---

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

I am interested in that point. My constituency of South Cambridgeshire probably has as many scientists engaged in stem cell research as any constituency in the country. From the many people to whom I have spoken in my constituency, I believe that the consensus rests on the proposition that embryonic stem cell research is one of several models of research, which may deliver substantial therapeutic benefit in future, and on the fact that constraints emerged on the availability of human eggs, which meant that there were significant benefits to be derived from using animal eggs. However, that belief did not extend—and I have not heard that scientists in my constituency reached a consensus on the matter—to human-animal embryos in which there is a substantial mix of human and animal nuclear DNA. The document that the Government presented to the Science and Technology in January 2007 stated that"““there may be different arguments—both scientific and ethical—applying to creation of hybrids by cell nuclear transfer which in terms of their nuclear DNA are ostensibly human,””—" that applies to the research projects that have been licensed so far—"““and to embryos containing both human and non-human nuclear DNA.””" I therefore find it perverse that the Government have not structured the Bill around the scientific consensus. They have not based the measure on the proposition that embryos that are ostensibly human can be created, and, by virtue of the use of animal eggs, may enable embryonic stem cell research to make progress. Instead, they have structured it in such a way as to permit the creation of embryos with both nucleic human and nucleic animal DNA. As the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) said, that is a 50:50 embryo, as it were. That is precisely the ethical judgment that was considered back in 1990, on the basis of the Warnock report. The conclusion reached then was that such a form of embryo research should not be contemplated. We need to consider whether we should amend the Bill to exclude embryos created by using human gametes and animal gametes or a human pronucleus and an animal pronucleus, as the Government propose under clause 4.