Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the comments by Lord Darzi of Denham on 29 October 2008 (Official Report, House of Lords, col. 1615), whether continuance of a licence granted by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is conditional upon pursuing aims as understood by the HFEA's peer reviewers, or whether a licence would be discontinued if such aims formerly considered to require the use of human embryos could be readily achieved by other means.
Answer
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) may only issue a research licence for the purposes outlined in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, as amended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Research Purposes) Regulations 2001. A licence committee of the HFEA would refuse a research licence application if it was not satisfied that the proposed research was necessary or desirable for one of the prescribed purposes and that the use of an embryo was necessary. The HFEA has advised me that this requirement is integral to the decisions of its research licence committee when it considers research licence applications, inspection reports and progress reports.