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

Lord Winston Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

But the noble Viscount was looking at me. He should clarify it to everyone. I will be brief—I have only three points to make, which I hope the Minister will find useful.

If Members were in the House the other day, they would have heard the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, trying to twist things in relation to the number of SIs, where they are and how quickly they are going through. He wants to rush all these things through, and I am worried about that. It is even more worrying now: he is so keen to rush them through that he has turned the heating down in this place. The clerks are having to wear scarves to keep warm and survive. But this is a serious matter.

First, to take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is it right that we should be dealing with the amendment of primary legislation as an SI in Grand Committee and not in primary legislation on the Floor of the House? It is astonishing. I have never known this to happen before; perhaps the Minister can tell us when this has been dealt with in this way before. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, rightly said, because we are dealing with it as an SI, we cannot amend it but can only accept it or reject it, and that makes it very difficult. It may be that my noble friend Lady Thornton on the Front Bench, who is an expert on this, would have liked to put down a number of detailed amendments, but she is not able to do that because of the way we dealing with this.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

Me too. With respect, these are very complex areas of medicine and clinical science, and they are changing rapidly with increasing advances. It is clear that the existing legislation, which in some cases dates back to 1990, is no longer entirely fit for purpose. It is therefore important that the House reconsiders this legislation. It is a marvellous opportunity, and we cannot simply do this en bloc. It would be a travesty of what this Committee should be doing.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I am grateful to my noble friend; as he is a world expert on these matters, it is useful to have him in the House and this Committee.

Two things worry me if we move out with no deal. First, will the trafficking of organs—people wanting to make money out of organ trafficking—become more likely? The European Union has brought some order and respectability to this, ensuring that it does not happen as it had done in the past, particularly with some countries which came into the European Union relatively recently.

Secondly—and perhaps my noble friend Lord Winston can help on this—are there increased dangers to health? In this SI we are dealing with stem cells, corneas, heart valves, eggs and sperm, skin grafts, and bone products—very sensitive, important issues. Is there scope for commercialisation in relation to that? Again, this is something we could deal with if we were not just rushing it through.

That is all I wanted to raise. I do not think we should be trying to extend this unduly. I know we do not address the Chairman in this way, but there are genuine concerns. With respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, who has been rushed into this at short notice because the noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, is no longer a Minister, there are very serious questions which so far she has not been able to answer. The only way to deal with this issue properly is for it to go to the Floor of the House, where, in a proper debate, experts such as my noble friend Lord Winston can ask specific questions. It would have been even better if we could have dealt with it by primary legislation; then we could have had some amendment. But I think if we do not do this, we are storing up unforeseen dangers that might cause genuine difficulties, and that concerns me.

I hope that that was not too long and it has dealt with the matter before us.

[Lord Winston]

Before my noble friend sits down, may I ask him an important question? Is he aware there is a specific example of British patients leaving these shores to go to the rest of the EEC for treatments which are not regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority? In some cases, for example, they return from Spain with three embryos re-placed in their uterus and end up having triplets on the National Health Service, often at massive cost. One occurred just last month; the health service probably spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on such babies, after a procedure which would not be allowed by this legislation as we set it up in 1990. That is why this is too complex an aspect of our new relationship with Europe to be discussed without very careful consideration.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I am really grateful to my noble friend, who has dealt with this precisely and with knowledge rather than the broad brush I was using. This shows what an advantage it is to have people such as him in the House and this Grand Committee. It would have been better if he could have dealt with it through primary legislation in a proper, considered way; then we could have dealt with it in Committee, amendments could have been tabled and we could have considered the most appropriate way of dealing with it.

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[Baroness Manzoor]

I hope the noble Lord feels I have been generous in giving way, but I really do need to make progress. I will answer the questions, but he must allow me to answer them before posing the same questions again.

