Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of a ban on advertisements for egg donors.

There are no plans to make an assessment on banning advertisements for egg donors. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) Code of Practice states that advertising should be designed with regard to the sensitive issues involved in recruiting donors, and that advertising or publicity aimed at recruiting gamete or embryo donors, or encouraging donation, should not refer to the possibility of financial gain or similar advantage, although it may refer to compensation permitted under relevant HFEA Directions.

There are no plans to raise the minimum age of egg donation to 25 years old. The HFEA has advised that their published data shows that egg donors had a consistent average age of 31 to 32 years old from 1991 to 2020. The HFEA Code of Practice states that gametes for the treatment of others should not be taken from anyone under the age of 18 years old. This reflects the latest professional body guidance that all donors must be aged 18 years old or above.

The compensation rate for egg and sperm donation is set by the HFEA, rather than the Department, as provided for in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The increase in donor compensation in October 2024 reflected the rise in inflation and cost of living since the last change from 2011. The Department has not undertaken an impact assessment, however, academic research in the United Kingdom has consistently found that donating eggs and sperm is driven by altruism, and the HFEA published data shows that egg and sperm donors in England from 2011 to 2020 lived in similar or more affluent socio-economic areas than the general population.

The following table shows the number of egg donors living in each of the multiple deprivation deciles in England at time of registration, between 2011 and 2020:

Source: the HFEA report, Trends in egg, sperm and embryo donation 2020.

Notes:

1. this data includes donors with a postcode in England only;
2. multiple deprivation deciles were calculated using 2015 data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and post code information from the HFEA register; and
3. data provided is from a live register and may not match data published elsewhere.