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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

It may be of interest to recollect that the Joint Committee that examined the draft Bill was faced with these extensions to the definitions. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, was a member of that committee and knows much more about this than I do, but I think that the committee felt that basic science work might be affected by these definitions and that that sort of work would not necessarily involve the creation of embryos or the kinds of ethical considerations that surround that concept. The HFEA is set up primarily to deal with the special ethical considerations that arise from the creation and use of embryos. As I recollect, the committee recommended that the authority should have the power to exempt from the requirements of a licence activities in respect of which a licence was applied for but which in the view of the authority did not involve the ethics of embryos. It may be worth while seeing whether it is possible to revive that idea. It might well deal with at least some of the problems. It does not deal with them all—it does not deal with the problem raised by the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant—but it deals with some of the problems raised by the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Winston.