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I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Plant about health and creative industries. I will return to that in a moment, in the context of saying that some scepticism has been suggested about whether employers will engage in co-funding or whether they have ever realistically done so. It is only possible to say that there have been some improvements in that position. The House and those way beyond it will have to accept that the employers in this country will have to change. The economy of this country has no option but that employers change, as my noble friend Lord Jones, also said. We do not have the option, given the number of people in the workforce without the kinds of skills we need over the coming periods or, indeed, the skills we need today. There is no option other than that there is a fundamental lifting of the level of skills. The role of employers has to be that they increase whatever they have done historically, as my noble friend Lord Jones said.

I accept that there are issues for some institutions which have a relatively high volume of ELQ students. My noble friend Lady Warwick is right to talk about their stability, but their stability cannot mean that we do not move for further change. We welcome the jointly funded project between Birkbeck College and HEFCE to examine the future development of Birkbeck’s business model. It is important for the Open University not to overstate the financial impact

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figures. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, who I hope will not mind if I still refer to him as my noble friend, that the figures he cited come from the HEFCE website, which illustrates one possible scenario after 2010-11—that any outcome will depend on the decisions of the next spending review and may very well not lead to that kind of conclusion. Indeed, of the £100 million to be redistributed by 2010-11, we think that about £12 million will come from the Open University. The actual outcome for the Open University will be smaller because of the institutional mitigation that we have directed HEFCE to include in implementing the change.

In addition, the Open University will take its share of the additional money coming into higher education through the Comprehensive Spending Review. It will be able to take a share of the £100 million as it is reallocated. I cannot, knowing the Open University’s great capability, believe that it is incapable of recruiting students on other bases as well.

Lord Watson of Richmond: My Lords, I am sorry but I sense that the Minister is coming to the end of his peroration. Before he does so, can he tell us quite simply why there was no consultation?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, in a few moments I intend to come to the consultation point because I also want to try to describe why I think that the process we are in, including this evening’s debate, is fruitful. I hope that I can put it in the proper position in the debate.

I wanted to conclude my point. No funding decisions have been taken beyond the CSR period, and the future decisions on ELQ funding will not lead to the overall funding for individual institutions falling off a cliff. I simply do not accept that that will happen.

The OU is an extraordinary institution. I am like other people who love it. I think that it is quite capable, through the variety of high-profile public activities that it engages in, to think of ways in which block grant funding mechanisms can properly recognise a wide variety of its activities.

That brings me to the consultation point. Those who have made points about the OU or indeed any other institutions have said that they do not believe there has been adequate consultation. I understand that. I should say at least that the Government were quite clear about the priorities that they intended to meet. That was not a matter for consultation. It has been in the public domain for as long as I can remember, and it has been very widely debated. Consulting on whether to consult would not have been particularly fruitful. However, the consultation, which will conclude very shortly, is a genuine consultation about how the policy should best be implemented. I cannot stress too strongly to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, who wondered whether we were taking it seriously, that we have gone into it with an open mind. We wanted to see what the best approach should be, and we are grateful to everyone

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who has made constructive proposals about how to do this in partnership. We are taking part in that partnership.

The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, in particular, floated a suggestion, which sits alongside other suggestions made by my noble friend Lady Warwick, about how universities most affected by the new funding policy could be put at the front of the queue for new student numbers that would be created as a result of the change. That proposal is worth serious consideration, and I promise the House that it will be seriously considered even in the last period of the consultation. I will also ensure that there is consideration of the questions asked by my noble friend Lady Blackstone and the points made by my noble friend Lord Plant about pharmacology, arts training and the training of further education teachers. I am not aware that we have ever stepped back from that, and I should be very disappointed to find that we had even done so by accident, although I do not believe that we have. I will ensure that those questions are in front of the consultation process people. I will also ensure that the point made by my noble friend Lord Griffiths about the training of the clergy is considered in that period. I should say to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that I do not believe that there will be a particularly difficult outcome for part-time students. That is probably the subject of a very important debate to be had about support for part-time students, but it is probably slightly different from our debate this evening.

We wish to continue to fund students who are progressing to higher-level qualifications. We particularly want, and we believe that we must get, the support of employers because we have no option but to get it. We must get more people to enter higher education for the first time. We cannot continue to lag behind and then hope somehow that our economy will continue to prosper. That is not realistic. We are not in a position in which we will back off from that philosophy, but we are in a position in which the consultation must consider the details of this debate and the other submissions that have been made. I will ensure that all those factors are put in front of those conducting the consultation.

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

8.42 pm

House again in Committee.

Lord Alton of Liverpool moved Amendment No. 21:

(a) human embryonic stem cell research; and(b) adult stem cell research within the United Kingdom.””

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The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 21, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 22, 23 and 62. Amendment No. 21 is in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, who spoke at Second Reading and who is unavoidably absent overseas, taking part in a long-standing engagement.

