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Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is already in place a holding number system which is monitored by his department and by the European Union? Is the reason for the discussion about a licensing system because the system that exists is not being administered to the satisfaction of his department? Does he not agree that the
introduction of a licensing system would infringe on the liberties of farmers and, indeed, produce an extra layer of unnecessary bureaucracy?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the noble Lord is correct; a numbering system exists which identifies pockets of land and holdings on which subsidy is paid. However, that is not the same as the complete registration of farms. Indeed, some of the administrative problems we have had, in particular during the foot and mouth epidemic regarding the movement of animals, have been because that system has proved to be inadequate, with slightly bizarre map readings and other problems arising. A generalisation of a registration system, possibly combined with aspects of regulation and moving into the area of whole farm certification, could mean a reduction in the burden on farmers rather than the opposite.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, perhaps I may first declare an interest, both as the wife of a farmer and as a specialist cheesemaker. Does the Minister realise how much I would appreciate having to deal with one authority for all the required inspections? Secondly, as regards holding numbers, many people who have a small number of animals, say four sheep or two goats, have not appeared as holders of animals. That is an area which needs to be rectified.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I agree with the noble Countess on both grounds. Moving from a system of multiple regulatory authorities to a single system is difficult. However, I believe that any rationalisation of the process would be of benefit to farmers. As I have said, there are many different ways in which that could be done, whether or not we move to anything like full licensing. Any such system would need to include recognition of the relatively small farmers to whom the noble Countess referred.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, whatever road the Government decide to go down as regards regulation or licensing of farms, I beg the Minister to realise the extra burden that we carry in this country and the extra standards that are set. If they are not required for other foods which come into this country, we shall export not just our farming industry; the whole food sector will also be under threat.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, by and large, the standards which are applied to British farming are almost entirely determined at EU level. Although there are queries about the relative enforcement of those standards, we would defend the view that standards must be the same across the EU. The Prime Minister made clear that there will be no future gold-plating of EU standards as regards agriculture. The question of access from third countries is rather different, particularly in relation to animal welfare and disease controls, and is one that we have addressed before. The Government are looking at ways to improve import checks in that regard.
Human Reproductive Cloning Bill [HL]
3 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Some 10 months ago your Lordships' House debated the regulations regarding human fertilisation and embryology research purposes. That debate was of extraordinary high quality and intensity. It was of the utmost importance to hundreds of thousands of people in this country who suffer from distressing and long-term illnesses and whose only hope for a cure lies in medical research and science.
But that debate was even more profound. It touched on matters which go to the very core of our individual beliefs, principles and values: from those who believe that research on embryos is ethically justified in the fight against serious diseases; from noble Lords who worry about the end point of such scientific advances; and from those who rejoice at the opportunity which new medical discoveries bring to humankind. I have little doubt that our debate today will be just as profound.
The purpose of the Bill, which extends to the whole of the United Kingdom, is to ban human reproductive cloning—the creation of another human individual using cloning techniques such as cell nuclear replacement, the procedure used to create Dolly the sheep. The Bill is short and tightly drawn to meet that aim and that aim only. Human reproductive cloning has been universally condemned. For humans it is both an unsafe and an unethical procedure.
In discussing the background to the question of human reproductive cloning, it is appropriate to refer back to 1982 when the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology was set up to look at the ethical implications of developments following the birth of the first test-tube baby in 1978.
The committee, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, produced a comprehensive report after the most intense scrutiny over two years and widespread consultation on the issues raised. That committee reviewed those areas comprehensively. It was followed by the enactment of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The Act was, and is, a model in its regulation of certain infertility treatments and embryo research. It reflected the need to provide a strict framework within which regulation could be conducted and to take account of the advances in medicine anticipated both by the Warnock committee and Parliament in 1990. It is surely a tribute to the noble Baroness and her committee that the Act continues to provide such a framework.
The decade following the 1990 Act, particularly in the second half, saw developments in cell nuclear replacement technology in animals, alongside the announcement in the US of the extraction of stem cells from a human embryo. That was of huge potential. It meant that in the long term it might be possible to apply the knowledge from work using stem cells made
from both spare and cell nuclear replacement embryos to modify patients own cells so that they could be made to generate new cells and tissues. A considerable amount of laboratory work will be needed, but recent developments represent a step further towards the goal of being able to treat a whole range of degenerative diseases—Parkinson's disease, cancers and diabetes, to name but a few.The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee recognised in 1997 what it called Xthe profound implications of the research" conducted at the Roslin Institute into cell nuclear replacement. Those issues were taken up early in 1998 by a joint committee comprising the Human Genetics Advisory Commission and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which conducted a public consultation on them.
In their response to the joint committee's report, the Government announced in June 1999 that they were setting up an expert advisory group under the chairmanship of the Chief Medical Officer to consider the potential benefits for human health of such research. The expert group included representatives from a range of interests, including ethicists, scientists, doctors and geneticists. After careful deliberation, the group concluded that research on stem cells provides the possibility of exciting prospects for future therapies for a range of debilitating diseases.
While perhaps not strictly relevant to the debate on the Bill today, there have been recent discussions about the relative merits of adult and embryonic stem cell research. This is sometimes presented as an either/or debate. But the majority of scientists working in these fields acknowledge that both areas of research are necessary if the full potential is to realised. Certainly, that was the conclusion of the expert group chaired by the Chief Medical Officer.
It was the work of the Chief Medical Officer's group that paved the way for the 2001 regulations which permitted research for the following additional purposes: first, increasing knowledge about the development of embryos; secondly, increasing knowledge about serious diseases; and, thirdly, enabling any such knowledge to be applied in developing treatments for serious diseases.
