Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]

That makes my point even more coherently for me. Perhaps we need to legislate to ensure that this activity cannot happen even in pursuance of a licence. I cannot believe that anybody in this House believes that inserting human sperm into an animal would be a good thing to do, so why do we not clearly state in the Bill that it will not be allowed to happen? This argument is not a surprise to the Government, because it has been pointed out over and over again that the Bill would allow this activity to take place in the seeking of a licence. One has to ask why they have not addressed the issue. This is a sinister matter, because of the connotations. It is impossible to discuss insemination of animals with human gametes for very long without considering the infamous Soviet hybridisation trials of the 1920s. There are a huge number of historians on the Conservative Benches—I do not know how many there are on the Labour Benches—and one of the great pleasures for me, since becoming an MP, has been listening to some of those amazing and learned historians. I am sure that they will forgive me if I get anything wrong in the following paragraph. At that time, the Soviet authorities were struggling to rebuild Stalin's red army after it had suffered many deaths and huge defeats. Stalin told his top scientist, Ilya lvanov, to turn his skills to breeding an ultimate soldier by crossing human beings with apes. Stalin told him to breed a soldier who would not be fussy about what he ate, who did not feel pain and who was invincible. Stalin told Ivanov to use all his scientific knowledge and know-how to cross apes with humans and breed that soldier for him. Many people in this House might think that it is ridiculous my even mentioning what Stalin did in the 1920s, but his ideas found credence among many in the scientific community and even became quite popular among evolutionary biologists in America; as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) said, the idea that perhaps we could cross humans with apes and thus have almost a humanzee took root.