---

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

The Minister will want to return to that intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. People from a child welfare background have been appointed to the HFEA; I welcome that, as I said in my opening remarks. I am not saying that everyone who has ever been appointed to the HFEA has a loaded, biased view that I find totally unacceptable. I am not saying that at all; in fact, my noble friend Lady Deech did a superb job during her time as chairman and was very objective and fair, even though I sometimes disagreed with the conclusions that the HFEA reached. I am arguing that the composition of the membership of the HFEA should be more balanced and that it should be more questioning of the way in which the law is being interpreted—in particular, about the tendency to pre-empt Parliament. To have a meeting of the HFEA this very week, between the sittings of this Committee of your Lordships’ House, to determine applications on interspecies embryos will create a great deal of cynicism in the minds of the public, who wonder whether we have not allowed ourselves to become just a rubber stamp. I say ““finally”” again—