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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer and I thank all noble Lords who have supported the amendment. It clearly has widespread support in the House. Let me answer one or two points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Howe—I cannot answer them fully, because of time. It is important to understand that the use of ES cells in patients will be regulated by the MHRA, not the HFEA. However, all the cell lines currently made in this country are made from embryos licensed to be used only for research, not for therapy purposes. There might therefore be difficulty in using these cell lines for therapy purposes. The EU directive requires that the EU ask whether the cell lines were created in an environment of which it would approve: the GMP facilities. Hence the need to allow under licence the creation of embryos for storage and the creation of lines at GMP facilities so that we are ready to have them. On the number of lines required, that might again be a decision that the regulators, such as the MHRA and the EU directive, must make on the basis of a therapy. But it could be that we require only one stem cell line. Embryonic stem cell lines, when kept under proper conditions, are immortal. You can produce vats of cell lines from one stem cell line. It is not rocket science to know how many lines. The maximum that we require for our population might be 15, even for some kind of tissue-matching purposes; that would depend on the immunogenicity, but I would not go there. I am slightly concerned by the Minister’s response that this matter will be taken back to another place to be, perhaps, amended. I hear that it is not that easy to bring forward such an amendment. I hope that the Minister will suggest that we have a discussion before Third Reading, so that we know exactly what will happen.