Roadmap to Reality: MPs Gather in PETA’s Parliamentary Reception on Ending Experiments on Animals
Last night (4 February), PETA and our host, Irene Campbell MP, welcomed 25 cross-party MPs and Lords for our Roadmap to Reality event, focused on ending experiments on animals.
Taking place at the Palace of Westminster, the event saw the likes of Kerry McCarthy, Roger Gale, Adrian Ramsay, Iqbal Mohamed, Steve Darling, and Ben Lake gather with TV personality and animal advocate Gail Porter, industry experts from Unilever and animal-free laboratory XCellR8, as well as academics and policy experts. Members of the Animals in Science Committee and Animal Sentience Committee were also in attendance.
Attendees took part in a Q&A on challenges and opportunities presented by the recently published strategy to phase out experiments on animals.
Here’s what Gail and attending said about the reception:
“The thought of any animal being harmed, especially intentionally, is difficult to process, and it’s the reason I’m supporting PETA’s work on this matter.” – Gail Porter
“As a nation that cares about animals, we need more than words on paper – we need concerted, ambitious action. The Government must now identify specific areas of biomedical research, such as sepsis experiments, that can be phased out for the benefit of both patients and animals.” – Roger Gale
“I believe that the vast majority of the experiments carried out on animals are unnecessary, ineffective and inhumane. We have the tools, the technology and the talent: we should be moving as quickly as possible to stop animal testing and to implement more humane methods.” – Kerry McCarthy
About the Event
The reception brought together Parliamentarians, scientists, and experts to identify opportunities, obstacles, and solutions to advance animal-free science and end tests on animals.
PETA welcomed the Government’s strategy to phase out experiments on animals, announced in November 2025, but yesterday we made it clear that this roadmap is only the starting point and that significant work remains.
The event encouraged the government to deliver on its commitments with the support of PETA’s scientists.
Action Needed to End Experiments on Animals
The UK roadmap outlines actions to address regulatory, applied, and curiosity-driven experiments on animals. It includes commitments to end eye irritation tests, where experimenters apply chemicals onto rabbits’ eyes, and skin sensitisation tests, in which mice have a substance applied to the back of their sensitive ears to assess allergic reactions, by the end of 2026.
But the plan must go much further.
Yesterday, PETA experts stressed that the roadmap must include actions to end all applied and curiosity-driven experiments on animals, not only regulatory safety tests that have already been overtaken by state‑of‑the‑art, non‑animal methods. Experimenters must be compelled to stop hacking out pieces of bone from rabbits’ legs, implanting electrodes into monkeys’ brains, or puncturing the intestines of mice in an attempt to induce sepsis.
We discussed innovative non-animal methods, like organ-on-a-chip and AI models, and urged the government to be more ambitious when identifying tests on animals that can be replaced.
PETA’s Expertise in Animal-Free Testing
We highlighted PETA’s technical expertise in non-animal methods and the practical support we can offer – for example, with the establishment of an expert committee on non-animal methods.
Ending experiments on animals requires collaboration among the government, regulators, researchers, industry, and civil society, and PETA’s parliamentary reception moved that collaboration forward.
A Big Thank You From PETA!
Thank you to everyone who attended and took part in the event. Together, we can end experiments on animals in the UK. If you want to help make it happen, take these quick actions for animals in laboratories today:
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