Schedule 2 - The Human Tissue Authority
Human Tissue Bill
9:10 am
Dr Richard Taylor (Wyre Forest, Independent)
I support the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley). The Government are right strongly to
support the interests of relatives and patients, but I remind the Committee of comments in the General Medical Council briefing:
''The GMC is concerned about the balance that needs to be struck between the rights of patients and their families and the reasonable practice of medicine.''
There should be more in the Bill that states that people with knowledge of research practices and pathology should be on the Human Tissue Authority, particularly when it comes to discussing the codes of practice.
We have received letters from other authorities. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire mentioned the Royal College of Pathologists. Cancer Research UK feels that somebody from the research community must be included. The Council of Heads of Medical Schools thinks that there must be appropriate expertise in the use of human tissue for research. I support that. It is right that, as the Government say, lay members should be in the majority, but there must be a sufficient presence from the knowledgeable community of pathologists—I was going to say pathological community, which would have been a bad way of putting it—and the research community to ensure that reasonable practice of medicine is still possible.