Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 17 November (HL Deb cols 207GC to 215GC), how much longer 120 million items of PPE will be stored in China; and how much they anticipate this will cost.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We aim to reduce the cost of storing personal protective equipment in China and further information will be available in due course.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 17 November (HL Deb cols 207GC to 215GC), how much it has cost to date to store 120 million items of PPE in China.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
From April to September 2022, the cost of storing personal protective equipment in China was £16.3 million. We aim to further reduce this expenditure.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Kamall on 11 November (HL3361), how many human embryos were (1) deliberately destroyed, and (2) transferred to uteri to establish pregnancies, in each of the last 12 months for which figures are available; and how many human embryos have been (a) deliberately destroyed, and (b) transferred to uteri since such procedures were made legal.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the number of embryos discarded and transferred to uteri to establish pregnancies from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020. The data is the latest information available on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s (HFEA) register database on 2 November 2022.
Month | Embryos discarded | Embryos transferred |
January 2020 | 11,005 | 4,716 |
February 2020 | 15,743 | 6,978 |
March 2020 | 14,432 | 5,228 |
April 2020 | 2,870 | 283 |
May 2020 | 1,822 | 85 |
June 2020 | 6,894 | 3,110 |
July 2020 | 13,458 | 6,185 |
August 2020 | 14,578 | 6,228 |
September 2020 | 14,238 | 6,283 |
October 2020 | 14,609 | 6,812 |
November 2020 | 16,880 | 6,988 |
December 2020 | 10,020 | 4,868 |
Total | 136,549 | 57,764 |
Source: HFEA
The following table shows the cumulative figures for the number of human embryos which have been discarded and transferred to uteri from 1 August 1991 to 31 December 2020. This includes additional validated data from previous years.
Total number of embryos discarded | 3,242,868 |
Total number of embryos transferred | 2,114,213 |
Source: HFEA
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Markham on 28 October (HL2572), whether the Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority intends to consult the general public regarding (1) additional techniques that aim to replace mitochondria in embryos, (2) embryonic genome-editing techniques that are not currently considered to be ready for clinical use, or (3) extending the 14-day limit for embryo research; and, if so, what steps they have taken to inform the public of any such consultations.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee is an advisory committee of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and therefore has no plans to consult the general public on these issues.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist on 3 October (HL2056), which new studies relating to the impact on children born from assisted reproductive technology treatments had led the expert Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to consider new recommendations regarding (i) additional techniques with the aim of replacing mitochondria in embryos, (ii) genome editing of embryos that is not currently considered to be clinic-ready, and (iii) extending the 14-day limit for embryo research.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has advised that its Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee has not made any specific new recommendations.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will publish all the documents they hold relating to victims of Primodos.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
All documents relating to hormone pregnancy tests, such as Primodos, other than those subject to legal privilege, have been published in an online only format at GOV.UK.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to their issuing of an apology to Primodos victims in 2017, what plans they have to support those victims to seek justice through the courts.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has no plans to do so.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they are supporting the pharmaceutical company Bayer in seeking to strike down an attempt by victims of Primodos to have their case heard; if so, why; and whether they will seek to establish an independent mediation process to ascertain whether there is a causal link between Primodos and birth defects.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is, with others, defending court proceedings which were issued in December 2019 by claimants who contend that hormone pregnancy tests (HPTs), such as Primodos, caused birth defects.
The Department has made an application to strike out the claim by individuals which allege that HPTs caused them harm, which is due to be heard in May 2023. The scientific evidence has been reviewed on a number of occasions and most recently by the Commission on Human Medicines Expert Working Group on Hormone Pregnancy Tests. The Expert Working Group concluded that the available scientific evidence did not support a causal association. It is therefore not considered appropriate to establish an independent mediation process.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the study in PLOS Medicine, Cancer in children born after frozen-thawed embryo transfer: A cohort study, published on 1 September, which reported an increase in the cancer incidence in children born as a result of frozen-thawed embryo transfer; and what steps they are taking to facilitate a follow up to that study by means of controlled comparisons with larger samples.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has advised that the findings in the PLOS Medicine study should be interpreted with caution, as the number of children born after frozen-thawed embryo transfer in the study who later developed cancer, was very low; 30.1 in 100,000 births.
The HFEA’s expert Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee monitors new studies relating to assisted reproductive technologies, including any impact on children born from treatments. This can lead the HFEA to recommend new information for patients regarding the risks of any treatment.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Department of Health and Social Care’s anti-fraud unit investigating personal protective equipment contracts (1) has passed, or (2) intends to pass, dossiers of evidence for criminal prosecutions to the Serious Fraud Squad.
Answered by Lord Kamall
Due to the emergency nature of the personal protective equipment (PPE) procurement, the Department’s Anti-Fraud Unit received referrals from varying sources on 37 contracts. In many instances, these reflected the exceptional circumstances surrounding PPE procurement and contract award. The Department acted to identify potential for fraud in PPE contracts with high-risk indicators. This prevented or terminated 11 contracts, which avoided a potential fraud loss of £157 million.
The Department takes allegations of fraud seriously and explores every available option, including working with law enforcement partners, where appropriate, to bring those who commit fraud to account. However, we are unable to provide details of ongoing counter fraud actions as to do so could prejudice the outcomes.