Clause 62 - Commencement
Human Tissue Bill
2:45 pm
Dr Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
I signalled earlier that I might raise a minor issue at this time. I give the Committee advance notice that I have no comments to make on clause 63—the short title.
We touched earlier on the fact that the BioIndustry Association is concerned that, before the Bill's criminalising provisions come into force, adequate time needs to be given for the codes of practice to be fully understood and taught, not simply published. I wish to probe the Government's intention on what sort of gap they want to allow between publication of the final codes of practice—the Minister told us that the draft codes will be sent out for consultation and so forth—and their commencement, as people will need to be taught about them and made aware of their provisions.
Those important provisions will criminalise activity—it is not necessarily of a controversial kind, but it is still unsatisfactory—that has been going and may still be going on in respect of research activities on cells. Will the gap will be sufficient to ensure that people involved in such activity are not caught, or at least that enough planning materials are made available to industry and academia to ensure that
everyone involved in clinical governance has the time in a crowded NHS agenda to make sure that it is done properly? That is my only question.