---

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, as has been said, the Joint Committee recommended the change from ““life-threatening”” to ““serious””. As a member of that committee, I thought that that was a reasonable suggestion in the circumstances. The kind of considerations mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, on this amendment, and by the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, on the previous amendment, seem to go towards a definition of something that was not necessarily life-threatening but was still very damaging to the health of the person in question. Therefore, so far as I was concerned, that was what ““serious”” meant. After all, it is an ordinary word of the English language and there is a limit to the extent to which it is right to define ordinary words; but, as some of your Lordships have pointed out, ““serious”” has been used in a context that has led to a surprising result by including something that some noble Lords would not be prepared to include. So the suggestion is that ““serious”” is too vague to be allowed to stand alone in an Act of Parliament. If that is the case, we must look to see whether we can produce a better definition, as my noble friend Lord Howe has suggested. When I read the amendment, I thought it was pretty much like what I had in mind when we changed ““life-threatening”” to ““serious””. However, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, with her great experience of the judicial art, has said that lawyers stand away from, and do not wish to define, the phrase ““quality of life””, and refrain from using it when giving their reasons for judgment. I was wondering whether, perhaps, ““health”” might do instead. We cannot make such an amendment at this stage, but if the principle of this amendment were acceptable to the Government, as I sincerely hope it will be, it would be possible to refine it a little further. But the idea that trivial impairment to health would qualify as ““serious””, certainly never entered my head at the time of the Joint Committee’s deliberations. If, as has been said in relation to the earlier amendment, a definition of ““serious”” is required, I cannot think of anything much better than this fitting the context—except, possibly, with the substitution of ““health”” for ““quality of life””.