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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, rightly reminded us that we are all responsible for our own ethics. It is only when we find it difficult to come to a conclusion that we want some superior authority. Many of your Lordships will remember as clearly as I do that one used to be able to look for that guidance from either the churches or the Royal Society. It is only as the churches and to some extent the Royal Society have lost their authority that we have started to look elsewhere. When you are in doubt as to what to do about an important thing, it is always comfortable to be told by somebody who knows more about it than you do what you should do. All of us in this House are accustomed to receiving that service from our Chief Whips and Front Benches, which leads me to mention very briefly the conversation almost between my noble friend Lord Patten and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, about the use of the three-line Whip. It is worth pointing out that the function of a three-line Whip is not to get people to vote against their conscience. It is to get people who have no particular persuasion in an argument to vote with their party and thus increase the numbers in favour of an argument in which they have taken no part. My real purpose in standing up to detain your Lordships is simply to say that this is such an important issue and so closely touches Parliament that both Houses ought to be involved in any final structure that is set up. We ought to hear the opinion of the other place on this. It is pre-eminently a subject on which your Lordships should put up an idea, the other place should elaborate on it, and then, if it seems fit to both Houses, it should be refined in exchanges between the two Houses. However flawed your Lordships may think the noble Baroness’s idea is, and whatever the shortcomings of the amendment at this stage—it is too late now to improve it before it goes elsewhere—I hope your Lordships will send it to the other end of the corridor in order to see what comes back.