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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord in his amendment. Frequently during the passage of the Bill, I have felt a sense of real excitement about what is going on out there. I am a medical doctor, but I am not a medical scientist. I know that medical scientists have the same view of humanity as doctors, which is to do the very best for people that they can and to research for the benefit of mankind. The amendment refers to something that I thought could never happen. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Winston, told us very graphically how his infertile patients feel that their immortality is being taken away from them. They cannot have their own children so their genes will not be passed on to grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This amendment refers to work which will rectify that. It means that an adult man who has had mumps orchitis, for example, and is infertile as a consequence will be able to have sperm created from his own body, from his own stem cells, to produce his very own child. Likewise women—I do not know whether I am right but noble Lords will tell me—with polycystic ovaries who have very great difficulty in conceiving and sometimes never succeed could also undergo this technique. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has said, sperm could only come from male adult stem cells and an egg could only come from a female. In fact, a female cannot produce a male because we do not have Y chromosomes. This is so exciting. There are patients who, if they knew we were discussing this in the Chamber today, would be cheering—they would be filled with such joy that something in the future may be able to help their particular cause of infertility. The Bill of course covers treatment for infertility. I hope there is no opposition to this. There should not be any because although embryo stem cells can be used in this research, this technique will use adult stem cells, of which we have heard such a lot from some of the people who feel very uneasy about many other aspects of the Bill. So I hope that the amendment will be supported. This is one of the most exciting things in this Bill and one of the most exciting bits of medical research we have heard about.