It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) for securing the debate. I also thank the 163 constituents of mine in Ochil and South Perthshire who signed the e-petition. The monitoring and regulation of animal testing has increased in recent years. Although that should be welcomed, it shines a light on the huge extent of the testing to which animals in the UK are subjected. Those animals, the vast majority of which are bred in labs, often suffer hellishly. The numbers are huge; the UK was responsible for 20% of animal testing across the EU, according to 2018 figures.
Let us talk about what we mean by suffering, as the severity of harm caused to the animal must be recorded by law. Shockingly, it can include
“a major departure from the animal’s usual state of health”,
normally including long-term disease processes. In 2020, roughly 57,000 animals were put through “severe experimental procedures”—that is torture, to you and me. It is utterly unacceptable that these animals are outwith protection from harm. It would be unthinkable to allow these callous practices under any other
circumstances on any other animals. It is exceptionally difficult for us to know the true extent of these animals’ suffering as the law blocks access to information about treatment during experiments. The vast majority of testing is done on mice, rats and fish, but as we have heard there are increases in testing on dogs, including puppies—a 3% rise since last year—and there has been a 29% rise in testing on horses in the last decade, to name just two species.
Millions of animals live their whole lives interned in laboratories, without love or affection. Tens of thousands endure treatment that is deemed severe. Were any of us here today to carry out these practices on an animal in our care, we would be arrested. Yet laboratory animals’ pain is not less than other animals’ pain; their lives are worth no less than any other animal’s life. I believe that we should recognise that and inscribe their rights into animal welfare legislation.
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