The report, The Use of Genetically Modified Animals, did acknowledge the potential risk from GM animals escaping into the environment and breeding with non-GM animals.

BBC: GM meat '10 years away'

Thanks to the three Rs, animal research had been falling from a peak of about 5.5m procedures a year in the 1970s, but recently numbers have stabilised, as genetically modified animals have started to be used to model human disease.

ECONOMIST: Animal rights extremists