Schedule 1 - Scheduled purposes
Human Tissue Bill
4:30 pm
Dr Stephen Ladyman (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Health; South Thanet, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman is tempting me into trying to write the best-practice guidance. The whole point of what we are trying to do is not to write that guidance, which will follow as a result of the involvement of professionals who will do their best to help to put it together. We are here today because we are trying to rebuild the public's confidence in the collection of material for medical purposes. Many people no longer quite trust clinicians to do what they say that are going to do with material. Many people who will be consulted about the use of material from their loved ones or from their own bodies are unsure about giving the go-ahead in case their child's organs end up in a bottle on a shelf to be used by someone for undisclosed purposes in a year's time. We are trying to rebuild people's confidence in the system, but we will not do so if we undermine the Bill's principle that they should be consulted.
Members of the research community may foresee practical difficulties with consultation, but they must come to terms with the fact that if they want the public's trust and confidence, and if they want to be able to obtain material freely, they must put more effort into ensuring that everyone has the confidence in the system that we want them to have, so that organs and material are freely donated. I should add that best practice is already well defined and that people are working well.
I hope that Opposition Members accept my arguments and that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire is prepared to withdraw the amendment.