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Debate on the Address

My Lords, from the gracious Speech, I intend to focus only on the Bill to regulate human embryology and fertilisation. I must declare an interest as a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The 1990 Act, which accepted the main recommendations of the committee chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, has been a remarkably robust piece of legislation, as the Minister rightly pointed out. It provided a legal framework for the regulation of both treatment and research involving the use of embryos outside the body that has stood the test of time and has been deeply respected in other parts of the world. It has meant that public confidence, so vital in the area of evolving research, has been retained and that top-class researchers, who need a stable research environment, have been drawn to this country. It is only 17 years since that Act, but, since then, things have moved on most remarkably. Scientific advances, not envisaged by the framers of the 1990 Act, need to be regulated. In addition, social changes, already embedded in law, have taken place that Parliament will need to consider and evaluate in relation to this regulation. I therefore welcome the fact that we have a new Bill before us. The process whereby this Bill has come before Parliament has been a model of good practice. Consultation has been going on for at least two years, if not longer. First of all, the HFEA and stakeholders in the field were allowed significant input at the drawing-up of a consultation paper. The consultation paper was then widely discussed and input received by the Department of Health, before a draft Bill was brought before Parliament for pre-legislative scrutiny, the importance of which was rightly emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. The Joint Committee set up for the purpose received evidence from a wide range of opinion and made a report to which the Government responded, before drawing up the revised Bill that we will consider. It has been a long and thorough consultative process, which is the very epitome of good parliamentary legislation. Like other noble Lords, I acknowledge the willingness of the Government to change their mind over one crucial feature of the legislation. It was originally proposed that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Human Tissue Authority should merge to form one new body, RATE, which would be responsible for regulating both fields. It has long seemed to the professional bodies that are most involved that the two areas were so different that a single body could not regulate both of them without losing a great deal of expertise. That view was strongly endorsed by the Joint Committee, whose recommendation the Government accepted, even though the path to a merger had already been travelled for some time. When a Government change their mind in that way, in response to the best informed opinion, that should be commended as a sign of strength, rather than derided as an expression of weakness. Another aspect of the Bill illuminates the wider question of the relationship between Parliament, regulatory bodies and those who work in the field: the possibility of cytoplasmic hybrids. It is right that major issues of principle, about which the public are hesitant if not hostile, should be decided by Parliament. A regulatory body regulates only on the basis of what Parliament has decided, making general decisions about good practice, while properly leaving other decisions to professional bodies and clinicians. The legal advice to the HFEA was that cytoplasmic hybrids were embryos within the meaning of the 1990 Act and were in principle within our remit to regulate. However, it seemed to me—this is a personal view—that this is a development of such significance that it is absolutely right that it should be considered by Parliament. The HFEA initiated a major consultation. Scientific researchers, initially frustrated about delays to their research applications, were later understanding of the need for a major development such as this to be considered by Parliament. I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, was absolutely right to raise the important question of the right balance between the respective responsibilities of Parliament and a regulatory body such as the HFEA. On this issue, the balance is right, and it is right that Parliament should consider it. A good number of highly significant decisions have to be made by regulatory bodies—they cannot look to Parliament all the time—but fundamental issues arise which should be so referred. Although I support work on cytoplasmic hybrids, I welcomed the wide public consultation and the prospect of a debate on them in this Parliament. The strength or weakness of a Bill such as that coming before us will be in the detail. A great deal of consultation, thought and care has already gone into that detail. Nevertheless, the Committee stage, when we look at the Bill clause by clause, will be crucial. As well as allowing for new scientific developments, the Bill takes into account changing social attitudes. There was a time, as the old song put it, when love and marriage went together like a horse and carriage. They went also with sex, pregnancy, birth and children being brought up by that couple. In the 1960s, with the advent of reliable contraception in the form of the pill, the link between sex and pregnancy was decisively broken. Since then, advances in medical techniques and changing social mores have combined to break the nexus of marriage, sex, pregnancy, birth and upbringing at every point. I take just one example: it was reported not long ago that a single Japanese woman in her 60s, who had gone to America to have a donated embryo implanted in her womb, had given birth to a child. The one moral principle to emerge with increased force from this great social change is that of informed consent. This is a key principle in both treatment and research, and the HFEA takes it very seriously—a good number of clauses in the Bill deal with it. However, if that informed consent is in place, what grounds do others have to refuse what a woman says she most wants? The noble Lord, Lord Winston, states in his book, A Child Against the Odds, that his overriding concern as a clinician is the health of the mother and any baby who might be born; otherwise, he states, he respects, "““the right of women to try to have children””." As parliamentarians, we have to ask also whether there are wider, social reasons for particular requests not being granted. If such requests are to be refused, there must be good, convincing, grave reasons; otherwise, the principle of informed consent will remain the only and the overriding consideration. We have all heard that amendments might be made to the Bill, either to make abortion easier in the early stages of pregnancy or to make it more difficult for someone to obtain. If so, there will be a great deal of strong debate around these propositions. We must not forget that this Bill is primarily about legislating for treatment and research. It is an important Bill in itself, and the good legislation of the 1990 Act, the extensive consultation that has gone into this Bill and the willingness of the Government to listen and change their mind over one crucial proposal have set a good precedent for us doing as well for people who wish to have children, and the whole sector, in the future as our predecessors did 17 years ago.