Human Fertilisation and Embryology

Part of Living Wage (Reporting) – in the House of Commons at 3:04 pm on 3 February 2015.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of David Willetts David Willetts Conservative, Havant 3:04, 3 February 2015

Let me make some progress, as others want to speak.

Thirdly, I hear a rejection on the grounds that we are somehow rushing because we are going to be first. People ask, why us? Why now? Why in Britain? I must say, having had the privilege of serving as the Minister responsible for science, that we are first because we have world-leading research in this area. We should be proud of the fact that it is in British labs and British universities that this fundamental research is happening. It was in our country that the structure of DNA was discovered and I had the privilege of going to the Nobel prize ceremony for Robert Edwards, who won the Nobel prize for his work on IVF, which would properly not have passed through the levels of scrutiny we require of research today.

That brings me to my fourth and final point. What is our role in this Chamber today, faced with this very difficult question? We must make a judgment on whether any ethical issues stand in the way of tackling a clear human need. We are not agreeing that any specific programme of treatment should be licensed or should go ahead. We are very fortunate in this country to have a regulatory structure that is different from that in the US. In the US, if Congress voted for such legislation to go ahead, that would be the end of the matter. If we vote for the regulations today, as I hope that we will, we are saying that the HFEA can decide whether or not to license specific uses of mitochondrial DNA donation after it has assessed all the risks. There is that further safeguard. All we are doing is saying we require it to make that assessment and we are not objecting in principle. My sense of the mood of this House is that there are not many people who object in principle.