The regulations do not specify cell nuclear replacement since it was the Government's view that CNR was already allowed for and regulated under the 1990 Act. That view was confirmed to the Government and to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority by counsel in 1997.
Throughout that process the Government stated on many occasions that they were utterly opposed to human reproductive cloning. They also stated their intent to introduce legislation specifically to ban human reproductive cloning.
That brings me to the implications of the legal judgment of 15th November. The 1990 Act states, among other things, that embryos governed by the Act are,
- Xlive human embryos where fertilisation is complete".
It was on the basis of that advice that the Government took the view that all embryos—which have the potential to become human life—are regulated by the 1990 Act and subject to all the protective provisions in the Act and regulation by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
The effect was that anyone who wanted to create an embryo by fertilisation or in any other way, such as by cell nuclear replacement, would require a licence from the HFEA and would have to satisfy the stringent conditions laid down in the Act. Anyone who created or used embryos without a licence would be subject to the criminal sanctions in the Act, involving a fine or imprisonment or both.
On the basis of counsel's advice, our approach to the definition of Xembryo" also meant that the creation of embryos by cell nuclear replacement for research, which has enormous potential for finding cures for serious diseases, could go ahead, subject to the full rigour of regulation of such research under the 1990 Act, including licensing by the HFEA.
In the event, in his judgment of 15th November, the judge, while acknowledging that the Government had a Xpowerful case", decided to adopt an approach to the Act that focused on a literal interpretation of the words used rather than the overall purpose of the Act. The effect of the judgment is that embryos created other than by fertilisation are not regulated by the 1990 Act. In practical terms, that means that as the laws stands anyone may create an embryo by cell nuclear replacement and use it either for reproductive cloning or for research purposes without regulation under the Act. However, as your Lordships may be aware, the judge gave us leave to appeal against his decision. We intend to do so.
It is important to note that the judgment, while limiting the type of embryos to which the Act applied, did not affect the operation of the 1990 Act in any way; nor did it affect the Research Purposes Regulations 2001. The Act and the regulations continue fully to protect embryos created by fertilisation used in treatment and research.
In a legal case such as this the usual response is to await the outcome of the legal process before deciding on the best way forward. If the outcome proves to be in the Government's favour, all embryos, however they are created, will continue to be governed by the protective provisions in the 1990 Act and reproductive cloning will continue to be banned by the HFEA.
However, these are not usual circumstances, as yesterday's announcement from the US shows. The prospects of leaving unregulated, in the light of the judgment, the safety and ethical issues involved in bringing into the world artificially a cloned child are
too much. That is why the Government decided to bring forward legislation to address that particular issue.The Bill is short and focused. It makes it an offence for any person to place in a woman a human embryo, other than an embryo created by fertilisation. The offence carries with it the penalty of 10 years in prison or a fine, or both. The penalty applies to the person who places the embryo in a woman. It does not penalise the woman, although, as with many offences, the woman may be liable under the general rules of criminal law if she is an active and knowing participant.
The Bill does not use terms such as Xcell nuclear replacement" or Xcloning". That is because, first, such terms mean different things to different people in an area of rapidly developing science; and, secondly, because the mischief at which the Bill is aimed is to prevent anything other than fertilised embryos, using sperm and eggs, being implanted into a woman.
The additional and significant benefit of that approach arises from the fact that all embryos created by fertilisation are automatically subject to the full protection of the 1990 Act. That means that the only embryos which may be implanted into a woman are those which are subject to licensing under the Act by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. That is particularly significant in the light of the judgment of the High Court in which Mr Justice Crane said:
- Xit is conceded, in my view correctly, that the organism produced by cell nuclear replacement is naturally described as an 'embryo', at least when the 2 cell stage is reached. This is consistent with the expert evidence before the court".
Therefore, the only question which needs to be asked is: how was the embryo created? If the answer is Xby fertilisation", the embryo may be implanted but only in accordance with a licence issued by the licensing authority. If the answer is Xby means other than fertilisation", as a result of the Bill, if enacted, the embryo may not be implanted at all.
That answers one of the questions which has been asked in the past few days about what happens if a woman has only one embryo created by fertilisation and wants to create a number of further embryos from it in order to improve her chances of having a child. As the embryo has been created by fertilisation, it is subject fully to the 1990 Act and it cannot be used in any way without a licence from the HFEA. It cannot be subject to embryo splitting to create more embryos because the HFEA has said that it will not license that procedure for treatment purposes. Nor can it be cloned using cell nuclear replacement because the licensing authority has said that it will not issue licences for that purpose. Nor can it be exported because the HFEA will issue a direction allowing export only where the proposed use abroad would be legal in the United Kingdom.
As a result of that particular issue, together with a number of matters which have been raised in the past few days, it has been said that the Bill does not go wide enough and does not govern all possible use of embryos created by cell nuclear replacement. I am the
first to say that it is not a comprehensive Bill; it is not intended to be so and nor should it be. As I said, the judgment of the High Court means that embryos created by cell nuclear replacement are not governed by the 1990 Act. As regards the key issue of human reproductive cloning, the Government's response is before your Lordships' House today. As I have also said, the Government are appealing against the High Court decision and the outcome of the legal process will then determine what further legal action will be needed in respect of the regulation of such embryos for research. I shall now turn to that issue.I want to make it clear that the Government do not intend to ban the use of embryos created by cell nuclear replacement in essential research. The Government take the view that, given the potential importance of such research in providing considerable advances in treatment for serious diseases, the use of the embryos should be permitted but subject to strict safeguards. That policy was endorsed by Parliament earlier this year by very large majorities in both Houses after considerable debate and in the light of strong and detailed evidence from the Chief Medical Officer's expert group and others.
