Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority/Human Tissue Authority

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the former chair of the HFEA. For most of my tenure I was paid the princely sum of £8,000 per annum, but it was a burden—nearly a full-time burden—that I undertook with pride and viewed as a privilege, grateful that infertility had not affected me. I wished to help others safely and with respect for their dignity, avoiding exploitation, and I remained in awe of the achievement of the scientists.

This debate, for which I am grateful, is about public confidence. It is not about confident, or self-confident, doctors; nor is it about how wonderful and trustworthy our doctors and embryologists are. If that were the issue, we would not need regulation in many walks of professional life and the controversy surrounding the Public Bodies Bill would fade away. It is easy in these surroundings or among researchers and specialists to forget how sensitive the issues of IVF and embryos are, and how very concerned the public are. The most vivid event during the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill three years ago was the hundreds of members of the public protesting outside this Palace about the possible extension of embryo research to animal hybrids. If your name, like mine, is associated with embryo research, you are the recipient of hundreds of letters about it, and not always peaceful or unthreatening ones. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, said in her esteemed report of 1984, the public want to know that some principles are involved. It is also not to be forgotten that most of the treatment in this country is private, and therefore a great deal of money is involved and the need for protection is all the greater. European law, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, is a weakness in that protection but unavoidable.

Any analogy with the progress of science in the US, which is largely unregulated, is false. The US has been home to some of the scandals that have echoed around the world, whether it was a clinician using his own sperm, octuplets or the sale of eggs and sperm by needy college students for large sums of money. That is not a road that we wish to risk going down, but we are not risking it under the Government’s proposal. Those who want to see the HFEA abolished seem to think that there will then be no regulation and that they will be free to do what they want, and quickly. But no—the law will be the same; consent will be needed exactly as before, and so will licences. Taking the processes into other organisations can be guaranteed to be no faster, no less bureaucratic and no cheaper; just worse. IVF is not routine because, although it is practised very often, any one treatment can throw up not only ethical issues that are known to us, such as saviour siblings, but also new ones, as the science progresses every day. One cannot separate the collection of embryos and eggs from patients from their storage, their storage from donation for research, donation for research from new research and stem cell work, and none of that from the great database, patient guidance and reliable statistics and health screening of donors. The risks will be too great and the gains from the government proposal nil, and our international reputation will suffer.

We are talking about an annual expenditure of £7 million, of which only £1.5 million to £2 million comes from the Government, and even this, I am told, could be reduced. Certainly patients will still have to pay for regulation if the tasks of the HFEA are dismembered, so it will be no cheaper for them either. Placing the regulation with the CQC is misguided. This is a new organisation. There have already been hints that it is overburdened and its operations have not always been met with praise. There is no improvement in public confidence there; nor will the public be persuaded that embryos will be treated with respect and that there will be bounds on embryo research if it is handed over to unknowns and not the accountable and expert figures of the HFEA. Review, yes; reversal, no.