Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Lord Drayson on 5 May 2009 (WA 95–6) and by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 8 June 2015 (HL44), why the latter stated that "derivation of ESC lines was not a primary aim of the project" in the light of the former Answer stating that the "primary aim of the MRC’s award to the University of Newcastle … was to incorporate technological advances to improve the efficiency of SCNT in human oocytes and develop a reproducible method of generating human embryonic stem cells following the transfer of the nucleus of an adult somatic cell into an oocyte"; and what assessment they have made of why that previously stated primary aim has still not been achieved despite the increased number of "freshly harvested oocytes donated specifically for this research" and the "help and advice given by Dr Shoukhrat Mitalipov" as acknowledged in <i>Scientific Reports</i> 4, article 3844.

To provide the Noble Peer with a detailed reply on this technical issue, I have asked the Medical Research Council to write to you with on this matter. I will place a copy of this letter in the Library of the House.