Public Bodies Reform

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

Yes.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Going through the list of quangos in the Department of Health, I can see the logic of pooling some of their regulatory functions. However, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority provided more than regulatory functions; it also provided the forum for some very tricky ethical debates, without which the previous Parliament would have been unable to pass some of the legislation on such matters, because debates would have polarised along political or religious lines. Can the Minister assure me where that function of that authority now lies? Will he reconsider that change? The Health Secretary will have heard that as well because he has just arrived in the Chamber.

[Mr Maude]

We will end up with a single regulator for medical research. At the moment, such functions are dispersed quite widely. The functions of the HFEA and the Human Tissue Authority will lie within that single regulator.