I very much share my hon. Friend’s concern, and I will say more about that later. I genuinely believe that the general public are not aware of the extent and nature of these experiments, or of which animals are used in them. If amendments to the Bill are tabled and accepted in Committee, that may help the public to appreciate what is going on, and may help to reduce reliance on such experiments.
Every two minutes in the UK, a dog, cat, rabbit, rat, monkey, goat, sheep, mouse, or fish suffers from brutal animal testing conducted on it against its sentience and welfare rights, but a survey conducted in 2020 by the UK charity FRAME—the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments—found that 84% of respondents would not buy a cosmetics product if they knew that it, or one of its ingredients, had been tested on animals. Animals in laboratories can legally be poisoned with toxic chemicals, shot, irradiated, gassed, blown up, drowned, stabbed, burned, starved, or restrained to the point at which they develop ulcers or heart failure. They can have their bones broken or their limbs amputated. They can be subject to inescapable electric shocks, driven to depression, deprived of sleep to the point of brain damage, or infected with diseases.
A YouGov poll commissioned by Cruelty Free International shows that people in Scotland and Wales believe that more should be done to prioritise humane and human-relevant science. The findings reveal that seven out of 10 adults living in Scotland and Wales find it unacceptable to use animals for experiments when alternative non-animal research methods are available. In addition, more than three quarters of adults living in Scotland and Wales believe that alternatives to animal tests should be a funding priority in the UK for science and innovation, and a majority in Scotland and Wales want deadlines for phasing out animal tests. I look forward to further discussions on that as the Bill goes through its stages.
When Scottish and Welsh residents were asked about use of specific species in research, they consistently said that it was unacceptable to test on dogs, cats and monkeys, yet despite those public concerns, the UK remains one of the top users in Europe of primates and dogs in experiments. The more we understand animals’ sentience, capabilities and emotions, the more the idea of granting rights to animals is worth taking seriously, urgently. The Scottish National party supports the Bill but urges the Government to address those ongoing issues.
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