Clause 24 - Provision with respect to consent
Human Tissue Bill
3:30 pm
Ms Rosie Winterton (Minister of State, Department of Health; Doncaster Central, Labour)
I have good news. It is either ''Guilty, m'lud'' or well done to the Opposition for spotting the deliberate mistake in the Bill. I wanted to give them something to get their teeth into and to test whether they were awake. Indeed, they proved to be awake.
We are grateful for having been alerted to the fact that we had inadvertently left out grandparents and grandchildren from the list of qualifying relations of a deceased person who can consent to the removal, storage and use of that deceased person's tissue for scheduled purposes where the deceased made no decision about that prior to death. We have tabled the amendments to cover that. The amendments to clauses 24 and 56 cover the hierarchy and the list of qualifying relationships.
It is appropriate to put grandparents and grandchildren on the same rank in the hierarchy, and after brother and sister, rather than on successive levels, as in the Opposition's proposals. That is simply because it is unlikely that both a grandparent and a grandchild of a person would be alive and able to give consent at the same time. Therefore, there is little point in ranking one above the other.
I hope that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire will not press his amendments and triumphantly welcome mine.