To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services on how many occasions in the last 12-month period for which figures are available, advice or guidance was given by his Department to medical ethical committees about the value or ethical acceptability of proposals put before them.

Advice to ethical committees on the ethical acceptability of proposals put before them is a matter for the professions concerned and the appropriate professional bodies. The Department's guidance on the establishment of ethical committees (circular HSC(IS)153, a copy of which is in the Library), endorsed the recommendations on clinical research of the Royal College of Physicians.