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Department of Health

I am grateful to be called in the debate, which takes me back to 1990 and all the issues that were debated then. I went underground for the next 10 years, having had rather too much of them because they were exceptionally difficult and took a lot out of one as well as much time. However, they are exceptionally important and evergreen. I want to focus on two issues in relation to the Science and Technology Committee’s consultation and report. I begin by commending the fact that the consultation’s terms of reference were comprehensive and rigorous. The Committee consulted extensively—online, through oral submissions and by encouraging written submissions. It was a truly committed initiative, which extended far beyond the usual time schedules involved in such consultation exercises. A little bird told me that the Committee even went to Rome to consult the Vatican. I thought that that was a good move, and I do not speak as a Roman Catholic. It must have been the first time in history that a Select Committee took evidence from the Vatican. The report is, sadly, not to be universally celebrated and it is worth remembering from the start the amount of internal and public disquiet that surrounded its publication. The Committee was split down the middle, as the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) said. I commend her bravery in raising an issue that perhaps other hon. Members would have preferred her not to raise. It was right and proper that she did so. Only the vote of the distinguished Chairman, the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson)—