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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

In the light of the debate, I have reread a bit of the Joint Committee’s report and the evidence on which we made our recommendation that we should substitute ““serious”” illness for ““life-threatening”” illness. The argument has been that ““life-threatening”” was very restrictive and that you could have an elder child—no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Walton, could give us many examples of this—who was bound to live an extremely restricted life as the result of disease but who would not actually die prematurely. We came to the conclusion that it really would be unduly restrictive to refuse permission for a saviour sibling to be used in those circumstances. We based this on the evidence of two distinguished academics, Professor Sheldon and Professor Wilkinson. If anyone wants to read it, it is in their memorandum at pages 454 and 455 of the evidence. Even in the light of this discussion, I would draw the same conclusion reached by the Joint Committee. The report says, however, that, "““we do not understand why the practice is limited to ‘life-threatening’ conditions capable of treatment using umbilical cord blood stem cells””." Our evidence was that the phrase, "““using umbilical cord blood stem cells””," was intended to be restrictive and to create a limitation, so that you could not have a saviour sibling for the purpose of harvesting a kidney or anything else. I listened to my noble friend Lord Howe speaking to the amendment in his name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I do not think for one moment that the Joint Committee would have contemplated a saviour sibling being used for that purpose. I yield to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who referred to the recommendation, but I do not think that that is what we meant or that I would have agreed to that if it were. I like the idea of regenerative tissue. Bone marrow is a very good case in point. Of course it is regenerative, and there may well be others, but that is what it should be limited to, and I very much hope that we may come back to this on Report and put it into the Bill. I wish to retain ““serious”” illness and not restrict this to ““life-threatening”” illness. I have one other thought. There is a huge difference between the conduct of a joint pre-legislative committee, which we had, and the importance of a debate such as the one that we have had this afternoon. Both serve their purpose, but the pre-legislative committee can never be a substitute for debate in the House.