Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Earl Howe on 18 November 2014 (HL2644), whether they will place in the Library of the House a full copy of the correspondence between members of the expert panel convened by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Zhang research group, as referenced by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health, Jane Ellison, in her letter to Lord Alton of Liverpool dated 30 October 2014; and if not, what was the evidential basis for the relevant statements in that letter.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has advised that the correspondence the Expert Panel member had with the research group does not add any more information to what had already been outlined in the relevant abstract, by John Zhang et al, published in Fertility and Sterility, Vol. 80, Suppl. 3, September 2003, which makes it clear the complications related to the multiple pregnancy and that the fetuses were found to be genetically normal. The Panel confirmed with the research group that it did not publish any further detail or follow up to this study, so the Panel has taken the view that there is nothing further for it to consider in relation to this case. For this reason, there is no ‘data concerned’.

The HFEA has also advised that the member of the Expert Panel corresponded with one of the authors of this abstract in his capacity as a Panel member, not on behalf of the HFEA. This correspondence was shared with the other Panel members. The Expert Panel is independent of the HFEA and does not act of its behalf.