The amendment would require the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to report to the Secretary of State on the respective sums of money used in human embryonic stem cell research and adult stem cell research. It seeks to ensure that, as with the local ethical review process established in the case of animal experiments under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, an amicus curiae—in this case, someone to speak for the human embryo—would be appointed to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and would have a remit at least to challenge repetitive experimentation.

Amendment No. 23 seeks to disqualify from membership of the HFEA anyone who has a direct pecuniary interest in any of the activities governed by the Act. Amendment No. 62 seeks to establish clear record-keeping by the HFEA of ovarian stimulation, oocyte retrieval and hospitalisation.

Turning first to Amendment No. 21, it is ironic indeed that the moral justification, if it can be passed as such, for experiments on human embryos is the desire to keep Britain in the lead. This mistaken jingoism is a false patriotism at every level. While we have been diverted down the blind alley of embryonic stem cell research, the most breathtaking discoveries are being made by our competitors. Promises of a biotech El Dorado have proved illusionary, with vast sums of public money consumed in the process. How much better it would have been if those public resources have been used, as some of us have argued throughout, on the less ethically troubled pursuit of adult stem cell technologies. Amendment No. 21 seeks to require regular reportage of the respective sums of money allocated for the two approaches, a point eloquently made during the Second Reading debate by the noble Baroness.

Amendments Nos. 22 and 23 deal with the membership and the role of Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. There are currently 18 members of the HFEA. It has an interim chair, Walter Merricks, who was a founder member of Donor Conception Network. The chair is supposed to be a lay person and I would argue that to accord this status to Mr Merricks is stretching definitions—something about which we heard earlier in another context—beyond their intended sense. Eight other current members of the authority are working as medical or scientific professionals in the field of IVF or genetics. Apart from Mr Merricks there are two other members, Messrs Brown and Dundas, who are directly involved in patients’ groups and lobbying. The other seven could generically be described as lay people, but some have publicly advocated embryonic experimentation and cloning. The academic lawyer, Emily Jackson, who has spoken out in favour of human reproductive cloning is an active participant in pro-choice abortion politics and this November delivered a speech at the London School of Economics entitled

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“Rejecting the sanctity principle and rethinking the wrongness of killing”. Her perspective is contained in the title, which she argued passionately. David Archard is the token philosopher on the authority, holding entirely predictable views. The four others could be described as neutral in the absence of any information to the contrary. So, in effect, it is only possible to claim that, at the most, four of the 18 come at assisted reproduction and embryo research from a potentially neutral perspective.

I have never heard any indication of any member of the committee who has expressed serious reservations about anything which vast swathes of our population consider to be controversial at best and unethical at worst. Summing up this analysis, 11 of the 18 are involved, in one way or another, with fertility treatment and research; three others are outspoken in their position on research; leaving just four others—two with a financial background, one involved in childcare work and one ex-BBC—who could possibly be described as neutral.

As the Times reported only this morning, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, a point I put to my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth, is currently considering two licence applications from the Newcastle and King’s Universities for the creation of interspecies embryos, called by them cytoplasmic hybrids, involving the cloning process, adult somatic cells and enucleated animal eggs. These applications are due to be ruled on on 5 December. Following a freedom of information request by Comment on Reproductive Ethics, it is acknowledged that the HFEA has never turned down a research licence application to the best of its knowledge. Will it grant these applications? As I asked my noble and right reverend friend earlier today, what then is the purpose of the Bill which dedicates so much space to the permitted creation of interspecies embryos? It would appear that the HFEA has already assumed authority in this area of science.

So indifferent is the HFEA to widespread hostility to creating animal-human hybrids that it has totally disregarded its own consultation which demonstrated that of more than 800 submissions, only one in eight supported the creation of hybrids. This not only ignores public consultation but it is dangerous to treat Parliament with apparent contempt to pre-empt deliberation in both Houses; it would make a total mockery of what passes as a democratic process.

This is not a new problem. In 1982 the then Government announced the terms of reference for what became known as the Warnock committee. On 18 November 1993, in a Radio 4 broadcast of the “Analysis” programme, my noble friend Lady Warnock gave an insightful response when asked how the membership of her committee was determined. I quote her directly from a transcript:

Doubtless it would be much easier for us all if people we found it difficult to work with could be excluded from committees and public bodies. I have probably had that effect on some of your Lordships during today’s proceedings. In 2002 Susie Leather, the chair of the HFEA, said:

that is, people opposed to the use of human embryos—

And the Joint Committee adumbrated a very telling new constitutional principle, that,

That simply is not true. Removing dissenting and questioning voices is a huge error. Many local ethical review committees—I sit on one—contain people opposed to animal experimentation, but they see their role as a questioning one, ensuring, at least in the context of the law as it stands, that the interests of the subject are not dismissed or neglected.

