Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]

I do not want to get involved in the politics of the issue. I have already made the point that there is no overwhelming body of science to suggest that useful research will result. Contrary to what has been said, the provisions apply not only to cybrids—when the nucleus is removed from an animal egg and replaced with a human nucleus—but to the creation of chimeras, which are a mixture of animal and human cells, and true hybrids, which are created by fertilising an animal egg with human sperm or vice versa. That is truly pushing the boundaries, and I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds) has tabled an amendment on that point. It is true that all those creatures have to be destroyed within 14 days and they cannot be implanted in a woman or an animal, but to listen to the press one would think that only cybrids were involved. In fact, the Bill legalises true hybrids, which are genuinely and absolutely 50 per cent. animal and 50 per cent. human. It is not entirely true, as we so often read, that cybrids are only 0.1 per cent. animal. Roger Highfield, who is the science editor of The Daily Telegraph and does not normally support my views on many things, says that at the early stages of embryo development animal DNA is as much as 50 per cent. of the mitochondrial DNA. Of the mitochondrial DNA created in cybrids, as much as 50 per cent. might be animal, so it is not quite true that such early creatures are 99 per cent. human. Of course, if that is true, they are not just things; although they are anormal, they are potentially like human embryos—they have all or most of the genetic make-up of a human being.