The noble Lord asked about the impact cost for regulators and businesses, and I have already said these are to be low. He also asked what these costs are exactly. I do not have the figures, but they are expected to be very low, because for fertility clinics, it will be largely business as usual. Those importing from the EU already have import licences. The clinics will need written agreements and the regulator, the HFEA, will consider these at no cost.

[Lord Winston]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. This is a specialised area and it is quite understandable that the Minister is not fully apprised of the problems arising here. It is a question not merely of cost but also of ethical approval. For example, even for minor changes in a licence—and they can be minimal, such as a request for a three-month extension to a licence we have asked to be reviewed—it can take months just to get the approval. There are so many changes that need to be made when you do different research and find new things happening. This is a moving area of science. It is not static, and it is not like so much other regulation. Therefore, to take three completely different areas en bloc makes no sense. Each brings its own very different problems. I hope the Minister will recognise that as they need to be debated before they go to the Chamber.

[Baroness Manzoor]

I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Winston, says, but I want to reassure him that these instruments are about continuation of present practices, standards and patient safety. They are not introducing new ethical considerations. We are merely, if there is no deal, putting in place contingency plans so that for sixth months, new agreements can be put in place. The number of those agreements is not going to be significant.

A number of noble Lords raised issues about delays at ports. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, in particular raised this on a number of occasions. I stress again, in the event of no deal, it is possible there may be delays for freight transiting via Dover, the Eurotunnel, and possibly Holyhead and other ports. The disruption to outbound traffic could have an impact on inbound traffic between EU and UK ports; I concede that. It could also lead to congestion on the road network in Kent, but we are planning for this situation and want to avoid any disruption to the supply of urgent material to hospitals in the region, and any congestion at ports or on the roads. Organs, particularly, are flown already, and that will continue. Where there is urgent need, they will be flown to the appropriate places, and those agreements will continue.

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[Baroness Thornton]

I think that the Minister is being teased somewhat by my noble friend, but some of that is completely justified. Of course, the truth is that this is a Brexit-blind question because airports can be closed. I can remember dealing with this when I was a Minister and there was an active volcano in Iceland which stopped organs from being flown over from Canada. Perhaps I may offer that little bit of comfort to the Minister and suggest that perhaps she might move this statutory instrument.

[Lord Winston]

Before my noble friend finishes, I should say that I really do not feel that that is a satisfactory point. I hope that I will be forgiven for saying this, but there are numerous examples of where the immediate relationship with Europe is important. Let me take one of those which I do not believe has been considered at all. We are aware that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority undertakes to consider that no more than 10 attempts at sperm donation are made by individual donors, but we have increasingly been importing gametes from outside the United Kingdom because the regulations in this country have rather prevented males wishing, not unreasonably, to donate their sperm. As a consequence, we are importing sperm at an increasing rate and there is a great deal of evidence to show that there is an increasing risk of consanguinity in offspring because more than 10 children are produced as a result of one donor selling their sperm in different countries. That is the sort of thing which does in fact apply to the Brexit situation and it is a problem.

The three statutory instruments before us for discussion are so technical and so demanding that the suggestion which has already been made that we should perhaps withdraw them for the time being and have a proper consultation on what is important in the Brexit issues might be something that we should be thinking about today before accepting them en bloc and before we proceed any further.

[Baroness Manzoor]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her intervention; I very much appreciated it. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Winston, for his suggestion. But as I have already indicated, we are considering the SIs here today, and it will be a matter for the Grand Committee how it chooses to proceed. I say again that we are not talking about changing legislation; rather, it is about maintaining the standards that we currently have. In terms of tracing organs, sperm and cells, the regulators will keep the same standards and provisions of traceability. They will not change. As the noble Lord will know, these agreements are not only in place with the EU; the regulators have agreements with other countries around the world.

I conclude with a clarification. It was either the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, or the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who said that we are changing primary legislation. They were right, but only to the extent that it is within the powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. We are amending primary legislation in relation to HFE because the EU directives in this area were implemented by primary legislation. I just wanted to clarify that. I beg to move.