With your help we achieve breakthrough in our campaign to stop repeat chemicals tests on animals in UK
A huge thank you to everyone who sent our campaign email to their Member of Parliament demanding that chemical tests on animals are not repeated when the UK leaves the EU. Thanks to your support, and amazing work by a fantastic group of cross-party MPs, we have made a significant breakthrough and have now received the most positive government response so far!
With the UK’s departure from the EU - and the end of the 12 month transition period coming to a close at the end of this year - we have been working hard with MPs including Kerry McCarthy MP, Sir David Amess MP, Deidre Brock MP, Lisa Cameron MP, Alistair Carmichael MP, Alex Cunningham MP, Caroline Lucas MP, John McNally MP, Alex Sobel MP and Daniel Zeichner MP to demand government action to make sure animal tests already carried out to register a chemical in Europe will not have to be repeated again in the UK.
When this issue was first raised with government back in 2018, the response of then environment minister, Dr Thérèse Coffey MP was: “If animal testing is required for UK registration for new chemicals, it is required”. We have come a long way since then. In September this year, questioning of the government by Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Luke Pollard MP, along with your emails to local MPs, achieved the response: “The Government will recognise the validity of any animal testing that has already been undertaken and so avoid the need for further testing. The grandfathering of all existing UK-held REACH registrations into the UK system will further avoid the need to duplicate animal testing associated with re-registration.”
Thanks to all of you who supported our campaign to stop repeat chemical tests, we wouldn’t have come this far without you. We’re continuing to keep a very close eye on the details and while we’re delighted that government has listened to concerns, we will follow-up to ensure that it keeps its promise to avoid repeat testing and that it now agrees data and information sharing with the EU so that in future, animal tests are not duplicated to satisfy two parallel chemicals regimes.
Watch this space for more news.