Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care on 15 April 2019 (241389), what explanation the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority provided for why no more than five patients at risk of producing a child with mitochondrial pathologies had undergone treatment by 20 January 2020, given 14 applications had been approved; and for the application that was not approved (1) what were the reasons for that refusal, and (2) what was the subsequent fate of that application.

It is the responsibility of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to decide on individual applications for mitochondrial donation that meet the statutory test laid out in the relevant regulations. Decisions on when to begin treatment are a clinical decision and not a matter for the HFEA.

As of 25 February 2020, there have been 17 applications considered by the HFEA all of which have now been approved.