However, I want to make it absolutely clear that the Government recognise the concern that, should anyone seek to create embryos for cell nuclear replacement for research, the situation would remain unregulated. That will depend on the outcome of the Government's appeal and we want to wait until the end of the judicial process before taking further action. As I told the House last week in answer to a Question from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, if at the end of the legal process the Government lose their case we shall not hesitate to bring forward further legislation when parliamentary time allows to ensure that embryos created in this way are regulated in the same way as embryos created by fertilisation.
In so doing, the Government will be informed further by your Lordships' Select Committee, chaired by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, which was established by this House in approving the 2001 regulations to which I have referred. I have no doubt that that Select Committee will have much of importance to say on many of the matters we shall discuss today.
In conclusion, we have a process in place which allows your Lordships' House to examine and further debate these profound matters. The Bill before you today is urgent legislation. It is being introduced quickly, 11 days after the judgment on 15th November to which I referred. I make no apologies for that. Such speed reflects the concerns raised by Parliament and the public time after time about ensuring that human reproductive cloning cannot take place in the UK. That is the right and entire focus of the Bill which I commend to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.)
3.17 p.m.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree: My Lords, today your Lordships are called to debate in great haste a so-called emergency. The emergency has not been caused by armed conflict, natural disaster or a collapse of the Stock Exchange. The emergency has arisen because last January the Government chose to rush through an ill-conceived and badly drafted regulation in respect of which no proper debate, no careful thought or judgment and no amendment was possible. The Government have a bad and indeed dangerous habit of preventing full debate even on the most fundamental moral and far-reaching issues, such as that so briefly before us today.
The January regulation not surprisingly proved inadequate. Has such a lesson taught the Government to allow the House to think more carefully? Alas, no. Again, we have a rushed, curtailed and unamendable measure before us. Rushed legislation and good law are bad bedfellows. And the Government cheerfully acknowledge—the Minister has done so in this House today—that there may have to be other legislation when legal appeal is heard, when the Select Committee reports, or when another crisis emerges showing that the legislation is not adequate. I suppose that whenever further flaws are revealed we shall have more legislation.
Is it really true that one rogue scientist—and an Italian one at that—has caused today's Bill? Surely the Home Secretary has powers to block the man entering Britain if he is that dangerous. Is the weight of the mighty British Parliament working flat out today to be used to crush one man's ambitions? To paraphrase Churchill: some sledgehammer, some nut.
Of course human cloning is a serious threat and must be blocked, but let us try to do so effectively. In 1994 I fought successfully against the unnatural and repugnant use of unborn female children in the name of artificial reproduction. Human cloning, whether for the birth of a child or exploiting and destroying him or her before birth in the name of science, is a terrible use of man's ability to manipulate nature. To pretend that there are two kinds of cloning, one reproductive and the other therapeutic, is incorrect. All human cloning, whether for experimentation or implanting in a womb—any womb—is reproductive.
The Government claim that this Bill bans reproductive cloning. It does no such thing. The Bill does not ban the reproduction of cloned human embryos or their implantation into animals, which is a possibility that scientists are working on even as we speak. They have already implanted human sperm in rats and rabbits. I understand that an American scientist is creating human embryos using cows' eggs. None of that would be banned by the Bill. The Bill does not ban implantation into artificial wombs, another matter that scientists have been considering and working upon. I do not believe that the Bill even bans the creation or implantation of cloned embryos created by fusing a human cell with an animal's egg. No legal decision has yet been made about whether or not such hybrid embryos would be classed as human.
Such a hybrid has already been created in the United States. We are in an area of science which is moving very fast. The only way to stop loopholes through which so-called reproductive cloning can slip or further High Court judgments that frustrate the intentions of Parliament is to ban the immoral process of creating cloned human embryos.The Bill does not even define its own terms. The definition of an embryo was at the heart of the victory of the ProLife Alliance at the High Court last week. Following that judgment, the Government had the opportunity to clarify the law in this Bill, but they have blown it. Do the Government have much of a clue about embryology? For years they had lots and lots of advice from every leading scientific and legal expert. What has that achieved? We have had not one but two pieces of wholly ineffective legislation. I despair.
Before the debacle last January two greatly respected and wise Members of your Lordships' House—a former Attorney-General, my noble and learned friend Lord Rawlinson, and a former chairman of the Bar, the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, who, I am delighted to see, is to speak in this debate—warned that the law did not cover cloned embryos. The same advice was given by Professor Andrew Grubb, a member of the HFEA, and a professor from the Chief Medical Officer's expert group. One would have thought that that provided ample wise advice. But the Government appear to accept advice that they like the sound of but disallow what does not really fit in with what they want. Having received that advice, the Government knew better and ignored all of it. Bless my soul, they were taken to the High Court and defeated. It serves them right. If only they would learn, but, dear me, no.
A series of amendments which would have salvaged the Bill, defining its terms and clarifying its scope as well as following Parliament's will, was carefully, thoughtfully and expertly drawn up and tabled. Alas, as has been the fate of my noble and learned friend Lord Rawlinson, the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, and all other known experts who have given their advice in the past, the amendments were rejected. Your Lordships cannot even be told what they were, why they were tabled or hear them being moved.
What about the possibility of British scientists creating cloned embryos and exporting them? Britain could easily become the source of clinics acting as cloning farms for the Antinoris of this world. On XNewsnight" last Thursday the Minister said that it was not for the Government to legislate on what might be done in other countries. That is not a view which is held by the European Community. Before someone reminds the noble Lord of that fact, let him recall the words of President Chirac of France—I hope that the Minister will take note of them because they come from an important source—that,
- XNothing will be resolved by banning certain practices in one country if scientists and doctors can simply work on them elsewhere".
