Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has commissioned research into the potential long-term health impact on young women's bodies of egg retrieval.

The Department has not commissioned research into the potential long-term health impact on young women's bodies of egg retrieval. However, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) set out strict requirements in its Licence Conditions and Code of Practice relating to the information that must be given before egg retrieval takes place in United Kingdom licensed fertility clinics, whether for the patient’s own use or to donate to others. This includes information about the potential immediate or longer-term health risks and the psychological consequences of being a donor, as well as offering counselling to everyone involved.

The compensation rate for egg and sperm donation is set by the HFEA, as provided for in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The HFEA has advised that the donor compensation levels originally set in 2011 followed a thorough ethical review, which identified a set of principles that ensured altruism remained at the heart of donation and that there weren’t any unjustifiable barriers to donation. The difference in compensation reflects the different levels of disruption, pain, and risk in the respective processes of egg and sperm donation. The increase in donor compensation from 1 October 2024 reflects the rise in the cost of living over this time. Academic research in the UK has consistently found that donating eggs and sperm is driven by altruism, and HFEA published data shows that egg and sperm donors in England from 2011 to 2020 lived in similar or more affluent socio-economic areas than the general population.