Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]

The science editor went on to say that mitochondrial DNA is very important. As a medical doctor, the hon. Gentleman knows full well that tiny changes in DNA can cause very serious illnesses in adults, so the point is not minor. Even if he does not agree with me on that issue, if he is absolutely convinced that we are talking about a cybrid that is 99 per cent. human, surely he must accept the argument that it is ethically a being, and not just a thing. We should therefore be careful about how we treat it. As regards true hybrids, Sir Liam Donaldson said in his evidence to the Select Committee that"““there was no clear scientific argument as to why you would want to do it””" and that there was"““a feeling that this would be a step too far as far as the public are concerned.””" It is said that there is a shortage of embryos, but we know that there is no such shortage because there are many left from IVF treatment. It is said that there is a shortage of eggs, but eggs are needed for cloning only. There is enormous difficulty even in animal-animal cloning—more than 270 attempts were necessary to create Dolly the sheep—and there are enormous difficulties with therapeutic cloning. How much greater will be the difficulty in creating an animal-human clone! I therefore do not necessarily accept the argument. Various red herrings have been brought up, such as the hamster test. The House was told on Second Reading that the research that we are discussing is already being done, but the hamster test was used only to test human sperm; a human entity was not being created. Today, we are talking about creating a new entity, so we should be very careful about what we do. We should ban what 21 other countries have banned. No other country in Europe is going down this route yet. In terms of embryonic research, we will almost be like a rogue state.