The Government should keep an eye on advances being made in this field. Professor David Prentice, recognised by many Members of this House as a
world authority on stem research, addressed parliamentarians last week. Your Lordships will be aware that stem cell research is the main justification put forward for using cloned embryos. Professor Prentice spoke of the staggering advances in ethical alternatives to embryo stem cell research. It is apparent that the past 12 months have seen enormous progress. The big question that that poses is whether embryo stem cell research is necessary. In view of everything that Professor Prentice said, one should at least stop to think about it. With the mass of new evidence that is emerging and the judgment of the High Court last week, to prevent a full and proper debate on what is arguably one of the most sublime moral issues of our time, as one newspaper leader described it last week, is a disgraceful decision by the Government. Is this really less important than fox-hunting? I would say not. But the Government, who have given—and apparently will give again—ample time for debate on that subject, clearly believe it is much more important than human cloning. Will they never learn?3.28 p.m.
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, we are debating today the protection of probably the most vulnerable form of human life. Yet we have been given only today to do it and to ensure that the legislation passes through all its parliamentary stages. That is to treat both this very important issue and Parliament with contempt. It is 10 months—to be precise, it was on 22nd January—since this House had the opportunity to consider the issue of human reproductive and therapeutic cloning in the debate on the Prayer against the current regulations. In that debate I and many of my noble friends on these Benches expressed opposition to human reproductive cloning alongside our support for research into therapeutic cloning.
While we supported the current regulations, we asked the Government to bring forward legislation as soon as possible to make clear that human reproductive cloning was unlawful so as not to muddy the waters in the debate about therapeutic cloning. I shall not talk about therapeutic cloning today because I do not believe that it is relevant to the subject of this debate. We were led to believe that the Government would do so, but the legislation was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech. My Front Bench colleagues protested about that at the time.
The House also voted to appoint a Select Committee to investigate the issues related to therapeutic cloning, while allowing work on therapeutic cloning to continue. One of the most damning aspects of introducing the Bill to the House today in such haste is the fact that the Select Committee was not consulted, although its report is imminent.
The Bill is also unnecessary. It would have been far better to have waited until the Select Committee report had been published, then to draft a more comprehensive Bill covering all the issues and have it properly debated in Parliament.
The Government make a virtue of the fact that the Bill is narrowly drawn. That is one of the problems with it. It is so narrow that it gives cloned embryos only one of the four protections afforded to fertilised embryos by the 1990 Act. If the Bill is considered necessary, why is it not necessary for it to include protection from implantation in animals, export and experiment after 14 days? The Minister may say that those are already explicitly covered by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. If so, so is implantation in a woman, but the problem is that the judge in the recent test case did not think so.
We therefore need to ask two questions. First, did the Government take a wide range of legal advice on whether cloned embryos were protected under current law? The fact that a senior judge takes issue with the Government's advisers, and the fact that doubts have been widely touted in the media for months, suggest that there was a clear risk that the judgment could go the way that it did. Why did not the Government take action before, cover their back and avoid having to bounce Parliament in this way? If the Government are confident that the appeal will go their way, why do they not keep their nerve now? Legislation that is reactive to events and rushed through Parliament is rarely good legislation.
The second question is: is the Bill—which comes prior to the Select Committee's report, and, it is to be hoped, subsequent legislation—necessary at all? I do not believe so. Why do we always get a knee-jerk reaction from the Government to front-page scaremongering by tabloid newspapers? Why do the Government not listen to the medical experts who are telling them that the Italian gynaecologist, Professor Antinori, oversells his ability? He may well make a lot of noise about what he can do, but, in order to achieve implantation in a woman in this country he would have to persuade doctors to help him. He would have to obtain donated eggs and break the terms of their storage licence—which is itself unlawful; or he would have to store eggs without a licence, which is also unlawful. Despite all his boasting and hot air, it is extremely doubtful that he would be able to do any such thing until we have had the chance to read and debate at appropriate length the Select Committee's report and the legislation that must arise from it.
The Bill is either too little, far too late, or unnecessary. By the way, it should have been called the implantation of human reproductive clones Bill. However, as I am not in favour of human reproductive cloning, I am unlikely to vote against the Bill, just in case the Government are right and I am wrong about its necessity. The amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Walton of Detchant and Lord Alton of Liverpool, are also unnecessary, but I express my vigorous protest at the way in which the Government have dragged their feet in the matter, and the way in which Parliament is now being treated.
Finally, I apologise to your Lordships, and to the Minister, that because of the last-minute nature of the debate, I may not be able to be present at its end.
3.34 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford: My Lords, I rise to speak only briefly to say that the Select Committee is on course to report by the end of the year or early in January. I am sure that your Lordships will understand that, because the amendments tabled for discussion in Committee are highly controversial and directly relevant to the committee's work and the issues that it is discussing, it would not be appropriate for me to pre-empt anything that the committee wants to say on the matter by voting on the amendments.
On the Bill itself, it is fair to report that all the witnesses whom we have questioned on reproductive cloning have been opposed to it; we have heard no witness in favour. It has been put to us that the scientific objections to reproductive cloning are currently overwhelming. It took 277 attempts to produce Dolly the sheep. It would be unthinkable to allow such a degree of experimentation on a human being. Moreover, the consequences of producing clones are not well understood. In animals, there is a high rate of malformations and premature deaths. Many clones are also excessively large.
I am sure that your Lordships will agree that the issue is not simply scientific, because it would be unethical to attempt to produce a cloned baby, given such a high risk of abnormalities. The committee has also been trying to grapple with the more difficult and teasing issue of what may be the fundamental objections to reproductive cloning, supposing that it ever became scientifically safe. We have examined and are in the process of examining arguments on human dignity, eugenic and racial purposes, genetic identity and familial and welfare considerations. I hope that the committee will be able to illuminate the debate on those difficult and teasing issues when we report.
