Clause 3
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]
12:30 pm
Evan Harris (Shadow Minister, Innovation, Universities and Skills; Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
It is not my intention to cover the issues we have just debated. I want to raise the issue of the use of stem cell-derived gametes or in vitro-derived gametes, also called—I think misleadingly—artificial gametes in treatment.
Let us be clear that the clause as drafted precludes, by primary legislation, the use of in vitro-derived or stem-cell derived gametes in treatment. That has serious implications which this House needs to debate, and I ask the Government—and, indeed, the Conservative Front Bench spokesman—to consider whether there is a good enough reason for not allowing some form of regulation-making power to deal with the concerns and enable this research to proceed without the prospect of being banned in primary legislation and never put into the clinic. Such a power would improve the potential treatment prospects of thousands of patients who suffer from infertility.
When talking about the prospects of stem cell therapies I am always very careful not to claim that this will inevitably lead to treatments or, indeed, that we can expect cures. What I say is that the hope is that the research will deliver insights into causes, new ways of testing and new treatments, and might provide for cures. In this case, however, I think that one can be confident that if the research works, there is very little left to do other than run a clinical trial.
There are thousands of patients who suffer from the inability of their gonads to make gametes, whether sperm or eggs, and new technology offers the promise that such infertility can be treated by the generation of new gametes from stem cells—I am talking about adult stem cell technology. It could be done in other ways, but the leading technology in animal models is adult stem cell technology, so it is not as controversial as other measures such as the embryonic stem cell technologies envisaged elsewhere in the Bill. Nor does it involve the creation of embryos other than those created for the purpose of producing children, which is what the 1990 Act was all about. I would argue that this is less contentious even than the regulation-making power that we have just discussed, which allows for cytoplasmic transfer, genetic contributions from three parents and other such issues which, as the Committee knows, I support, but which, I accept can be considered controversial.