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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, I wish to return to the main themes of the Bill, one of which is to ensure that Britain remains at the forefront of medical research. Laudable as that is—and it is—it cannot be at any price, and, like other noble Lords, I have reservations and questions. The 1990 Act provided the legal framework for the regulation of treatment and research involving the use of embryos outside the body. In doing so it enabled the public to have confidence in that area of research. Since 1990, things have moved on and science has advanced and they need to be regulated for public confidence and trust to be retained. We are dealing here with controversial matters for this Bill permits research that much of the rest of the world would not allow; it tests ethical limits and where they should be placed in a number of ways. The Bill must continue to provide public trust in the system of regulation. That is not easy when it represents a compromise between passionately held and conflicting views. If that was true of the 1990 Act, it is just as true of the Bill before us today. The 1990 Act was flexible—it gave discretion to the regulator, detailed decision-making to the scientists and all within a strong regulatory framework. This Bill transfers into legislation certain issues hitherto left to the regulator and it is right that Parliament should decide the major issues of principle, for the regulatory body regulates only on what Parliament has decided. In doing so, many things need to be kept in balance. We need a balance between the pioneering work of our scientists and the benefits they will bring to many people; the key ethical principles we hold which determine where the boundaries are to be drawn; principles such as the utmost respect for the moral status of the embryo; the welfare and well-being of any potential child, which has to be paramount; the assurance of human dignity and worth; and the continuing confidence of the public in these hugely complex—indeed, breathtaking—areas of research. All those factors point to the need for serious and detailed consideration of the Bill in Committee. I have three particular areas of concern. The first concerns the term ““interspecies embryo”” that the Bill introduces. This term includes a whole raft of possible combinations of human and animal tissue. It includes creating an interspecies embryo from human egg and animal sperm and vice versa. It also includes replacing the animal nucleus in an animal egg with a human nucleus and vice versa. All these practices will now be allowed, although the conditions under which they may be created remain laid down. I believe that this all-embracing term ““interspecies embryo”” is too wide. It is too big an umbrella and it covers things which in reality are quite different. For example, the Bill does not differentiate—and I believe that it should—between cytoplasmic hybrids and the so-called true hybrids. I believe that cytoplasmic hybrids should be allowed but that true hybrids are more problematic. I do not want to get technical here—indeed, I am not competent to do so; that is for Committee—but cytoplasmic hybrids and true hybrids are formed by very different processes. Even if both sorts of interspecies embryos come to be allowed and to be created, they are never to be implanted in a woman; but do we have sufficient safeguards in place? In considering embryology, I support the scientific development as long as the vital moral status of the embryo is retained, such that it never becomes and is never regarded as a mere bit of tissue with no real significance. Over the years we as a society have been able to retain that attitude of respect for the embryo in our laws and regulations. Equally there is the continuing sense that using human embryos for research is never straightforward, and is always testing and highly complex. That should lead us to proceed with caution. Does this generalised permission in the Bill to create interspecies embryos lead to a lessening or a dilution of the attitude of respect for the human embryo? If it does, it should be resisted. We need to be clear about the differences between the different forms of hybrids, and to think again about the indiscriminate way in which that term is being used. We must also take very seriously the fact that the Bill allows embryos to be genetically altered for research for the first time. Several noble Lords have already mentioned Professor Wilmut’s decision to stop using human embryos for his research. He says he is doing it for scientific reasons, but does not his decision still reflect this retained sense of the important moral status of the human embryo? I have two other comments. The Government are removing from the law the clause that the doctor seeking to give IVF treatment should consider the welfare of the future baby, including the need for a father. It seems extraordinary that at this time in our society’s life we state in the law that in the welfare and well-being of a child there is no need any more for a father. We hear it said again and again that children lack good male role models today, yet we are writing fathers out of the script. Again, it is surely very odd that the law might provide a birth certificate showing two women as parents of the child. I well understand that comes from a desire not to discriminate, but to have two women, or, indeed for that matter, two men on a birth certificate as parents is a very odd way to put things. We have come to see that donor-conceived children should be able to discover the truth about their origins, and of course we all commend the Bill’s desire to promote the truth. So why provide a birth certificate naming two persons of the same sex, when it is simply not true? If the well-being of the child is a key principle, and if truthfulness is a key principle, then above all we have to be honest. Finally, I come back to trust. For reasons of maintaining public trust, I, too, support the creation of a national bioethic commission, and I very much hope that the Government will consider that seriously. The noble Lord, Lord Brennan, put that point very powerfully before he was taken ill. I add our tribute from these Benches to the attendants for their skilful attention and care, and, especially, to the noble Lord, Lord Darzi. We are very grateful for his considerable help. We look forward to the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, returning to his seat on the Benches behind us. I also believe that in this matter of trust and confidence the Government could take the lead in pressing for international guidelines and global agreements, and, not least, to ban the implantation of cloned human embryos. The way embryology has developed in this country has enabled public confidence in innovative practices. We have taken tentative steps forward—too quickly for some and not quickly enough for others—by giving permission for research within careful regulation and scrutiny, with the HFEA keeping a very close and responsible eye on it. That has been all to the good. It has allowed important developments. It has increased our understanding of embryology and stem cell research, but it has always kept us mindful of the respect and care that is owed to all human life, not least life in its very earliest moments. That has been possible because we have trusted our scientists and regulators. Whatever we do, we must not allow any parts of the Bill to put that trust at risk.