Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Mitochondrial Donation) Regulations 2015

Lord McAvoy Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ribeiro]

In Oldham—quite right. From that one invention, nearly 5 million children have been born who otherwise would not have been because their parents were infertile. There was a strong religious lobby against it at the time; indeed, a lot of people were against it because it was interfering with the genesis of life. This fatal Motion seems to carry some of that feeling with it.

I am a mere surgeon. I had the opportunity to visit the Lister Fertility Clinic with a parliamentary group to learn a bit more about IVF and how it was carried out. I watched the technicians—not the doctors—who had gained expertise in intracytoplasmic sperm injection. That is the technique whereby you isolate the egg, find a lively sperm and then inject it straight into the cytoplasm. The technique that has been suggested for mitochondrial donation is not dissimilar from that. A lot of expertise has been gained over the years when that has been done. I heard the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and, I think, my noble friend Lord Elton refer to the situation of donors.

[Lord McAvoy (Lab)]

The noble Lord seems to be saying that there is no difference between IVF and the mitochondrial process. However, IVF does not require the genetic modification of human eggs and embryos, or tampering with the contents of the egg or embryo itself. This technology requires both.