A body set up to license fertility treatments went too far when it gave the go-ahead for the creation of a "designer baby" to provide bone marrow to its sick brother, according to an influential group of MPs.

Last December, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority made a ruling to allow the parents of three-year-old Zain Hashmi, from Leeds, to have an embryo selected with the best chance of helping cure him of the potentially fatal rare genetic disorder beta thalasseamia.

But the House of Commons science and technology select committee argued on Wednesday that the decision went against the recommendations of a HFEA/Human Genetics Commission working party set up a year earlier.

In their report entitled Developments in Human Genetics and Embryology, the MPs complained that the matter had not been debated by Parliament and the public had not been consulted before the decision was made.