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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

I first declare an interest as a long-serving former chairman of the HFEA. I have every respect for the views of my noble friend Lord Alton, with whom I am joining forces in our discussion of later amendments, as I have for the views of the noble Lord, Lord Patten. However, I must spring to the defence of the way in which public committees work in this country. I do not believe that my noble friend Lady Warnock was ever actually the chairman of the HFEA, although clearly her work was fundamental in creating it. However, I can assure the Committee that in my time members were appointed according to Nolan principles in every respect. Indeed, as members at one stage we had a bishop, an actress and a rabbi. Of course a body like that needs some scientists on it. To debar from membership anyone who might make money out of anything associated with IVF would be to debar huge sectors of society—not least counsellors, who have been members, nurses or maybe even those who print leaflets or run nursery schools. There are very many ways in which one might make money out of IVF. However, it is noticeable that the well-known practitioners in the field, and the most regulated, were not members of the authority and were sometimes alleged to make a great deal of money out of this treatment. But if money is perceived as a problem, the Committee may wish to support another amendment that would put more of the work in this field back into the NHS. The authority members took their work very seriously—and what I say I think applies to all public committees in this country. There is freedom of speech and those who were appointed were articulate, often academic and intelligent and had the freedom to write what they wished to write outside the bounds of the authority. Members of the authority met regularly with pro-life members and listened to what they had to say. Of course, fees had to be charged; it is a general principle in charging clinics that the object of regulation according to this Government should meet the costs of regulation. There was no personal profit to be made by any member of the authority or the authority itself in glancing licences to clinics. Indeed, your Lordships may recall that very recently there was an attempt to close a clinic, which caused an enormous furore. It is very difficult because of the law to close a clinic. That brings me back to the law. This is a country that is run according to the law—positive law not natural law. The members of the authority were bound legally by what is in the statute. That is why this House and the House of Commons are, in the end, the ultimate ethical arbitrators. The law comes first and foremost for the authority. It is self deluding to imagine that there can be another set of ethics outside the parameters of the law which will affect those who administer it. It is also self deluding to imagine that members of the authority spent all their time discussing ethics. There was a great deal of work that was mundane and legally required—licensing, inspecting, keeping data, running a computer, overseeing training and so forth. None of that had very much to do with ethics as the word has been bandied about recently, but simply to do with the administration of the law. That brings me back to the importance of the provisions of the Bill that we are passing in the next few months. The Bill contains the ethics. It would be limiting to insist on one member who spoke always, let us imagine, for animals or against embryo experimentation, because these matters have to be considered under the law and with public consultation. The HFEA has taken full account of public consultation very recently in relation to embryos. There have been other public consultations; for example, about sex selection. The public came out very clearly against sex selection for social reasons and that has remained the rule of the authority and it is in the Bill. The law is what counts: that is what matters. This string of amendments is designed to tie the authority in a way that would not apply to any other public committee in this country. It would make it look as though IVF were intrinsically dangerous; far more dangerous than a normal pregnancy. After all, many a normal pregnancy ends up in some form of danger. Collecting figures about OHSS is not as easy as it might seem, because many women come for treatment from abroad and then vanish off the books of the clinic when they go back to wherever they came from. Others may present in hospital with particular problems such as thrombosis and it may not be known that they had IVF. Any amount of data collection in that area is not necessarily accurate. Furthermore, the authority has been criticised for collecting data that are not used and are not necessarily useful. I hope that the Committee will support the normal, natural, lengthy and complicated way of appointing members of the HFEA, which corresponds in my experience to the way in which all other members of public authorities in this country are appointed—by advertisement, by selection according to criteria, and by expecting of them a commitment to the law and to free speech.