Animal use under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act (ASPA) 1986 under the Establishment Licence for Marine Scotland: EIR release

Information requested

For the years 2022 and 2023, re Animal Use under ASPA 1986 under the Establishment Licence for Marine Scotland

1) May I have the number of scientific procedures undertaken and split between species during each year.

2) For each year could you please provide a numerical breakdown of the severity classification for procedures carried out. Please split between sub threshold, mild, moderate, severe and non recovery. These will be the figures provided by project licence holders in the annual returns to the Home Office.

3) Please can you tell me the number and species of animals, that were killed without being used for regulated procedures? This is for years 2022 and 2021, since leaving the EU these are not required to be included on the annual returns so if you do not have these then please I can I have the figure for the last year it was legally required i.e. 2017 as below. To be clear these would be the figures last published in 2017 re Additional statistics on breeding and genotyping of animals for scientific procedures, Great Britain 2017, under EU Directive (2010/63/EU). 

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/additional-statistics-on-breeding-and-genotyping-ofanimals-for-scientific-procedures-great-britain-2017

4) Were any animals rehomed in 2022 or 2023? If so, please may I have their number and species.

5) Do you annually reconcile the statistics each project licence holder compiles for the annual returns to the data the Establishment separately collects?

6) Can you please tell me for each year how many project licences the Animal Welfare Ethical Review Body (AWERB) for your Establishment reviewed and decided to prevent them continuing for Home Office approval, this may be because for instance they identified a New Approach Methodology that could be used instead of animals.

If any of this data is already published on your website, please can you direct me to the URL.

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

1. May I have the number of scientific procedures undertaken and split between species during each year.

Year	Species	Number of procedures
2022	Gadus morhua (cod)	7
	Merlangius merlangus (whiting)	3
	Merlanogrammus aeglefinus (haddock)	48
	Salmo salar (Atlantic salmon)	7291
	Salmo trutta (brown trout)	1317
	Anguilla anguilla (European eel)	1467
	Lampetra fluviatilis (River lamprey)	2
	Phoxinus phoxinus (minnow)	65
2023	Gadus morhua (cod)	45
	Salmo salar (Atlantic salmon)	5103
	Salmo trutta (brown trout)	1593
	Anguilla anguilla (European eel)	852
	Lampetra fluviatilis (river lamprey)	1
	Phoxinus phoxinus (minnow)	85

2) For each year could you please provide a numerical breakdown of the severity classification for procedures carried out. Please split between sub threshold, mild, moderate, severe and non recovery. These will be the figures provided by project licence holders in the annual returns to the Home Office.

Year	Sub threshold	mild	moderate	severe	non-recovery
2022	0	7030	3170	0	0
2023	0	5972	1707	0	0

3) Please can you tell me the number and species of animals, that were killed without being used for regulated procedures? This is for years 2022 and 2021, since leaving the EU these are not required to be included on the annual returns so if you do not have these then please I can I have the figure for the last year it was legally required i.e. 2017 as below. To be clear these would be the figures last published in 2017 re Additional statistics on breeding and genotyping of animals for scientific procedures, Great Britain 2017, under EU Directive (2010/63/EU).

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/additional-statistics-on-breeding-and-genotyping-of-animals-for-scientific-procedures-great-britain-2017

No animals bred for scientific purposes have been used in the years requested. Therefore, no such animals were killed without being used for regulated procedures.

4) Were any animals rehomed in 2022 or 2023? If so, please may I have their number and species.

No animals were rehomed.

5) Do you annually reconcile the statistics each project licence holder compiles for the annual returns to the data the Establishment separately collects?

Each year the number of animals used reported by the project licence holders are compared to that described in the respective licence.

6) Can you please tell me for each year how many project licences the Animal Welfare Ethical Review Body (AWERB) for your Establishment reviewed and decided to prevent them continuing for Home Office approval, this may be because for instance they identified a New Approach Methodology that could be used instead of animals.

2022 - none
2023 - none

Additional information provided out with the EIRs

Under regulation 9 of the EIRs (our duty to provide advice and assistance) we would like to advise you that work has been conducted at the Marine Directorate under the Establishment licence of the Moredun Research Institute. You may wish to contact the Moredun Research Institute at https://moredun.org.uk/freedom-of-information who may be able to help you.

 About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.