To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many generic licences issued under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 are in operation; how many designated establishments hold such licences; how many generic licences were extant in (a) 2007 and (b) 2008; how many procedures were conducted under those licences in each of those years; and if he will make a statement. (278252)

For the purposes of this question we have taken ‘generic licences’ to refer to thematic licences issued for the testing for regulatory purposes of specific classes of test materials in line with specified regulatory requirements. The Home Office does not record information on such licences separately, but we have carried out a special exercise to extract the information requested. We estimate that there are currently 71 ‘generic licences’ extant and that there were 67 at 31 December 2008 and 65 at 31 December 2007. The annual statistical return for 2007, the latest year for which figures are available, indicates 183,909 procedures were conducted during 2007 under the licences identified as generic that were in force at 31 December 2007.