Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Earl Howe on 9 December 2010 (WA 76), whether the absence of the grounds for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) Licence Committee's decision at the website indicated in the Answer, www.hfea.gov.uk, is due to the HFEA's established practice of retaining only the last three licence committee minutes for each Licensed Centre; and whether they will therefore place in the Library of the House a copy of the minutes for the meeting in March 2005 at which it was demonstrated how the cloning of embryos using nuclei from a patient with type 1 diabetes could be applied in developing treatments for this disease.
Answer
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has advised that the grounds for the authority’s licensing decisions are set out in the minutes of licence committee meetings. The grounds for approving licence R0152 are set out in the minutes of the meeting at which the initial application was approved, and of subsequent meetings at which a renewal of the licence was approved. The most recent of these meetings took place on 18 June 2008 and the minutes of this meeting are available on the HFEA’s website at: http://guide.hfea.gov.uk/guide/InspectionReport.aspx?code =17&s=1&&nav=2 The HFEA has also advised that it has retained the minutes of the licence committee meeting of 16 March 2005, referred to in the noble Lord's question, in accordance with its agreed retention schedule. A copy of the minutes has been placed in the Library.