Political Impact
Our fourth parliamentary petition is currently open and running. Please sign and share by clicking here.
An integral part of the Camp Beagle strategy has been to put animal testing back on the political agenda and to build political pressure to change the law. Animal testing is cruel and scientifically flawed, but it is legal and licenced by the Home Office. It is a change in the law that is ultimately going to save all the laboratory animals from a continuous cycle of suffering and death. We encourage our supporters to engage with their MP to help build political pressure and keep this topic high in the political agenda. Our petitions have attracted support from many celebrities such as Chris Packham, Gemma Collins, Jesse Wallace, Faye Winter, Gillian McKeith, and Tom Hardy.
We have run four petitions and collected over 100,000 signatures each time, the target required to be considered for debate. Our fourth petition is still open and collecting signatures, and we are waiting for a debate date.
We are asking supporters to write to your MP, using our template.
Here is a summary of our three previous petitions, a link to the briefing MPs were sent with the arguments to support the petition during the debate, and a link to watch the debates.
Ban immediately the use of dogs in scientific and regulatory procedures
257,938 signatures
(It reached the 100,000 signatures target in just 4 days)
Read the briefing for MPs here.
Debated April 2025
End the use of animals for toxicity tests & prioritise non-animal methods (NAMs)
109,378 signatures
Read the briefing for MPs here.
Debated February 2024
Ban commercial breeding for laboratories. Implement reform to approve & use NAMs
102,230 signatures
Read the briefing for MPs here.
Debated January 2023
All debates were well attended by a cross section of MPs from Conservative, Labour, Liberals, SNP and Independent parties, at our last debate 19 MPs stood up to support our petition. During the debates MPs spoke of the cruelty involved in animal testing and the scientific flaws of using animal models to predict human effects, and offered approaches the government can consider to end animal testing.
During the first debate (2023), the government remained adamant that there was nothing they could do, then during the second debate in February 2024, the then Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology stated, for first time in modern history, that “more can be done” and announced five interventions to support the acceleration of non-animal alternatives in research, and the more rigorous regulation of animal testing.
Whilst a step in the right direction, these promises did not go far enough, particularly regarding funding, as they fell short of the millions that need to be redirected away from animal testing and towards NAMs. But they represented a significant political shift which set the ball rolling toward ending animal testing.
This historic political shift was echoed in the Labour Party’s pre-election manifesto which promised to make a plan to phase out animal testing. When our third petition was debated (April 2025), the promised plan had not yet been published, therefore the government failed to commit to any concrete action, other than mention the their upcoming plan to phase out animal testing.
Finally in November 2025, the Government launched the new plan to phase out animal experiments, but unfortunately, it falls short of expectations as it does not include key features such as a clear timeline with targets and an actual date for when no more animals will suffer in UK laboratories., and it lacks the basic measures required to shift toward modern, cruelty-free science. Instead, it focuses on defending animal testing and commits to only minor changes with no real transformative impact.
The plan does, however, show that the Government has taken notice of today’s societal demand for an end to the use of animals in scientific experiments, therefore, we must continue to build political pressure and raise more public awareness.