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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

I thank the hon. Lady; I am well aware of that. What was interesting was the Italian law: at that time, the country had only just got round to passing laws to control in vitro fertilisation. Prior to that, the issue had been completely unregulated and all manner of things had been going on. A scientist had been threatening to clone a human being; that would clearly be absolutely impossible in this country under this legislation. When it finally arrived, the law was so badly drafted that it meant that an embryo could not be frozen and that all the embryos produced at any given time had to be implanted. If there were 10 embryos, 10 embryos would be implanted. The consequence of that is excessive multiple births and all that that implies. Embryos could not be frozen, so people were stuck with thousands of frozen embryos that they did not know what to do with. Getting this legislation right is very important. The issue has started to come under strain because of scientific progress. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has been called on to make judgments that stretch the framework to its limits. Once that happens, there is judicial review and there are challenges in the courts. The courts, however, are not the places in which to make ethical or medical decisions. The Hashmi case was a classic example, and the Whitaker case was another. In the former case, which typifies the saviour sibling concept, the HFEA granted a licence to permit pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and tissue-typing so that a sibling who was compatible and could donate blood to his brother with beta thalassemia could be born. That was challenged in court and there were many months of wrangling from one court to another before the process was finally carried out. That situation was unacceptable from any point of view, and it tells us why we have to amend the current Act.