The noble Baroness, Lady Knight, drew attention to the increasing importance of research on adult stem cells. A huge amount of exciting research on adult stem cells is underway at present, and has been since the Donaldson report and since your Lordships passed the regulation. I assure your Lordships that the Select Committee has been aware of that research from the word go; we have received a great deal of evidence in support of what adult stem cells can do. It is no exaggeration to say that that has been the prime scientific question before the committee from the outset.
I very much hope that by the end of the year, or early in January, we shall be able to offer to your Lordships a considered view on the strengths and weaknesses of the various types of therapy that we are considering, as well as of the strengths and weaknesses of various arguments about the issues that we are considering.
3.38 p.m.
Lord Brennan: My Lords, I welcome the ban on human reproductive cloning that the Bill would impose. Making a biological copy of another human being is wrong. There is no clinical, scientific, therapeutic or moral justification for human reproductive cloning.
I have five reasons for supporting the Bill, but before I turn to them I should mention that the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, was kind enough to refer to me in her speech. I hope that she will not treat it as an unkindness on my part that I vigorously reject what I consider to be the unnecessary criticism that she made of the Government's position. The five reasons go to support a Bill which, although short, should be clear, meaningful, reasonable and thus should meet the public need.
The five reasons are as follows. First, in modern society it is very necessary to develop and maintain public confidence in science and biotechnology. Within the field covering the use of stem and adult cells for various purposes, it is natural that a primeval fear has taken hold among many people; namely, that at the hands of science they face the risk of copies being made of human beings. That is an unjustified fear, but is it not understandable? In Huxley's Brave New World, written 70 years ago, genetic engineering was a commonplace in his fictional world. Human beings were created by cloning and were mass produced. Mothers and fathers became Xcontrollers" and Xpredestinators". That is what the ordinary person thinks of in that context.
In describing the need for public confidence, an American scientist put it well when he said:
- XTo allow human cloning would be a fateful step toward making man himself simply another one of the man-made things. Human nature becomes merely the last part of nature to succumb to the technological project which turns all of nature into raw material at man's disposal".
My second reason is the need for widespread law to control the fear of human reproductive cloning. In 1997, in Denver, the G8 Summit called for a world-wide ban on the cloning of human beings. That call was echoed by many international institutions, with UNESCO among them. What was the importance of international agreement? It was to control production, storage, importation, exportation and use, on an international basis; to prevent this becoming a common fact of modern life. It was encapsulated in the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine in the protocol agreed this year. Many European countries have agreed to the following:
- XAny intervention seeking to create a human being genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead, is prohibited".
My third reason is that there is no conceivable basis, even if one were to consider human cloning, for thinking that it is a safe process. It would enable a
grown man to have, in effect, a twin baby son or a grown woman to give birth to a twin sister. Even if fertilisation and birth were successful, no one could vouchsafe the normality of the human being so created, its lifespan, its fertility or its resistance to disease. Much worse, no one could safely anticipate its mental health or peace of mind. However much is known about humankind now, much more has yet to be discovered. It is simply not safe.My fourth reason is that, if the Bill is not passed quickly, there is a serious and present danger—I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, of this—in the form of the Italian doctor, Dr Antinori, along with his American counterpart, Zavos, who are both determined to make use of opportunities as they arise. They speak of 200 women ready to undergo a cloning implant, eight of them British. The day after the judgment was passed in the High Court, Dr Antinori was reported to have said that he wanted immediately to set up a development programme within the United Kingdom. The risk is present and it is a serious risk.
Those who seek to have a child through in vitro fertilisation do so for very genuine reasons. But to take that a step further, there are those who suffer the death of a child and who may want another exactly the same. Then there are those who, for mal a propos, want to recreate their own image. People will spend money to achieve that objective. Disabled though they may be in their thinking, and emotionally deprived, they exist. Before the United States Congress, one organisation claimed to have on its books 200 applicants ready to spend up to 200,000 dollars on producing a child by this route. That is big business. So the risk is present and it is serious: the man or woman who wants to be the leader of the march of science, perverse though it is, and the organisation that wants to make money, when combined, prey on those who want a child. That risk requires action now.
My final reason is also the most important. The Bill serves to state the legislature's belief in the sanctity of human life. That is a vital duty on the part of a legislature. When there exists the risk that the sanctity of human life may be in danger—society undermined by human reproductive cloning—immediate action is necessary. But it needs to be thoughtful action, no matter how swift the legislative process. It is important to note—I mention it chronologically, not critically—that we have had the 1990 Act of Parliament; we have had regulations, about which a dispute has arisen; we had a long adjournment before a case which ultimately went against the Government; we have this piece of legislation; we know of an appeal which may go one way or the other; and we have the potential of yet further legislation. This problem requires policy, carefully thought out and clearly stated. Human reproductive cloning is one aspect of that general policy requirement.
In the list of amendments tabled in Committee, I have put forward two, neither of which so far has been categorised either as controversial or a call on opposition. One seeks to cover the gap between
preparatory acts and the commission of the act; namely, the creation and the keeping of non-fertilised embryos. That gap exists.When my noble friend Lord Carter told the House the other day that the Bill was to plug a loophole, he was quite right. My amendment seeks to ensure that it is fully plugged, to cover not only the act itself but the creation of the means to complete that act.
My second amendment seeks to define Xfertilisation" exactly as my noble friend the Minister has done: that is, the fertilisation by one human sperm of one female egg.
I have given my five reasons. I end by asking that in our debates we acknowledge that in this particular area there is a productive bridge between the community and science where they agree together that reproductive cloning should not be allowed. It is a happy coincidence of an ethical concept and a scientific acceptance of it. On his wall at Princeton, Albert Einstein had a notice that stated,
- XNot everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts".
3.51 p.m.
