST does not pass the harm-benefit test required under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.”

I will not go into detail about what happens during these animal experiments, as images and descriptions are easily available online for anybody who would like to look further into it. While there are often cases of non-compliance with the law, it is important to note that most of these images come from laboratories which are fully legally licenced under the law. In my time in Parliament, I will not stop trying to change this and pushing the UK to move toward a better and kinder science.