Contacting policymakers is a huge part of my role as Policy Officer at Replacing Animal Research, and it’s often an area that piques supporter interest. When it comes to contacting policymakers, and explaining how we approach this, it can really be broken down into four main questions: Who, Why, How and What.

Who do we contact?

For us, policymakers covers a range of people that work within government, including MPs, ministers, members of the House of Lords, and government departments and units.

There are times when we want to contact all MPs, such as shortly after the General Election in 2024 when all the MPs had just been elected. There are times when contacting specific ministers or a specific government department is the best choice, for example if we’re talking about a change that lies under their responsibilities. It all depends on what our aim for the contact is.

Why do we contact policymakers?

There tend to be two reasons we contact policymakers:

• Education
• To push for changes.

MPs have so many different streams of work and issues within their own constituencies, that they have to prioritise their focuses. Oftentimes, MPs, and other policymakers who don’t work directly within the area of animal research, don’t know much about the issues at hand. Therefore, we can provide knowledge and expertise so they can be kept up to date with the issue and what’s happening in the world of research. We also know from previous surveys that we have conducted, that 93% of people believe that more needs to be done to replace the use of animals in science, meaning that this issue is likely important to people within an MPs constituency, and should therefore be a concern to the MPs themselves.

Pushing for change is just as important as educating policymakers, as not only do they need to know why the issue is important, but also what the possible solutions are. A lot of our policy work is centred around finding improvements to current legislation and regulations, and ensuring that replacement is prioritised in the law as it should be. We have many ideas and work streams for how this can be done, so we make sure policymakers are aware of our solutions and continue to push for improvements to be made.

How do we contact them?

The main way we contact policymakers is through two forms of writing: briefings and letters. Our briefings are usually two-page documents that we send to MPs with key facts about an issue. Letters are usually more detailed and are often sent to ministers or government departments on a specific area of work. The type of writing always depends on what we’re contacting them about, and what would be the most appropriate.

What do we contact them about?

This is always the main question to consider. With our aim as a charity being to replace the use of animals in research, you’re right to assume that this is the basis of all of our contact with policymakers. The specifics of what we contact policymakers about also leans into the question of when do we contact them.

Events, activities and debates

We often send reactive briefings in response to something that has happened. One great example of this is the briefings we send ahead of parliamentary debates. In recent years there have been several Westminster Hall debates on the use of animals in research and testing, and we ensure we send MPs a briefing on the relevant topic being debated beforehand. This usually includes key facts and figures on the topic, and questions to raise in the debate. We have also sent reactive briefings in response to the annual statistics of scientific procedures on living animals being published. These briefings outline the headline figures from the statistics that we believe are key for MPs to know.

Educate and influence for positive change

We also send proactive briefings based on important areas of work that we want to make policymakers aware of. An example of a proactive briefing is a briefing we sent to MPs outlining changes we would like to see made to the collection and publication of the annual statistics.This was based on work we had been conducting as part of our policy approach. Another example would be the briefing sent to MPs outlining our manifesto pledges ahead of the 2024 General Election. Whilst this briefing was based on an event that was due to happen, we prepared and sent our briefing before the election was announced, at the start of January 2024, in order to garner support for our pledges and education MPs ahead of time.

Letters to push for improvements

Our letters sometimes take a similar theme to our briefings, but in a different format. Similarly to the briefing, we also wrote to the Home Office Animals in Science Regulation Policy Unit outlining the improvements and changes to the annual statistics we believe should be made. This was more of a direct line to push for changes, rather than educate, as the letter goes directly to the department responsible. We have also utilised letters to the Policy unit to push for other changes, like improvements to the replacement section of a project licence application form, the form that researchers must complete and submit to the Home Office to undertake animal research.

Most recently, we also wrote to the Lords Ministers from the Home Office, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. This was following news that steps were being taken by these departments towards a government plan to phase out animal testing, as outlined in labours manifesto pledges. In our letter, we outlined current issues with the regulation of animal use in science, and areas we would like to see changed or included in governmental strategy.

You can view all our previous briefings and letters on our new policy briefings hub page.