Lord Alton of Liverpool – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2016-05-05.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 25 April (HL7390), what assessment the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has made of how the currently stated aim of research licence R0152 to improve outcomes of ART for the treatment of infertility” relates to any reasonably foreseeable applications of nuclear transfer that accord with the statutory tests and the originally stated purpose of the proposed research in the initial application for that licence; and on what grounds the HFEA Licence Committee was “content that the revised objectives and lay summary were consistent with the activities and purposes for which the product was licensed”.”
Lord Prior of Brampton
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has advised that research project R0152 has a number of aims, which are summarised in the HFEA inspection report for July 2015, a copy of which is attached. One of the aims of the research project R0152 is to improve outcomes of assisted reproduction technologies (ART) for the treatment of infertility. This relates to gaining a better understanding of the cellular and molecular events occurring during pre-implantation development in vitro, and to determine how these are affected by the routine laboratory procedures, for example the vitrification process to enable storage.
The aim that refers to nuclear transfer does not specifically relate to the aim of improving outcomes of ART for the treatment of infertility.
As stated in my Written Answer of 25 April 2016 (HL7390), in 2015 the HFEA Licence Committee was satisfied that the activities licensed were necessary or desirable for the purposes, specified in Schedule 2, Paragraph 3A(2) to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, as amended, and was, therefore, content with the revised objectives and lay summary.
