Clause 7 - Existing holdings
Human Tissue Bill
4:15 pm
Dr Stephen Ladyman (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Health; South Thanet, Labour)
Seldom have I heard Members admitting to such debauched acts. I was going to give the hon. Gentlemen the assurances that they seek, but the thought of banging them away for three years each is intriguing me. Having said that, I can give them and other holders of skeletons the assurance that they want.
The consent provisions of clause 1 do not apply to use of material held for scheduled purposes at the time the Bill comes into force, or to imported bodies and material, or to bodies and material which have come from a person who died more than 100 years before Bill comes into force. It will be lawful to continue to keep and use human material already retained in archives when the Bill takes effect, where these are held for scheduled purposes. The Human Tissue Authority will have the role of advising on how currently stored tissue and organs should be dealt with. The Authority will issue a statutory code of practice setting standards and giving guidance about existing holdings. This will follow on from the existing guidance issued by the Department in April 2003, ''An Interim Statement on the Use of Human Organs and Tissue''.
The intention behind clause 7 is to ensure that it is lawful to continue to store and use existing holdings for scheduled purposes without needing appropriate consent, once the Bill comes into force, subject to guidance. This applies, however, only to material that is still held for scheduled purposes, and not to material that is no longer required, even though it may have been used in the past for scheduled purposes. Such material should be disposed of.
The Bill does not prevent existing holdings of material that have already been used for scheduled purposes being used again for the same purpose, or even for other scheduled purposes, subject to the guidance to be issued by the Human Tissue Authority. The Bill is clear, however, that in future, where consent is given to the use of material for a particular scheduled purpose, the tissue may not be subsequently used for a different scheduled purpose without consent for that purpose. Skeletons currently in the possession of medical students and former medical students may continue to be kept and used for purposes listed in schedule 1 as they are existing holdings under clause 7. Future use of existing holdings will be subject to guidance given in the statutory code of practice, as stated in clause 23. Skeletons may be imported from abroad, but will be the subject of the HTA's code of practice on import and export, and will fall within the regulatory scheme in the same way as any other tissue. The code of practice will ensure that appropriate ethical standards have been applied abroad.