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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, I found much to agree with in the introductory remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. However, like many others who have spoken, I reach a different conclusion. I do not wish to repeat the very compelling arguments that have been made for the fact that existing bodies to a great degree cover the waterfront. I simply want to expand very briefly on one additional point which has been touched on both by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and my noble friend Lord Alton. I refer to the question of public trust and confidence. I speak as someone who had the privilege last year of chairing a working party of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics to produce one of its reports. What struck me when the report was launched last November—a report on the ethics of public health—was the high degree of public confidence as expressed, for example, by the reaction of the media to the work of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. It is worth reflecting on where public trust and confidence, so essential to any pronouncements in the complex field of human bioethics, come from. They are a number of different strands to public trust and confidence. First, the Nuffield Council is seen as an independent body. It is not funded by the Government primarily, although it receives some funding from the Medical Research Council. The fact that it is independent of the Government makes it a more trusted body. I speak again from personal experience, having chaired the Food Standards Agency—a government body where it is much harder to persuade the public that one is genuinely independent. Independence is important and I could add parenthetically that the funders—the Nuffield Foundation and the Wellcome Trust—exert absolutely zero pressure on those publishing or producing the reports in terms of the conclusions. A further strand of the public trust is gained through the Nuffield Council’s working parties. My working party met roughly 10 times a year over two years and those meetings very often engaged a wide range of views. We chose particularly to meet those who had opposing views; for example, on the issue of fluoridation. There were also very wide consultations. The trust comes in part from transparency, openness and inclusiveness. Why do I mention this? I do so partly to reiterate the point that the waterfront, as has been said, is very well covered by a number of bodies, including the Nuffield Council, but also to make the point that, were a new national bioethics commission to be created as suggested in the amendment, it would have to work very hard over a very long time to earn public trust and confidence. It is not at all clear to me that it would succeed to the extent that existing bodies have succeeded in earning that public trust. That is one of a number of reasons why I feel that the amendment should not be supported.