Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Earl Howe on 30 October 2013 (WA 259), 26 November 2013 (WA 263), 3 December 2013 (WA 36), 3 December 2014 (HL3158) and 16 December 2014 (HL3461), whether they consider there to be any barriers to a universally agreed definition of genetic modification, in the light of the Chief Medical Officer’s views on the matter; if so, what are the "rather mixed and odd ways" in which others have used terms like "genetic modification," "GM" and "germline"; and how the statements by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics are consistent with their view that "this process is not genetic modification".

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority refers to the proposed mitochondrial donation techniques as “germ-line modification” and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics as “germ line gene therapy”. As I stated in my Written Answer of 16 December 2014 (HL3461), we agree with this and believe it to be consistent with our view that the proposed mitochondrial donation techniques are not genetic modification.