Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]

I rise as a biologist, a rationalist and a supporter of the Bill. I am not attracted by any of the amendments that have been discussed tonight. However, I do not want to engage in intellectual argument or discuss high-falutin' matters of philosophy—we heard enough of that in the previous contribution. I want to tell the Committee a story about one of my constituents. David is three years old and suffers from fanconi anaemia. There is no medical treatment or cure for that condition. He needs a bone marrow transplant before the age of 10 to avoid a slow and lingering death within the following 20 years, when he will die from bone marrow failure or from leukaemia. There is no existing tissue match for David. All 12 million people worldwide who are members of bone marrow databases have been checked, but a match has not been found. If David were to have a bone marrow transplant from a mismatched donor, there would be a 30 per cent. chance that he would survive in the short term. At that point, he would spend six months of his life in hospital, and he would have a life expectancy of perhaps another 15 years. He would not reach adulthood, if he were to have a mismatched donor. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) should note that the same point applies to cord blood banks. In an e-mail, David's father told me that"““A cord blood bank is potentially positive for any child having to undergo a bone marrow transplant but the specific nature of the disorder of Fanconi Anaemia, the commonest inherited bone marrow failure condition, is that a related sibling match will always have significantly less mortality and morbidity than an unrelated donor match irrespective””" of whether it comes"““from an unrelated adult donor or unrelated cord blood.””"