Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answers by Earl Howe on 1 April 2014 (HL6103 and HL6104) and by Lord Markham on 13 June (HL8181) and 14 June (HL8241), whether the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has made any assessment of the revised estimate that 10–20 families per year might be assisted by mitochondrial donation techniques; what assessment they have made of the HFEA decision to continue to license the use of such techniques; and whether the number of embryos used in treatments to date in the UK might reasonably be described as low in comparison with other licensed treatments.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has advised that it has made no assessment of the revised estimate previously made by the Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research at Newcastle University, on the number of embryos used in treatment to date in the United Kingdom in comparison with other licensed treatments, as the number of treatments to date in the UK is low.