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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

It is the concern about any part of a cell that is at issue here. I would put it much more strongly than the noble Lord, Lord Patel. As noble Lords know, I am not given to exaggeration, but I believe that transgenic technology has been the single most important advance in human medicine in the past two decades. It was started in 1980 by Dr John Gordon in New York. I do not think that any other biological technology has been more important. When we talk about genes it is rather important that we understand that a gene is really just a chemical. There are no such things as human genes. I am afraid that my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Walton, talked about human genes, but essentially genes may be conserved right through evolution and one should think of them in terms of a chemical structure, not as something that is somehow innately part of life. That is a misunderstanding. As I said on the previous amendment, the test for a cell’s potential to develop into other tissues is one that we must consider carefully. We might argue that any animals that are so produced should be destroyed before they become viable, or at least should not be allowed to breed. That might help the Committee; it might be a way of looking at that in the future. However, transgenic animals must be allowed to breed. Without that breeding process, one will not understand the basis of functional genetics, which, as I say, is such a significant advance in every field of medicine and one which is accepted in every country; even countries that are querulous about in vitro fertilisation accept this kind of animal research as being a sine qua non of good biology.