Baroness Warnock: My Lords, I shall be very brief. I have only two reasons to offer why it is that I welcome the Bill, although doubtless there are others.
The first reason is that the Bill—even if rather hastily—fulfils the promise made by the Government that there should be a Bill to prohibit reproductive cloning. It is in accordance with what we were promised in January and on those grounds alone it is worthy of welcome. It will prove beyond doubt the determination of both government and Parliament to outlaw human reproductive cloning. As we have heard, this will undoubtedly reassure the many people who, rationally or irrationally, feel deeply, emotionally and fearfully that human cloning must always be opposed. This fear is very deep. It expresses itself in many kinds of scientific mythology and it cannot be disregarded.
My second reason is that the passage of the Bill will have very good consequences for the reasonable debate we are promised on the findings of the Select Committee at present sitting under the chairmanship of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford. Some of the objections to stem cell research have been based on the supposition that once therapeutic cloning was permitted, reproductive cloning would be sure to follow by the route of the dread slippery slope. If the Bill is passed, we need no longer try to answer such objections because the slippery slope will have been definitively blocked by primary legislation. We shall therefore be in a position to concentrate on the arguments based on the premise that stem cell research, and embryo stem cell research in general, is in itself intrinsically evil, however beneficial its possible consequences. I believe that our being able to
concentrate on that fundamental issue will lead to a considerable improvement in clarity, and so I welcome the Bill.Nevertheless, I share with others some doubts about its drafting, which seems still to leave room for a variety of interpretations. I do not intend to address the question of those doubts because I hope that they will be resolved in Committee later today.
3.55 p.m.
Lord Winston: My Lords, in rising to speak briefly in the debate, I should first declare an interest as a professor of fertility studies at Imperial College and as an employee of the Institute of Developmental and Reproductive Biology. It is perhaps relevant to the debate that for the past 20 to 25 years I have been involved in research on, first, animal embryos and more recently on human embryos. I suspect—although I am ready to be challenged—that I may be the only person in the Chamber who holds a licence to do research from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
It is important to make one observation at the outset. There are a number of people who may well feel very offended by the kind of pejorative discussion of cloning that has taken place over some time in this community of ours in Britain. It is no exaggeration to say that there are probably 20,000 to 25,000 human clones in Britain—that is, identical twins. They have identical DNA; they, in the main, do not suffer from being clones; and I suspect that many more of them, were they to understand that we seem to disapprove of clones, might have something to say about it. It is important to make that clear. There is nothing quite so obvious about cloning—which nature does herself— which necessarily is fundamentally wrong.
Having said that, of course, I agree with every noble Lord who has spoken today that reproductive cloning is wrong. It is clearly wrong at the moment for two obvious reasons. First, it treats a human being like a commodity, which is dangerous and unacceptable. Secondly, at the present time it carries very severe risks to the individual who is cloned. That may not always be so, but certainly it is at the moment.
The problems with cell nuclear replacement are very profound indeed. First, even though there now have been reports of human eggs in the United States being produced in the cloning process with cell nuclear replacement, I take those reports with a certain grain of salt. The journal in which they have been published is not exactly a high-flying or heavyweight journal, and it may well be that many of the tests which need to be done to prove that an embryo has been cloned have not been done.
One of the key issues that we need to understand is that in producing any human embryonic cell there is grave difficulty in getting the right number of chromosomes in that cell. It is a problem that we have been observing in biology for a long time. It is true to say that most human embryos have such severe faults in their chromosomes that they would not be viable or
capable of life in the uterus. That is a fundamental reason why it is almost certain that any attempt by Antinori, Zavos or anyone else to produce a human clone would fail.The second problem is that we know from work in at least four species that animals which are produced by the cloning process are very frequently abnormal, as has been stated. One of the key problems appears to be a phenomenon which affects what is called genomic imprinting. Normal individuals such as ourselves inherit one set of chromosomes from one parent and one set of chromosomes from another parent. Many of the developmental genes which are key to normal development are turned on in the chromosome inherited not necessarily by the mother but by the father. In the case of a cloned animal, all the chromosomes are inherited from one individual, and so the pattern of genomic imprinting appears to be impaired. That is almost certainly the reason why, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford pointed out, so many of these animals are of abnormal weight. It is very likely that the growth factors, which are controlled by genomic imprinting, are certainly impaired, and that is what gives rise to these abnormalities.
Thirdly, it is likely that many other genes are also not expressed normally in most of these animals. It would be unthinkable to bring a human into the world if that human suffered from abnormalities of gene expression. That alone is a reason to ban reproductive cloning. It would be interesting to know whether, in time, some of these problems will affect therapeutic cloning. We shall have to see. Clearly, it would be of no help to produce cells for transplantation which expressed genes abnormally. That is one of the reasons why further research is needed into this whole area.
There are other reasons why I am sceptical about cloning. Not all our DNA is in the cell nucleus that is being transferred; some DNA—16,500 base pairs—is in the mitochondria, in the substance of the cell or the egg cell. Some of those fragments of DNA are possibly important in the rejection process. So it may well be that, even though we think that we have engineered a tissue that might be transplantable in the same individual who has given the nucleus, that may not be so. Much more research will be needed over many years to validate and prove that.
There is another problem with any form of cloning, therapeutic or reproductive. We can see this with regard to therapy. Anyone who donates a nucleus—for example, a sufferer from a particular disease, in the hope that the cells may then be given back to him for replacement—may reproduce the same genetic defects that caused the original disease. So there are many reasons why research in cloning technology will have to proceed extremely slowly, and with great scientific caution.