When I last looked, 70 per cent of the HFEA’s income came in fees from the very clinics it is supposed to police—a case of the watchdog being far too closely identified with the burglar. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what the current figure is. Clearly that incestuous relationship makes it difficult to say no too often, or ever at all. My Amendments Nos. 22 and 23 seek to address those issues.

On Amendment No. 62, Her Majesty’s Government have declined to follow the lead of their South Korean counterparts by restricting the type of human eggs that may be used in embryo research in order to protect women’s health and welfare. Instead, appeal is made to an HFEA consultation undertaken in 2006 on the donation of eggs for research in which the publicly stated risks of side effects due to ovarian hyperstimulation—a point made today by the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger—seems, curiously, to have been described as threefold lower than those indicated by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the same year. I refer your Lordships to two Written Answers, at cols. WA 99 on 23 October 2007 and WA 131 on 29 November, to Questions I tabled, as well as to the conflicting statements of the HFEA and the RCOG. The HFEA has said:

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, by contrast, says:

According to Written Answers by the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Darzi of Denham, on 22 October, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority appears to have incomplete records regarding ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. This is not necessarily reported by clinics unless treatment was discontinued, and it does not hold data regarding how many in vitro fertilisation patients were at risk of hospitalisation after producing 20 or more eggs. Such appalling deficits would hopefully be rectified by the implementation of Amendment No. 62, which would lay on the HFEA a duty to keep records. Although clinics have to report OHSS if it causes an IVF cycle to be cancelled before egg collection for embryo transfer, they do not have to report all cases of women being hospitalised for OHSS. If women choose to continue with the cycle, risking their health, and end up in hospital, IVF clinics do not need to report it. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, in its guidelines on the management of OHSS published in September 2006, called for auditable standards, including the percentage of women who were admitted to hospital with OHSS, the number of days as an in-patient and incidence of thrombosis.

The appalling degree of underreporting recently came to light when the journal, Human Fertility, reported in September that, in a four-year period of study, there were 53 incidents of women from an IVF clinic in Newcastle being hospitalised with OHSS, two of whom had life-threatening complications. However, the data held by the HFEA for the Newcastle clinic on the reported incidence of OHSS for six years during the same period show that only three cases of OHSS were reported to it.

Amendment No. 62 has an affinity with Amendment No. 24, in the name of my noble friend Lady Finlay, which also stresses the importance of record-keeping, in that case of IVF—success rates on the one hand, and risks of serious adverse side-effects on the other. I hope that the Committee and the Government will be convinced by the arguments for greater transparency and accountability. I beg to move.

Lord Patten: I offer strong support to the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool. I often think that if I offer strong support, it may not necessarily help his case, but I offer it none the less. He is quite right that one of the driving forces behind the Bill is not the discovery of the interesting and the helpful, but, as the Explanatory Notes on the Bill state, a desire to,

That does not necessarily mean that everything that follows should automatically be ticked as being a good thing—“thing” was used in the previous group of amendments that we debated, when we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, the surprising suggestion that we should proceed with the clauses as drafted, despite the fact that many extremely eminent scientists, whom he enumerated in the letter that he read out, could not agree on what an interspecies embryo was. It sometimes strikes me that we are being taken on a magical mystery tour, where we should automatically

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canonise what a lot of clever scientists think is a very good thing. That is why I regard the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, in relation to the authority as so important.

I have only two points, both relating to the word “transparency”, which seems to apply to almost every public appointment and every declaration of pecuniary interest, except, so far, in this area. In public appointments in the past, the great and the good have appointed more of the great and the good, provided that they are not Roman Catholic or do not agree with the ethical stance that is being put forward.

This is a very serious issue, and this House will look closely at the make-up of the authority in future. It will not be possible for a closed circle of scientists and those who take one particular ethical or philosophical point of view—you can always find a jobbing philosopher to come up to support any point of view; our major universities are full of jobbing philosophers who will do that at the drop of a hat—to decide in an area such as this, which is so important to men and women. As I said earlier, I am not an expert in these areas, either ethically or scientifically; I represent, if you like, the ordinary Back-Bench Peer in the street. However, quite of lot of people in the street are concerned about what is going on. They will not wish to have a lot of self-interested scientists, self-interested and self-appointed ethicists, and a self-interested elect to the great and the good decide what is ethically right or wrong. That is why it is important that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, suggests:

We are not going to be able to proceed unless we have guarantees on transparency from the Minister about how these appointments will be made. It will not be acceptable to the outside world, let alone to the other place.

I am very broadminded; one or two scientists are my personal friends, as are one or two philosophers. I made a point of reaching out to that community. However, it will not be acceptable for a lot of people to be on this body, appointed as scientists, who are making potentially substantial sums of money through what they do—from what they publish or make from appearances, or whatever—who can then rule in their own favour.

9 pm

Lord Winston: I wonder whether the noble Lord might be kind enough to explain which scientists on the authority at any time have made a lot of money out of in vitro fertilisation or related technologies. I doubt whether there are any at all, but I would be glad to hear that I am wrong.

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