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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

It was not a plea for more time. I want to start by echoing the hon. Members for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) and for Salisbury (Robert Key) in their plea for a bioethics committee. The issue was raised by the hon. Member for Norwich, North when he chaired the Science and Technology Committee during its inquiry into human reproductive technologies and the law. It was raised in the Joint Committee and the Science and Technology Committee when they considered the legislation. It is nonsense that there is no mechanism to bring together people from both Houses to debate ethics and advise the Government on issues of such importance, and that the Government have to look elsewhere for such advice. I begin my brief comments by congratulating the Government on their measured and deliberative approach to the Bill. It is rare but extremely welcome for significant policy changes to be based not on media hype or dogma but on research evidence, and to be subject to careful parliamentary scrutiny. However, I have to tell the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), that the programming is giving all Members real cause for concern. To allocate only three hours' debate for the whole of schedule 2 is unrealistic. I think Ministers believe that the schedule is about saviour siblings, but it is significantly more than that; it is also about embryo testing, sex selection, storage limits, the licence of therapies, the Lord Hunt test and, most important, the use of hybrid embryos. That is what the hamster test is—a hybrid embryo—and it has never been regulated in law, yet it will come under schedule 2. The Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Dawn Primarolo), who will take the Bill through the House, has now returned to the Chamber. It is important that she argues for far more time for discussion of those matters; otherwise people will feel cheated and pressure groups will say that the Government simply railroaded the Bill through Parliament, which will undermine all the work the Government have done.