I completely agree with my noble friend the Minister that this is a very exciting area for research, which offers hundreds of thousands of people all kinds of untold potential benefit for the treatment of their disease. That is correct. But it will be a long time before
the benefits will be seen. We must recognise that more research is needed. That is one of the reasons why I fundamentally support embryo research in this field, given that in the normal course of events human embryos so frequently go to waste.Perhaps I may clarify a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Knight. Everyone who speaks in this Chamber does so in good faith. However, we are sometimes prepared to listen to Xexpertise" which is rather less expert than it sometimes appears. Mention has been made, for example, of a Professor David Prentice. I did not hear him talk, but I have no reason to believe that he is a great expert on stem cells. Indeed, I looked him up on the Medline this week to find out who he was, and I saw that he had testified to Congress. But he has published only some four papers in the past 10 years. Only the last one, published in 1993, has much to do with stem cells, and that fairly remotely.
It is fair to say that the whole issue of whether adult stem cells or embryonic stem cells are the most appropriate remains to be seen. But it is true that almost every major developmental scientist in this country at the present time is firmly of the view that the use of embryonic stem cells seems to be the most promising area of research. That is why so many leading universities are currently investing in that field, and why the Medical Research Council has decided that it is a field in which there must be much more endeavour in this country and is now ready to support it more wholeheartedly.
Finally, perhaps I may make what might be termed a religious point. I know that noble Lords may quarrel with this, but it is my view that science—knowledge—does not have a moral dimension. If we get involved with nuclear physics, we may end up inventing an atom bomb. Equally, most of us in this Chamber will have had an X-ray at some time which has been vital to our health. On the whole, we cannot know before such knowledge is derived whether it will be used for good or for ill. As human beings we have free will. We eat from the tree of knowledge; it is up to us not only to use knowledge, but also to use discernment and wisdom.
It seems to me that we should not be banning the pursuit of knowledge. What we must do is make certain that that knowledge is used for good purposes and not for ill purposes; and to make certain that it is gained in a way that is ethically justified. That is very much the concern of all Members of this House. I believe that the Bill goes in the right direction. I support it wholeheartedly. It is a simple Bill, which will do exactly what is required. I do not think that it in any way destroys further discussion about stem cells. We look forward to the report by the Select Committee early next year.
4.6 p.m.
Lord Rix: My Lords, I do not propose to detain your Lordships for long and shall avoid the temptation to make a lengthy Second Reading speech just for the sake of hearing my own voice—which I am losing anyway—for I said most of what I have to say on the
subject of human reproductive cloning when we debated the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Regulations 2001, on Monday 22nd January. If your Lordships can be bothered to undertake the tedious task of looking it up, my remarks appear in Hansard, Volume 621, No. 16, col. 78. They illustrate why I shall be supporting the Government today in their efforts to offset the problems caused by the judgment of the High Court on 15th November, as well as yesterday's surprise announcement from Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts.On wider issues, as has been stated by the Minister, we await the recommendations of the House of Lords Select Committee and the result of the government appeal against the High Court decision, before deciding whether these need to be addressed.
We cannot walk on by if it may become possible to eliminate the distressing symptoms of dementia and loss of memory; if we can help people suffer a little less pain, loss of function and restriction of activity; if Parkinson's, Huntington's and Alzheimer's become diseases of the past—and, speaking personally as the father of a daughter with Down's syndrome and the grandfather of a grandson with Down's syndrome, if the early ageing process in many people with Down's syndrome is somehow halted. Being a good Samaritan is not only legitimate, but necessary. Being arrogant enough to want to design and custom build human beings is neither legitimate nor necessary. We can stop that happening in this country; and since we can, we should. Therefore, without hesitation, I shall support the Bill.
4.8 p.m.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton: My Lords, it has been made clear in the debate that there is universal condemnation of human reproductive cloning, which extends beyond the moral and ethical boundaries that I am prepared to accept. It was clearly important for the Government to respond quickly to plug the loophole in UK law; namely, that embryos created other than by fertilisation are not regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. It appears that part of the reason for the urgency was that we had to address public concerns and to make sure that we did not, as my noble friend Lord Brennan said, remove public confidence in science.
In introducing the debate, my noble friend the Minister said that the judgment, while limiting the scope of the definition of Xembryo", does not affect the 1990 Act in any way; nor does it affect the Research Purposes Regulations 2000. I also believe that the Government are right not to include therapeutic cloning in the Bill—a point to which I shall return.
Unlike some noble Lords, I genuinely believe that the Government and everyone who provided legal advice to them thought in good faith that human reproductive cloning had been outlawed by the 1990 Act and that the regulatory authority had the power to refuse any licence to people engaged in cloning. While the regulations did not in themselves allow the creation of cloned embryos for research purposes, it was
believed that CNR embryos were already allowed and regulated under the purpose of the 1990 Act. Mr Justice Crane took a more literal view, restricting the definition of embryos. No doubt that is an outcome of the dramatic advances that have been made in genetic science in the past 10 years.It is argued that reproductive cloning might be the only way in which some people are able to have a child. However, there are severe ethical, legal, scientific and political problems in allowing reproductive cloning as a treatment for infertility. Putting aside the moral unacceptability, such cloning, as we have already heard, is a highly dangerous procedure. Dolly the sheep was the only clone out of 273 attempts. Professor Ian Wilmut, who created Dolly, has warned that the process of cloning causes subtle errors in the way that the genes function and that random errors and problems can occur genetically on the way. He reiterated that view in today's Daily Telegraph, responding to the research that has been carried out in the USA.
The cloned sheep Dolly appears to be sterile and ageing rapidly. Dr Harry Griffin, the assistant director of science at the Roslin Institute, has warned that, although cattle, pigs and mice have been cloned as well as sheep, the process has not been repeated successfully in our near relative, the monkey.
