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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

I am coming to that. As I said, my amendment is about children who suffer from very serious diseases, which kill the majority of them by the age of two. They relate to the development of the brain and kidneys. Some of them are congenital diseases caused by genetic defects in the mitochondrion. The reason for suggesting that cells should be used from these children, using cell nuclear transfer technology and therefore creating an embryo, is to obtain stem cells and cultures of cells that carry the defective gene in order to study how these diseases develop and to find ways and means of treating them. This also applies to creating interspecies embryos using skin cells from children, with parental consent, to create stem cells using animal eggs from which the nucleus is removed. The stem cells that result are nearly a 100 per cent match to the child from whom the skin cells were taken. This allows us to understand the development of lethal diseases so we can find the kind of therapies that my friend—in the professional sense—the noble Lord, Lord Winston, has talked about that use gene therapies and develop architecture to modify these genes so that children can survive longer and in due course we can treat these genetic defects. Interspecies embryos and the human embryonic material obtained—human stem cells—both use the same technology. These cells are obtained to study further the behaviour of these diseases. My amendment is about obtaining consent. Most of these children die at an early age and are not able to consent so consent is needed from the parents to obtain these cells so we can learn how to treat these diseases. That is the simple reason for this amendment; there is no other reason. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 51 to 54 not moved.] Schedule 3 agreed to. Clause 14 [Conditions of licences for treatment]: