The government is braced for a massive increase in scientific experiments on animals over the next few years as the completion of the human genome project causes applications for research licences to flood in. Official figures due out next month will show a rise in the number of animal experiments for the second year running after 20 years of decline.
But senior scientists accuse ministers of refusing to cut red tape which they claim slows down the licensing of animal experiments because an increase in research would be "politically unacceptable".
It is understood that the Home Office, which issues the licences, is seeking ways to play down the increase in applications for fear of offending animal-loving voters ahead of the election, expected next year.
A pre-election statement in 1996 - the same year Labour received a £1.1m donation from the animal rights group, the Political Animal Lobby - committed the party to attempting to reduce the numbers of animal experiments.
Colin Blakemore, professor of neuroscience at Oxford University, said: "As the consequences of the human genome research work through, I would not be at all surprised if there is a 10% increase year-on-year in the total number of animals applied for over the next five years."
Frustration is growing at the licensing logjam, where an application can now take six months or more, compared with days or weeks in other countries. The science minister, Lord Sainsbury, is to meet senior medical researchers next month in response to a warning that scientists will leave Britain to work abroad because bureaucratic delays are impeding research.
One high-profile academic was told by a senior figure involved in government oversight of research involving animals that a rise in the numbers of experiments would be "politically unacceptable before an election".
Scientists - who are reluctant to speak out publicly for fear of jeopardising government research funding - say in private that bureaucracy in licensing processing is being used to limit research.
Government concern is said to have prompted a request to scientific attachés in UK embassies overseas that they unearth figures indicating that British research achieves more scientific benefit for each animal involved in experiments.
The extreme sensitivity of the Labour party to public opinion on animal research was demonstrated in January when it emerged that the party's staff pensions fund had invested £10,000 in shares in Huntingdon Life Sciences, Europe's largest animal research laboratory. The shareholding was swiftly sold off following protests.
The government has already failed to act on promises in its 1996 document, New Labour - New Life for Animals, that it would support a royal commission on animal experimentation and would try to reduce the number of experiments.
Dr Mark Matfield, executive director of the Research Defence Society which lobbies for animal experiments on behalf of academics and the pharmaceutical industry, predicted figures out next month would show numbers of animal experiments had risen from 2.66m in 1998 to around 2.7-2.75m in 1999, a year-on-year increase of 2 to 2.5%.
Scientists insist they do not want British legislation regulating animal experiments - which they say is the strictest in the world - to be watered down. However, they argue that additions and alterations to the 1986 Animals (scientific procedures) Act - particularly the ethical review process introduced last year - have created a morass of red tape.
Nancy Rothwell, professor of physiology at the University of Manchester, said: "Writing a project licence application is one of the hardest things scientists do. There are continual changes in criteria: what was acceptable last year may not be acceptable now and certainly will not be in six months."
