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Department of Health

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I hope that he will forgive me if I do not stray into a debate on ethics with him. One wise Committee recommendation was that the House should have a bioethics Committee. We are moving into territory that, even five years ago, we did not believe we would enter. It is important that some of these issues be discussed within that framework. Our Committee suggested to the House of Lords that we examine the science. It said ““no””, and that it would prefer to have the matter dealt with by an ad hoc Committee of the whole House. I approached the then Leader of the House to ask for such a Committee, but was refused. This issue will not go away. It is important that the Government think again and at least set up an ad hoc Committee of the whole House to look at the facts and put them before Parliament. At that point, we can bring in the ethical, as well as the scientific, debate in an effort to resolve these issues. I commend this excellent report to the House, and I look forward to the remainder of the debate.