One of the key aspects of our policy work at Replacing Animal Research is engaging with policymakers, spanning across MPs, peers in the House of Lords, Government bodies, and civil servants. As part of this, we are an invited member of the Animal Protection and Welfare Stakeholder Group, which meets with the Home Office Animals in Science Regulation Policy Unit several times a year.

It’s great to have this regular, direct contact with the policy unit, and it allows us to discuss ongoing and upcoming policy matters around the use of animals in research, raise any key issues, concerns, or questions we may have, and provide input into how replacement can be improved within existing animal research legislation.

We often get asked about these meetings and our interaction with the Home Office, so I thought I’d walk you through a “day in the life” for the last meeting I attended!

A day in the life – 15^th July 2025

The morning

Luckily for me, the last meeting at the Home Office was in the afternoon, which meant I didn’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn, like past meetings, to commute to London. As a fully remote charity who are based all over the UK, commuting to work is a bit of a novelty these days.

An afternoon meeting meant I was able to stick to my usual work morning routine of getting up, sorting the dog out, getting ready, and logging on for 9am. I was able to do an hour’s worth of work, mainly checking emails and Microsoft Teams notifications, before setting my out of office and getting ready to leave.

The commute

I, thankfully, live quite close to Bristol Temple Meads station, which makes the travel before the main commute quite easy. I jumped on the 11:00 train and headed to London Paddington armed with a coffee, snacks to see me through the journey, and my laptop.

The journey to London is the perfect amount of time to make sure I’m fully prepped for the meeting. Group members were asked to submitted questions that we would like to raise during the meeting in advance to the Policy Unit, so I used this time to make sure I review what we submitted, make a note of any other questions that may have come up since we submitted, and review any other relevant documents or notes that I may need.

I arrived in London at about 12:45 and jumped on the tube to Westminster, the last stretch of my commute by vehicle.

Catching up in person

One of the good things about attending these meetings in person is getting to see and speak to those from other organisations face-to-face. Whilst working fully remote definitely has its benefits, it can sometimes feel a bit isolating, so it’s nice to have the opportunity to see others not on a computer screen. It’s nice to make the most of being in London, so before this meeting, I had the pleasure of having a catch-up with one of our previous volunteers, who now attends these stakeholder meetings for another organisation. This was the first time we’d met in person, and meant we got to have a lovely catch-up by the Thames before heading off to the meeting.

The main event

Around 13:40, I headed into the Home Office, ready for the meeting to start at 14:00. These meetings are always hybrid, but I prefer attending in person. The majority of the stakeholder group attended online, but there were still a few of us in the room, alongside members of the policy unit.

Who is the policy unit?

The policy unit was first established in 2022 as a separate entity from the Animals in Science Regulation Unit. The main role of the policy unit is to advise Ministers on policy relating to regulating the use of animals in science, mainly under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.

Because of the unit’s connection to government Ministers, these meetings give us a great opportunity to raise issues and discussion points that can then be put forward to the Minister. Previously, through these meetings and being a member of the stakeholder group, we have had face-to-face interaction with Lord Hanson, Lords Minister for the Home Office, and Lord Vallance, Lords minister for the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, on the topic of replacing animals in research.

Meeting format

All the external organisations in attendance are animal protection and science-based charities. Most of us have similar overall missions, but one of the benefits of this group is that we all have different specific focus areas and calls, which means we can cover a wide range of topics that some may be more specialised in than others.

These meetings generally follow the same agenda and format:

• Introduction and actions from the last meeting

• An update from the policy unit on their ongoing policy programme and policy issues

• A stakeholder-led section covering new and emerging policy issues – and the section where we go through the questions we raised in advance

• Any other business and the close of the meeting

Although there is a set agenda, and it looks as though there is only one opportunity for stakeholder input, the meetings are generally quite open. We can raise questions and input throughout the meeting wherever necessary. Often, the questions we, and other members of the stakeholder group, put forward come up in other sections of the agenda, before the stakeholder-led section.

What did we want to raise?

As a charity whose entire focus is the replacement of animals in research, we could submit pages and pages of questions in advance of things we would like to raise. But as these meetings are only 2 hours, and we aren’t the only people in attendance, we make sure we pick our top priority areas for discussion. These could be ongoing policy issues where we would like to find out more information, areas of work that we believe the policy unit should look at, or areas where we would like to provide input to a topic. These priority areas change depending on what we are working on, what the policy unit are focusing on, and even on wider government strategy.

There were five specific areas that we wanted to raise in this meeting. These were:

• Section 24 of ASPA – the section that protects confidential information from being release. Specifically whether there were any updates on the policy position of this, and whether further work around Section 24 will be considered by the minister.

• The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act, including any updates on how this Act will affect animals under ASPA, and whether we can have future engagement with DEFRA on this topic

• The ASRU Regulatory Reform programme, a programme of work that aims to improve regulatory practice and enhance the protection of animals in research and testing. We were interested in the timelines of ongoing work and updates on improvements to licensing, particularly around the implementation of replacement.

• Future training of Home Office inspectors, and whether we can provide training and resources specifically around searching for, implementing, and reviewing non-animal methods.

• The Government’s phase-out of animal testing strategy, currently being led by DSIT, supported by the Home Office and DEFRA, and whether there were any updates regarding the publication date.

What else came up?

This was a jammed-packed meeting that actually overran the allocated two hours. It would probably take five blogs to cover everything that was discussed outside of the points we raised in advance. Some of the key areas for us included:

• Discussions around the upcoming 2024 statistics publication, and the potential of new additions/improvements to the statistics (something we have been calling for).
• The ongoing Animals in Science Committee commissions, including improving leading practice and improving non-technical summaries and retrospective assessments

Home after a busy day

After the meeting has finished, I jump back on the tube and head back to Paddington station. As the meeting ran over, I had just enough time to grab a meal deal (thank you, Sainsburys, for actually having a vegan sandwich in stock so late in the day) and head straight to the train.

Rush hour trains are never fun, but I luckily had a seat reserved and could spend my journey tidying up my notes, ready to share with the rest of the team. This was a particularly busy meeting, which meant there were a lot of notes to review and specific areas to flag with certain team members. It also gave me a chance to think about areas we would like to follow up on with the policy unit, and with the stakeholder group. One area, for example, would be the future inspector training. Following this meeting, we have written to the policy unit and the head of the regulatory reform programme to highlight, in writing, why we would like to be involved with inspector training, and what we could offer in terms of training methods and resources, specifically around the searching, implementation and review of replacement.

Before I knew it, it was 18:30, and I was almost back in Bristol. I headed back home from the station, ready for a nice, relaxing evening, lots of cuddles with the dog, and a good night’s sleep, ready for a new day of work and to fill everyone in tomorrow.

Meet my dog, Sully!

If you want to hear more about our policy work, how we interact with policymakers, or even want to see more ‘day in the life’ blogs, let us know in the comments!