---

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, with that invitation, I shall speak to an amendment that has been brought back with the deletion of a particular paragraph about animals that aroused a great deal of hostility on a previous occasion. We now have an innocent and, I hope, pleasing amendment that your Lordships will think fit to accept. There are two extra points going for us today. First, in an earlier amendment, the principle that some things are good to have in the Bill was recognised. The big argument underlying this amendment is to get it in the Bill to reassure the public how seriously we take the development of science and the care we in this House are giving to it. Secondly, the Minister referred to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, as being a benign influence on the Bill and a figure who has been watching its progress carefully. We now have an amendment that has been recommended by him. We have brought it back with the deletion of the animal bit, which I mentioned earlier. Many of the words in Amendment No. 21 come from previous legislation. Proposed new subsection (6) would go into the licensing provisions in Schedule 2. Paragraph (a) says, "““any proposed use of embryos or human admixed embryos is necessary for the purposes of the research””." Subject to the addition of the words ““human admixed embryos””, that precisely tracks the 1990 Act in Schedule 2(3)(vi). There is cogent evidence, which the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, addressed, to answer the question raised there. The noble Lord, Lord Darzi, spoke on 15 January in favour of the importance of having peer review research proposals which could then lead on to monetary grants and support. Paragraph (b) says, "““the research proposed on human or human admixed embryos is likely to achieve its specified purposes””." As I said on a previous occasion, this will have echoes of the Patents Act about an employee making an invention. No answer was ever made to that. It seemed a good point—one often thinks one’s own points are good—that you could recognise an invention made by an employee and award it to him rather than the employer if the circumstances were such that the invention might reasonably be expected to result in the carrying out of his—the employee’s—duties. Finally, heading (ii) says, "““it is not reasonably practicable to achieve the specified purposes of the research without using human embryos or human admixed embryos””." The only objection I believe has been made at all to these provisions is that the authority more or less does what is set out in paragraph (b)(i) and (ii) already. Yet that does not meet the point that this is designed to give reassurance to the public.