Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Earl Howe on 24 February 2014 (WA 174–5), how many human embryos have been destroyed or experimented upon in the United Kingdom to date for which records are available; and how many of those have been generated by (1) somatic cell nuclear transfer, (2) pronuclear transfer, and (3) spindle-chromosomal complex transfer.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, as amended (1990 Act), provides that human embryos created by in vitro fertilisation that are not transferred to a patient, cannot be allowed to develop beyond a maximum of 14 days. At that stage, the embryos are about the size of the head of a pin.

The 1990 Act also provides that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) cannot licence research using human embryos unless the research is necessary or desirable for the purposes specified in the Act and the use of embryos is necessary.

The HFEA has advised that the current total number of embryos that were allowed to perish in each year since 1990 were:

As stated in the answer to the noble Lord of 24 February 2014 (WA 174-175), the HFEA does not hold data in its register of the number of embryos experimented upon.

The HFEA has also advised that it does not hold records of those embryos that have been generated by somatic cell nuclear transfer, pronuclear transfer, and spindle-chromosomal complex transfer.