IVF: Donors

(asked on 15th July 2025) - View Source
Questioner
Rebecca Paul Portrait
Rebecca Paul
(Conservative - Reigate)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the reason that over 4,100 women from the poorest backgrounds in the UK have donated their eggs since 2011.

Answered by
Karin Smyth Portrait
Karin Smyth
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 22nd July 2025

The Department has not undertaken an assessment, however, academic research in the United Kingdom has consistently found that donating eggs and sperm is driven by altruism.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (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.

The following table shows the number of egg donors living in each of the multiple deprivation deciles in England at time of registration, between 2011 and 2020:

Multiple deprivation decile

Number of egg donors

1

1,117

2

1,488

3

1,542

4

1,360

5

1,310

6

1,214

7

1,114

8

1,097

9

1,050

10

860

Source: the HFEA report, Trends in egg, sperm and embryo donation 2020.

Notes:

  1. this data includes donors with a postcode in England only;
  2. multiple deprivation deciles were calculated using 2015 data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and post code information from the HFEA register; and
  3. data provided is from a live register and may not match data published elsewhere.
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