Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support this definition. There was much discussion and debate in Committee, and prior to that when we had the stem cell debate, about what we are trying to do here. It is important to understand what we are trying to do and why the human admixed embryo definition might be more appropriate. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, said, the spectrum covers truly cytoplasmic interspecies embryos, where the component that comes from the animal egg is the cytoplasm in the egg of that animal from which the nucleus, and therefore the majority of the animal DNA, is removed. It is important to understand why we are trying to do this and what the law currently allows. The law currently allows one to take a somatic cell, a skin cell, from a person suffering from a disease—for example, motor neurone disease—and insert the nucleus from that cell into a human egg from which the nucleus is removed and to produce an embryo from which to harvest stem cells that will carry the genes of that disease to be able to understand the progression of the disease and develop drugs to treat it. That is the main reason for doing this research. It is to help humanity—it is not to endanger humanity in any way. Why do we have to use animal eggs? We need to use animal eggs because human eggs are not available. If you take a dead cow’s egg and remove the nucleus, and take a somatic cell nucleus from a the skin of a person who is suffering from a debilitating, progressive and lethal disease, to produce a stem cell line, that stem cell line carries the gene of that disease. That will enable you to do the research necessary to cure that disease. Depending at what stage you harvest those stem cells, that stem cell line comprises 99.5 per cent human cells. It carries only 0.5 per cent or less of animal material and none of it is animal DNA. There is no intention to implant that in any human being or in any animal. It will be used for basic research, to find cures for diseases. Therefore, the term ““human admixed embryo”” is correct, because the embryo is at the human end—it is 99.9 per cent human. Currently, there is no intention to use pure hybrids, which will end up as 50 per cent human and 50 per cent animal. We do not know, in research terms, when they use these cells to do exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Winston, has described in order to understand the subsequent development of cell lines, whether that will come later. But we recognise that any such development would require a Home Office licence. I hope that we understand the basis of these definitions and what we are trying to do. There was a discussion about the interspecies definition not being appropriate. Scientists have worked hard to explain what they are trying to do, and why it is important.