Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Warner Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That is exactly the point that I and others were making. If it were primary legislation then we could amend it, but because these are SIs there is no arrangement for amendments to be considered either here or on the Floor of the House, which means that the instrument has to be either accepted or rejected. That is a take-it-or-leave-it situation that makes things very difficult in an area that, as we have heard, particularly from my noble friend Lord Winston but from others as well, is so complicated.

[Lord Warner (CB)]

Before the Minister responds, I have a relevant point. I have sat here listening interestedly to this debate over the last 40 minutes or so; I am waiting to speak on some later regulations. If the Minister could say that she was willing to take matters away in the light of the comments made in Committee for further consideration by the Government, or to withdraw the regulations while that was happening, it would speed up the consideration of these regulations. I think the Minister might take advice very quickly on that issue because we are going to go through the same issues on regulation after regulation. Unless there is some capacity for the Government to respond to the concerns that are being expressed, not just about this set of regulations but on the others as well, we are going to be here for a very long time.

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, it will be a matter for the Grand Committee in terms of how it wishes to proceed. My role today is to enable the scrutiny of the statutory instruments and give the reasons and the arguments as to why they have been put before the Committee for its consideration. It is above my pay grade to take them away and come back. We are here to deal with these three regulations, and I intend to do so.

I wanted to close off the wider debate because much of the debate has not really been about the content of the regulations but about the impact of SIs generally. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said, he has used this Sitting because he felt that no opportunity had been given to him and others to have the debate on the Floor of the House. Again, that is of course not within my remit, but I have listened to what the noble Lord has said and I am sure the Chief Whip and others will hear it. It is open to him and other noble Lords to talk to the usual channels if they have issues regarding what debates take place and which SIs come forward.

Moving sharply on, a number of noble Lords but particularly the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, asked about cost in relation to this particular regulation, although this applies to all three. We expect the cost to be minimal because clinics that need import licences already have them. We estimate that fertility clinics will need to put 60 to 100 new agreements in place, and they will be able to use their existing agreements as templates for the new ones. We are not expecting any additional transportation costs, to which the noble Lord also alluded, because the clinics already meet transport costs for importing from the EU.