Tell your General Election parliamentary candidates how important this issue is
The 2024 UK General Election is just seven days away – but there’s still plenty of time to add your voice in support of the millions of animals who suffer and often die in laboratories in the UK every year.
We welcome The Labour Party’s manifesto pledge to phase out animal testing and re-issue our call on all other parties to clarify their commitment to ending animal testing.
The manifesto states that Labour will “partner with scientists, industry, and civil society as we work towards the phasing out of animal testing”.
The Green Party manifesto states that they “will work towards an outright ban on all animal testing… and support the production, promotion and transition to nonanimal technologies for use in experiments”, whilst also opposing “the importation of monkeys for use in labs”.
The Liberal Democrat manifesto promised a “comprehensive new Animal Welfare Bill to ensure the highest standards possible" but made no specific mention of animal testing.
Despite making several commitments to increase funding for and the use of animal-free science, none of this is reflected in the 2024 Conservative Party manifesto. The 2024 manifestos for Reform UK, Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru do not feature any commitments on animal welfare.
Whoever forms the next government must develop a roadmap with clear targets, milestones and action to phase out the use of all animals in experiments, led by a new minister to co-ordinate plans across all departments.
Home Office statistics show that there were over 2.76 million uses of animals in laboratories in Great Britain in 2022.
Our ‘Pledge Cruelty Free’ campaign – which can be signed on our website – allows you to ask all parliamentary candidates in your constituency to make a commitment to put the 1998 ban on testing cosmetics on animals, covering ingredients used either primarily or exclusively in cosmetics, into law; make our homes safer by modernising the system for testing the chemicals that go into the products we use every day, such as food, clothes, household cleaning, furniture, electronic goods, paints and dyes, and removing animals from those tests; and ask that the government create a plan to phase-out animal testing forever, with a minister dedicated to delivering this target across all government departments.
Our Head of Public Affairs, Dylan Underhill, said: “The Labour Party’s pledge is most welcome, and reflects the strength of feeling that there is on this issue. With a firm commitment from the Green Party too, we can be confident that there will be millions of votes cast in this election for unambiguous policies to bring about an end to animal testing. We call on all parties to hear the views of the public and commit themselves to the same.
“Animal testing is simply not good science yet inexplicably continues as the default method for testing the safety of products. We know that, as a country, we can do so much better in our protection of the millions of animals that suffer and die in laboratories every year.
“However, whilst any ambition to drive down the number of animals used in scientific testing is long overdue, the next government must develop a roadmap with clear targets and milestones to phase out the use of all animals in experiments. A greater increase in funding, in line with the levels for similar ground-breaking technologies in the UK, needs to be accompanied by innovative incentives to encourage scientists and industry to move away from the current use of animals. Non-animal testing methods, in many cases, have already proven themselves to be faster, cheaper and more accurate than animal testing.
“Animal testing touches our lives in many ways that most of us don’t appreciate, from cosmetics and household products to clothes, furniture, plastics, electronic and white goods, paints, dyes, and food – all of these things can be associated with animal testing on their way to our homes. Whichever party forms the next government, we need them to take bold steps forward – without this, we will be condemned to a never-ending cycle of small reductions rather than the transformative step forward which is needed to meet the aspirations of the public.”