As a result, Dr Griffin has made it clear that any attempt to clone a child would be wholly irresponsible, given the abundant evidence that present cloning techniques are inefficient and unsafe. As a lay person, I found fascinating the explanation by my noble friend Lord Winston of the reasons for that.
The Italian gynaecologist Dr Antinori does not share the view that the techniques are inefficient and unsafe. There has been some debate as to whether he could achieve what he wants in this country. He has said that he expects to be able to do it in a few months, because he has the families and the ability to do it, and that he wants to descend on this country for that purpose, as Britain has the best laboratories and technology available. I do not care whether he is a maverick or whether he is being realistic about what he can do; I am not prepared to take the risk. As my noble friend Lord Brennan said, that risk is real and serious.
Most people recognise the special and sacred nature of human life. I have elaborated on the problems of human reproductive cloning because the issue has been dealt with far too flippantly by some in the media. As the debate shows, this is a very serious subject. I wish that the media would realise that and treat it with the seriousness that it deserves.
Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, I wish to mention human therapeutic cloning, although only briefly. The Care organisation, which has communicated with all noble Lords, has called for all types of cloning to cease immediately until after the Select Committee on Stem Cell Research reports its findings. That would reverse the regulations that your Lordships' House debated in some detail and at some length earlier this year, establishing that Select
Committee. The case for human embryo stem cell research is unchanged, subject to strong safeguards, as my noble friend the Minister said. The potential benefits of such research, together with parallel research on adult stem cells, must not be hampered by the ruling. The work must continue, under a strict regulatory scheme.To take any other course of action would be an injustice to all those suffering from degenerative diseases—diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's and multiple sclerosis—even though it may be many years before solutions are found. Each day matters for those who are waiting for help to achieve a more dignified and healthier future. It would be a great disappointment to those people if such research were unnecessarily delayed.
However, the High Court judgment underlines the need for regulations and legislation to keep pace with scientific developments. It is very important that there should be a continual examination of the regulations, the legislation, the guidance and the rules under which research is conducted to ensure that the rules that we adopt do not lag behind the scientists.
The Bill is necessary so that the abhorrent and morally repugnant concept of human reproductive cloning is effectively banned. I sincerely hope that every Member of your Lordships' House will vote for it.
4.16 p.m.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, I support the Bill so far as it goes in outlawing reproductive cloning. I argued for that during the debate in January. I welcome the initiative that the Government have come forward with, although I wish that it had happened in January and that we could implement a comprehensive ban on all forms of human cloning. The developments in the United States in the past 24 hours show how fast events are moving and the importance of taking international action to deal with these issues. None of us can have a fortress mentality on these questions. We have to do what we can to facilitate international agreement.
The noble Lord, Lord Winston, will not be surprised that I disagree with his statement that science does not have a moral dimension. We would not be considering these questions today if science did not have a moral dimension. There would be no need for any regulatory framework or any system of jurisprudence or law. Everything that society's values are based on points to the need for a moral and ethical framework.
However, I agree with the noble Lord that we should properly draw a distinction between natural twinning and artificial cloning. He pointed to the tendency of the latter to lead towards the debasing of life through what is described as commodification—a word used by the former Archbishop of York, the noble Lord, Lord Habgood, in a letter to The Times. If that is so for reproductive cloning, how much more does therapeutic cloning lead to the commodification of life? In that process, we deliberately create a human embryo, disembowel it, take from it what we want and
then throw it away. That raises profound questions of the sort that the Minister said we should debate and discuss on this Bill and when the right reverend Prelate's Select Committee reports to us.If these are profoundly important issues, as the Minister said, we are right, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, to consider the modus operandi with which we are dealing with such important questions. The Minister talked about the huge potential of the human embryo. Since 1990, when the original legislation was passed, more than 300,000 human embryos have been destroyed or experimented on. In a curious way, the noble Lord's argument makes my point for me. If an embryo has such huge potential, even within the first 14 days of its creation, to provide a donation with life-enhancing opportunities for others, what does that say about the uniqueness and importance of that new life that has been created?
The Minister talked about this not being an either/or debate about embryonic cells versus adult stem cells. I well recall the contribution made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford during our debate last January, however, when he rightly told us that if other means were available that avoided the need to create embryonic stem cells for the purpose of experimentation, we were duty-bound to investigate them. Indeed, even in the regulations it does say that if other means are available then we must not proceed with the creation of embryonic stem cells. This holds out great hope for me that there may be common ground in your Lordships' House. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Winston, pointed to these possibilities in his remarks about the use of adult stem cells.
There are arguments for and against on both sides. I was pleased to hear what the right reverend Prelate said to us earlier about the thoroughgoing way in which those questions would be investigated and reported upon by his committee. Having appeared before the Select Committee last week with Professor David Prentice from the United States, but also with Professor Neil Scolding from Bristol Frenchay Hospital and Dr Michael Antoniou from Guy's Hospital—some of the foremost authorities on these questions and some of them involved in clinical practice—Professor Prentice told the Select Committee that dozens and dozens of pieces of research and evidence have now been produced which illustrate, since our debate last January, the better use of adult stem cells in therapeutic processes over and above the use of embryonic stem cells. I shall return to that question later in my remarks.
Perhaps I may briefly recall something else which the Minister said in his opening remarks. He said that the Government will not ban experimental cloning. This makes something of a mockery of the process of having a Select Committee at all. If, for instance, the Select Committee were to report that we do not need to use embryonic stem cells and that they are inherently unstable and carry dangers—the point Professor Prentice made to the Select Committee last week—is he saying that the Government will then disregard its findings?
I am grateful to the Minister. He is shaking his head and saying that the Government would not do that. It is important for the House to know that, because one of the concerns I had about the creation of a retrospective Select Committee was that we were invited in January to approve orders and then to create a Select Committee with no clear understanding of how its findings would then be viewed by the Government.
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