Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answers by Baroness Thornton on 5 January (WA 24–5), when the Newcastle Fertility Centre began providing information on the number of failed-to-fertilise eggs donated for use under licence R0152 and the number actually used in the project; whether the estimated number of failed-to-fertilise eggs takes account of ten failed-to-fertilise eggs reportedly having been used between August 2004 and July 2005 if the research team initially relied chiefly on such eggs, as reported in The Times on 31 May 2005 and in The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (2007) Volume 9, Issue 3, p. 177–80; and whether oocytes that a researcher might subsequently deem to be unsuitable would be erased from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's records of total oocyte usage.
Answer
A research licence under paragraph 3(1) of Schedule 2 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (as amended) authorises the creation of embryos in vitro and keeping or using embryos for the purposes of a project of research, whose purpose must be consistent with paragraph 3A of that schedule. Parliament has decided in view of the special importance attached to embryos that no research may be conducted on them without a licence, but that is not the case for research involving only eggs or sperm. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has advised that it receives information about the use of eggs incidentally to the research licensing process, but the information it holds on the use of eggs is necessarily limited, compared to the information it holds on the use of embryos. Directions 0002 issued by the HFEA (dated 1 July 2009) require licence holders to maintain records on total numbers of embryos created, used or disposed of in undertaking of the licensed research. Such data held by the HFEA are made available in inspection reports and research licence committee minutes published on the HFEA website. Where inspection reports and research licence committee minutes are not available on the HFEA website these can be requested from the HFEA.