Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many human embryos were discarded in each of the last ten years for which information is available; and what uses discarded embryos are put to.

The following table, provided by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), shows the number of human embryos discarded in each of the last ten years for which information is available:

Source: HFEA.

Notes:

1. the data is as recorded by the HFEA on 16 October 2024, so these figures reflect the data on this day and are likely to change over time;
2. data for 2019 to 2022 is preliminary and quality assurance processes with clinics have not yet completed.

There is no further information collected by the HFEA after an embryo is discarded.