The Ministry of Defence tonight defended its use of more than 100 pigs in explosives tests in Wiltshire in the last five years.

Some 119 pigs were used in tests involving explosives at the Government's military research laboratory Porton Down between 2005 and 2009.

Junior defence minister Quentin Davies insisted that the research had "saved many lives" in Iraq and Afghanistan due to improvements in post-traumatic techniques.

In a written parliamentary reply to Labour's David Drew (Stroud), he said no pigs had been tested with explosives in 2005, 25 in 2006, 19 in 2007, 40 in 2008 and 35 in 2009.

This research had followed up on identified problems with "prolonged pre-hospital resuscitation following blast injury", Mr Davies said.

He added: "The studies have included evaluation of the whole body trauma caused by various blast explosive injury in order to identify and evaluate the effectiveness of improved post-traumatic methodology.

"This research has led to significant advances in post-traumatic techniques such as reducing blood loss from major trauma and has saved many lives in the theatres of Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The advances made due to this research can be utilised both in theatre and civilian scenarios particularly if there are mass casualties and evacuation to hospital is delayed."

In a separate reply to Mr Drew, Mr Davies said the number of non-human primates used in general experiments at Porton Down nearly tripled between 2008 and 2009.

Some 149 primates were used in tests last year, compared with 55 in 2008.

A total of 8,168 mice, pigs and primates were used in tests in 2009 at the site near Salisbury. The figures show that no dogs or goats have been tested by the MoD since 2005.

The total number of animals tested at the site has decreased from 21,118 in 2005.