Organ Donation

David Crausby Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)]

As so many Members wish to speak, I will call the two Front Benchers at 10.40 am, giving them 10 minutes apiece, but I would appreciate short contributions in order to get as many people in as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)]

Order. I am going to ask the Front-Bench spokesmen to speak at 10.40, so I ask for a short contribution from David Simpson.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I appreciate the opportunity to speak, and I will be very brief.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) on his passionate speech, and I understand how he feels. If we put ourselves in the position of those who are waiting on transplants, the picture is entirely different. If any one of us sitting in this room were waiting on a liver transplant, a lung transplant or whatever, we would do anything to cling on to life for our families and our children.

I accept the moral and ethical issues, and personally I might have issues about the moral aspect, but would it really matter to one of us in this room whether it was an opt out, opt in, moral or ethical choice? If you had to grasp on to life, you would do anything. Having said that, I understand that there is wealth of different arguments and opinions in this room, but life is life, and we must try to help those who are waiting on organ transplants.

Between April 2010 and March 2011, more than 1,000 lives were saved in the United Kingdom from lung, heart, liver or combined transplants. As has already been said, those people would be dead today without those transplants. That represents 1,000 families who still have their loved ones with them. When we look at the percentages, transplants are now so successful in the United Kingdom that, a year after surgery, 94% of live donor transplant kidneys are still functioning well; 88% of kidneys from people who have died are still functioning well, as are 86% of liver transplants, 84% of heart transplants and 77 % of lung transplants. That is a fantastic achievement for the medical profession.

Although there are moral and ethical issues, I believe that we should try to find some way around them. Not only should this argument be debated in this Chamber, but it should be debated in the main Chamber. We should find some resolution to it, because life is precious to no matter who it is. Perhaps a pilot scheme launched by the Welsh Assembly is the way forward, but I believe we must find a resolution. The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) congratulated the give and let live campaign and that campaign should be extended. Primary schools were also mentioned in this respect. We hope and trust that a resolution can be found.

[Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)]

An even shorter contribution from Duncan Hames.