Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Darzi of Denham, for the way in which he has responded to the debate. Indeed, I am grateful to everyone who has participated in it, especially to my noble friend Lord Tombs, who I am pleased to see back in his customary place. I am grateful also to the noble Lords, Lord Patten and Lord Bates, for their support for my amendment. The House will be relieved to know that I will not detain noble Lords for long. I will briefly deal with some of the arguments raised. I have not, in this amendment, invited the House to return to the debate mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, which we had nearly a year ago. This amendment would not prohibit embryonic stem cell research. It would not prohibit the creation of animal-human hybrids. It invites the House to require the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to seek from every licence applicant, and from the licensing authority, an undertaking that, before using admixed embryos, alternatives had been explored. I come to the point properly raised in our previous debates by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. I agree that this is not about trying to predict outcomes, but about methodology. It is not unreasonable in these changed circumstances—and they have changed even as we have considered this Bill, because we now have induced pluripotent stem cells, which are embryonic in nature, created from our own skin and do not require the creation of human embryos—to say that this is a satisfactory alternative with which all of us can live. We should therefore require the authority simply to consider that question; not the creation and use, as the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, said, of more eggs; not the creation of human embryos, as the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, said; but the use of adult stem cells, and, through them, the creation of induced pluripotent stem cells as a legitimate alternative to the manufacture of human embryos. I use ““manufacture”” not in a pejorative or rhetorical way, but I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, that 2 million human embryos have been destroyed or experimented on, either through IVF or experimentation—these figures were given earlier in the debate—since we authorised the creation of human embryos in 1990. If any Member of the House could say that this has led to cures, it might lend legitimacy to the argument. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, and others have pointed out, it has not. It is not unreasonable, in 2008, to say that if this is still just about hope, it is not something on which we should place too much reliance. I will be happy to give these papers that have been passed to me to the noble Lord, Lord Winston. I can give him a copy of a briefing produced by Professor David Prentice, in which he lists, as the noble Lord, Lord Tombs, has done, more than 70 different conditions that have been successfully treated using adult stem cells. It is true that some treatments have been by bone marrow, but there have been other examples, too. I chaired a briefing in the Moses Room of your Lordships’ House in which Professor Carlos Lima came from Portugal to talk about the use of olfactory cells in spinal cord treatments. A television programme, Miracle Cell, was produced using that material. These are some examples. The noble Lord, Lord May, agreed with me—there is common ground here—that none of us should overhype the potential of these cells, whether they are from embryos or adult stem cells, because there are many people suffering from debilitating conditions for whom this must seem like a tantalising solution, when it is still probably a long way off. I will be happy to share that information. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, and others made a point about the comparative amounts of money allocated by the Medical Research Council to these two areas of research. I have the figures here and am happy to share them. In 2005-06, £17.4 million was made available by the Medical Research Council, of which 43.6 per cent was spent on adult stem cells and 56.4 per cent—significantly more—on embryonic stem cells. I say to my noble friend Lord Patel that, instead of the trend being in that direction, the reverse is true. In 2006, the figure was 46 per cent spent on adult stem cells and 54 per cent on embryonic stem cells. There is every indication that the work that Professor Colin McGuckin has undertaken at Newcastle has, as he said, been discriminated against. I think that we should take that seriously, but those are not the arguments that your Lordships are being asked to vote on this evening. The amendment is very clear. It states: "““in any circumstances where the purposes of the proposed research can be achieved by any method not entailing the use of human admixed embryos””." Therefore, it would be down to the person applying for the licence and for those sitting on the licensing authority to satisfy themselves of those facts before they proceeded to issue such a licence. I think that this is a moderate amendment and I hope that noble Lords will be prepared to support it. I wish to seek the opinion of the House. On Question, Whether Amendment No. 2A, as an amendment to Commons Amendment No. 2, shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 39; Not-Contents, 202. On Question, Motion agreed to. 3: Page 4, leave out line 30 and insert- ““(e) any embryo not falling within paragraphs (a) to (d) which contains both nuclear or mitochondrial DNA of a human and nuclear or mitochondrial DNA of an animal (““animal DNA””) but in which the animal DNA is not predominant.””