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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am sorry; I do not think that that is possible. The wording of new sub-paragraph (7) is very sloppy. It states: "““Condition F is that it does not appear to the researcher that the donor has indicated any objection””." Surely we cannot pass that, because the researcher is very keen to go ahead with the research. I do not doubt what has been said about a lot of the research being very important and instrumental in helping to find cures for diseases that we cannot treat at the moment. None the less, we cannot accept the provision that ““it does not appear to the researcher that anyone has objected””. We would not have that in any condition, because it is so sloppy. Because we are debating Amendment No. 26 as well, in order that I can make just one speech, I would like to speak about children. What we are being asked to do is bypass the parents. New sub-paragraph (2) does not even say, ““The children or their parents should be contacted””. Instead, it says: "““Condition A is that the human cells are lawfully taken from or provided by the child before the child attains that age of 18 years””." Eighteen years? You can be married at 18, you can sign up as a soldier and, if a boy of 17 steals birds’ eggs from a nest, he can be sent to prison. But he is apparently not capable of saying, ““I agree”” or, ““I don't agree””, because you do not have to bother to ask him, because he is not 18. I cannot accept that. New sub-paragraph (4) says, "““the child does not appear to the person storing or using the human cells … to have indicated any objection””." That is the same point that I touched on earlier. We cannot accept that any researcher anxious to carry out research can be allowed to say, ““It did not appear to me that anyone was objecting””. There must be something far clearer than we have in these amendments, if we are trying to do what the noble Lord, Lord Walton, said. I respect the noble Lord and I know that he is absolutely genuine. I am not attacking him, but I am saying that any part of a human being is theirs to do what they like with, not ours to do what we find convenient, and these points and others in the amendment worry me greatly. I do not like Big Brother. I do not like the fact that Big Brother looks at us a lot of the time and knows extraordinarily intimate details about every one of us. But he is not going to have the right to assume that we will give bits of our bodies to be used in research when we have never been asked.