My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. However, I am disappointed with the Minister’s response because I thought that at the least he would have been prepared to give this matter further consideration between now and Third Reading. With my noble friend Lord Winston here to talk about the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, also present, I knew that we would have an interesting debate.
The point is that, however effective or not the HFEA is at the moment, the one thing that unites us all is that we do not want to see its regulatory function weakened. My noble friend Lord Winston spoke about London becoming the centre of a healthcare market, and the Minister welcomed that. When I took through the 2001 regulations that extended the purposes of research in the original 1990 Act, which was based very much on the extraordinary work of the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, we clearly had in mind that there was research potential for the UK. That was one of the factors behind taking through those original regulations. The argument that we put forward then was that the UK would be able to attract research investment because, despite some of the doubts that noble Lords have expressed today, we were considered to have a first-rate regulatory function. I put it to the noble Lord that he is putting that reputation at risk by allowing ambiguity in the nature of the regulatory process.
My noble friend talked about the dangers of commercialisation in this field and he is surely right. It is interesting that the chief executive of the HFEA has recently been quoted as recognising the responsibility to take action against rampant commercialisation of IVF in the UK. That statement is very welcome. My noble friend has argued that at the moment it does not have the powers to do anything about it, but the noble Lord comes here with a proposal to weaken its already inadequate powers. That is quite remarkable.
The Government are very keen for the mitochondrial donation regulations to be approved on 24 February. I support them, but has the noble Lord considered the risk to that decision from the impact of this Bill? This will be a big issue when we debate those regulations. When the noble Earl, Lord Howe, comes to make proposals for the regulations, he will say that your Lordships can have confidence in passing the legislation because of the robustness of the HFEA. However, I, who support those regulations, will have to get up and say that actually the noble Earl is incorrect because of what the noble Lord here is proposing to do.