Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]

I would prefer not to go into that because I am sure that we will revert to it and not sure whether it is in the remit of our discussion, but it has been debated extensively in the House of Lords. Let me consider whether embryonic stem-cell therapy has uses. I share the concern about giving false hope. I hope that the record will show that I have never claimed that we are considering the certain prospect of cures and treatments for millions of people with serious diseases. Scientists hope that that will happen, and there is an expectation that we will learn about at least the causes of disease and be able to test treatments in a Petri dish in a cell model, which is difficult to obtain. It is hard to get Parkinson's disease cells from patients because they are in the brain and there are ethical questions about obtaining them. However, if they can be grown from an embryonic stage and drugs can be tested on them, that must offer hope. Although the letter in The Times was signed by several people from all over the world, the group is not authoritative. If one asks authoritative groups of people, who study the matter in scientific committees—the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the medical research charities, which jealously guard the money that they raise and do not want to waste it on useless treatments—one finds that they all support the research. There is a fundamental flaw in the letter from Professor Scolding and others, which states:"““We… question the scientific validity of proposals to create such embryonic combinations currently before the UK Parliament.””" The UK Parliament is not deciding whether those entities should be created but whether the HFEA should have the ability to approve a licence, if a scientific case is made to show that it is necessary or desirable for medical research, and there is no way in which to do that that does not involve embryos.