In March, we sent an open letter calling for the closure of MBR Acres - the UK’s only dog-breeding facility for animal testing - to the Home Office.
More than 50 cross-party MPs, public figures, organisations, and campaigners signed it, including Dame Joanna Lumley, Chris Packham CBE, Jonathan Ross OBE, and Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee.
The demand was simple: close MBR Acres and safely rehome the beagles trapped there.
The Home Office has now officially replied, in a response deeply out of touch with both science and public opinion.
For years, the animal testing industry has operated behind closed doors, protected by political caution, scientific inertia, and public invisibility. But that is beginning to change. The government now knows that opposition to animal experimentation is growing - and that people are no longer willing to quietly accept the suffering of animals in laboratories.
But their response also showed how determined they remain to defend the system.
In their response to the open letter, the government stated:
“In November 2025, we published Replacing animals in science: A strategy to support the development, validation, and uptake of alternative methods, backed by £75 million in funding.”
At first glance, that sounds encouraging. But it leaves out a crucial reality.
The government is backing the wrong science
While the government points to £75 million for alternatives, it is estimated that at least £1 billion of publicly funded UK biomedical and life science research every year remains associated - directly or indirectly - with animal use. That includes university research, toxicology testing, translational medicine, and laboratory infrastructure.
The scale of institutional support for animal experimentation still dwarfs investment in replacement technologies.
The government also claimed:
“Where animals must still be used, it is only because no validated non-animal method exists”.
But this position is increasingly being challenged by scientists, researchers, and peer-reviewed literature.
Human-based testing methods are advancing rapidly. Technologies such as organ-on-a-chip systems, AI-assisted modelling, and stem-cell-derived testing are already transforming parts of medical and pharmaceutical research. In many cases, these approaches may produce results that are more reliable and more relevant to humans than animal experiments.
This is not a fringe scientific debate anymore. The old assumption - that animal testing is the unavoidable foundation of medical progress - is beginning to fracture.
The government now has the chance to make a real change and invest in these technologies and lead the way in making the UK a home of progressive, ethical science.
The scale of suffering
The Home Office response also stated:
“The latest annual statistics show that dogs accounted for 0.1% of all procedures in 2024, with a 29% decrease in experimental use compared with 2023.”
But statistics can conceal as much as they reveal.
Even 0.1% still represents approximately 2,600–3,000 procedures involving dogs every year in the UK.
These aren’t abstract numbers. They are individual sentient animals subjected to confinement, experimentation, and suffering.
And dogs are only one part of the picture.
In total, 2.64 million scientific procedures involving living animals were carried out in the UK in 2024. Dogs, pigs, rabbits, mice, and primates continue to be used in experiments and toxicity testing across the country.
Behind every statistic is a living being.
At MBR Acres, beagle mothers spend years inside cages breeding litter after litter, only for their puppies to be sold into laboratories, to be bled or subjected to painful experimentation, born into an industry that treats them as disposable tools.
The Home Office says they “recognise the strength of public concern around the use of animals in science”.
They should.
The industry is being forced into the open
Over the last year, Animal Rising campaigners have confronted this industry in court. Following our rescues of 23 beagles from MBR Acres in 2022, campaigners faced criminal trials for burglary.
Two separate juries returned not guilty verdicts. Even under court restrictions preventing rescuers from fully describing conditions inside MBR Acres - and the futures those puppies faced - juries still refused to convict.
Other campaigners from the same actions were convicted - and continue to stand by their belief that rescuing those dogs was the right thing to do.
Whatever the courts decided, one thing is clear: public opposition to animal testing is growing. The debate around animal testing is no longer confined to laboratories and industry bodies. Years of building protest, undercover facility investigations, and open rescues in the UK and most recently in the USA, have forced animal testing back into public debate.
But this fight is far from over.
This giant industry still retains enormous institutional backing, political protection, and financial support. If meaningful change is going to happen, pressure must continue to grow.
Animal-free science is not a distant hypothetical. It already exists. The question is whether governments and institutions are willing to fully commit.
We intend to make sure they do.
We are already preparing the next stages of this campaign, including a new open letter bringing together public figures, scientists and politicians to increase pressure on the government later this year.
We will continue to expose this industry, challenge political complacency, and fight for a future beyond animal testing. If you want to help make that happen, please support our work.
Together, we can close MBR Acres, and bring this cruel industry to an end.
In solidarity,
Animal Rising
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