Mitochondrial Replacement (Public Safety)

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Glindon]

I agree. There is probably not enough understanding within the House, either.

The Minister had previously said:

“licensed fertility clinics are only required to report instances of OHSS to the authority that require a hospital admission with a severe grading, although in practice clinics often report moderate OHSS as well.”—[Official Report, 24 June 2014; Vol. 583, c. 157W.]

The figures that do exist indicate there has been a small recent increase both in the total number of recorded cases and in those cases categorised as “severe” rather than “moderate”. About 50,000 women go through IVF in the UK each year. The fact that we do not collect proper data on a potentially life-threatening condition that may affect a third of them, seems an astonishing oversight in the collection of official health statistics. Mandatory reporting of all cases is an essential first step in this process, but should only be the start of more effective and careful collection of statistics.

This issue has a particular pertinence at present because of proposed changes to the law on mitochondrial transfer and the Government’s stated intention to allow the creation of three-parent embryos. I am sure that many Members may be struggling to get to grips with the details of this procedure, but simply put both of the techniques used in mitochondrial transfer require a significant supply of donor eggs. Any such eggs will have to come from women who have been through controlled ovarian hyper-stimulation, with all the attendant risks.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Glindon]

I will not. Sorry. There is not time.

It appears that very little consideration has been given to this fact in any of the various consultations and Government position papers that have emerged over the past two or three years. No in-depth questions about the physical health of women donating eggs were addressed in the HFEA’s own briefings. Will the Minister assure the House that she will take the matter back to her Department for consideration? In the light of the safety concerns we have heard today associated with the proposed techniques, such action would appear to be urgent, for the sake of the vulnerable women involved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab/Co-op)]

As a former NHS scientist, I would like to speak in support of the motion proposed by the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). Whatever our personal views on the ethics of mitochondrial transfer, it is remarkable from a procedural point of view that the Government are considering putting these regulations before the House before the critical pre-clinical tests by their own body, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, have been performed, written up and peer reviewed. I am not against research. I support scientific research, but scientific research that is safe. That is the situation in America, where this was put on the back burner basically because of the issue of safety.

In my humble opinion, it is scientific practice to presume that tests will yield positive results. That has had the whiff of manipulating the evidence to fit the hypothesis. In this case, however, it is even worse, as the necessary evidence has yet to be produced. Such a methodology would not stand up in the scientific community, and if it is not good enough for the scientific community, it is not good enough for this House. We must wait for these results and examine them in detail. After all, we are talking about the possibility of permitting techniques which could be—I repeat, could be—disabling to the children who are created through them. As Members of Parliament elected by the people, we should be made fully aware of the risks and safety concerns surrounding these new techniques before voting on whether they should be allowed.

There are three camps in this debate. There are those who oppose mitochondrial transfer for ethical reasons and those who are strongly in favour, but there is another group: those who are in favour but are concerned about safety. The votes of this third group will be determined by the available evidence. That evidence has not yet been produced. I am not talking about the more stringent evidence asked for by the world-renowned US Food and Drug Administration in its recent report on the subject, but the few tests that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority—a clear and obvious supporter of the techniques—recommended as the critical bare minimum to be completed before progressing. We do not have the results of those tests. Does the Minister agree that it would be a subversion of due process to ask Parliament to vote pre-emptively on them?

[Martin Horwood]

Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate, though, that the HFEA’s expert panel is commending these techniques, and that if the regulations are passed, the responsibility for safely licensing each application will still rest with the HFEA, so the safety process will still be in place? This is a permissive step.

[Jim Dobbin]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but may I refer him to Dr David King, director of Human Genetics Alert? He is sympathetic to this process but fears that science is racing ahead of ethics. He says that we are in danger of creating designer eugenic babies, and we do not know where we are going in future.

Denying Parliament the opportunity to examine these results seems difficult to defend. In effect, it would be asking the House to vote blind on the safety of techniques that the House might reject outright on the basis of the results. Let us be clear and honest about this: the results could not be published and peer reviewed in time for the rumoured vote in the autumn. I end with a clear and simple question to the Minister: do the Government intend to ask Parliament to vote on these regulations before the HFEA’s suggested critical tests are performed, written up and peer reviewed; and if so, why?