Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Statutory Storage Period for Embryos and Gametes) Regulations 2009

My Lords, I listened with great care to the speech by the noble Earl, Lord Howe. He made quite a complicated speech and I may miss some of the points that he made, for which I apologise. He raises a few issues which it seems rather surprising that he has not raised beforehand. First, however, I was sorry to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is unwell. We have been adversaries over this issue for a long time, but we are certainly not enemies, and I hope that he is better very quickly. My first point is that nothing in this particular aspect of the legislation changes the possibility of older women being treated. There is no specific area of guidance for that. It is still technically possible, and will be under law, to transfer a donated egg to a woman who is of a particular age unspecified in the Act of Parliament. That does not change, and it is actually a far more likely problem with in vitro fertilisation and might well be something that your Lordships would view with some alarm. The use of an egg which has been frozen for a long period under these circumstances would clearly be a much rarer event. It is not really likely that it would happen often; it might happen more often with sperm, because sperm are relatively easy to store and have certainly been stored for this length of time in the past. The issue of transgenerational embryos is a tricky one, and I understand and recognise the concern of a number of people who have spoken against such transfers. The problem is that we do not really have evidence—although the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, made an impassioned speech on this—that this is necessarily harmful to the welfare of the child, providing that there is no secrecy and that it is done with openness, as it has been in a number of parts of the world. For example, I believe that it was first done in South Africa some 10 or 15 years ago. There is an issue, then, about always keeping this kind of thing under surveillance, but again, that is quite possible without the storage of embryos or sperm. That can always happen, and the storage aspects are irrelevant to this, for they simply mean that you could do that for a longer time afterwards. The actual problem that we have to contemplate is one that we tried to deal with in discussing the Bill as it went though Parliament; that is, the issue of secrecy. Now, there is something of a misapprehension here about premature fertility. Your Lordships have, perhaps, forgotten that it is possible to be prematurely infertile at the age of six months. It is not just a question of Turner syndrome—although, to the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, I must say God forbid we should not have compassion for the rare cases that, like that syndrome, affect a few children, for they are as deserving of our compassion as anyone else. I accept that it is quite a rare event, but there are many other instances where a child will be made infertile, particularly by deliberate medical treatment. Increasingly, cancers are treated by heavy radiation or toxic drugs that destroy their gametes, and if those gametes can be stored at the age of two or three—an ideal time biologically, as it turns out—then that is what the 55-year limit protects. You might say that 55 years is a long time, but if you actually think about it logically it is not. Certainly, men of 55 are capable of having another child, and generally still consider that they might wish to. We are now living at a time that is very different from even 20 years ago. A paper was published in the Lancet two weeks ago by Dr Christensen from Denmark. His paper is a beautiful piece of serious mathematics, which I do not think anybody doubts. It shows that, of the children born in the last decade, more than half will have a life expectancy of greater than 100. Our society is changing and people will work for much longer; it is inevitable. People will have quite different recreation. Many aspects of our society, including pensions, will have to change. It is quite feasible that women may wish to bear children, perfectly acceptably, a little later in life. It is possible, therefore, that this is something that the very occasional woman in her middle age might want to consider, though not necessarily at present. What this has done is simply to take a compassionate look at all possible opportunities, with wisdom to the future. It is clearly not going to be a common occurrence. British statistics tell us that very few women over the age of 50—or even 45—request treatment for infertility. There are a few. They are generally, of course, women who are taken very carefully through the process. I am surprised that your Lordships are concerned about the fact this should be a matter for just one doctor’s opinion. That, to my mind, does not make sense. As far as I am aware, in legislation, the only times that we require two practitioners are, first, if we are committing somebody after 30 days because they are mentally unfit; and, secondly, for an abortion under the Abortion Act 1967. Medical treatments are not performed with multiple doctors taking decisions. I can say for certain that it is quite possible for five or six doctors who see a patient to misdiagnose premature infertility. I have seen it happen. Mistakes can always be made. Indeed, I have foolishly made that mistake from results after other doctors have made that comment, and then a patient has got pregnant. I listened carefully to what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said; she said that this was unnatural. I do not wish to take issue with her because she is one of the wisest Members in the Chamber. However, I have to say that the whole procedure of in vitro fertilisation is unnatural. Taking an antibiotic is unnatural. Medical treatment is not natural. What we try to do with medical treatment is often a compromise; it is an attempt to find something that preserves and maintains the sanctity of life in whatever way we feel is appropriate. The noble Baroness also mentioned—and I fear I have to disagree with her—that there has been no animal research on embryo freezing. There has been, over a long period. Dr David Whittingham, who first froze embryos in the mouse over 30 years ago, regularly took tranches of embryos from that store every five years to examine the changes in them and then transfer them to the mouse uterus. Over 30 years he never found any change in their fertility. It is perfectly true, as the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, said, that I am concerned about the freezing of eggs. Indeed, I am quite concerned about the freezing of embryos. However, the evidence from my laboratory is nothing to do with long-term storage. Once in liquid nitrogen, the molecules hardly move at all. The changes are, on any scientific basis, bound to be very slight. There may be the most remote risk from background radiation, but Dr Whittingham’s experiments did not show any such risk, which is something he tried to elicit. No, the problem with embryo freezing and the reason why I am concerned, particularly about egg freezing, is that the process that we use may cause epigenetic changes immediately in that gamete. That is something that we will have to explore and we need to continue to take under surveillance. This is something, of course, which should be done in our society. Any responsible medical society should try to improve the quality of follow-up to do that. That has not been part of the Act of Parliament, but maybe it is something that we should look at. Furthermore, I am puzzled about introducing the issue of switching embryos. The noble Baroness mentioned the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. The switching of embryos can, of course, occur at any time, but I do not think that there is any evidence that the safeguards for long-term storage in proper laboratories, which are regulated by Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, are likely to be at any greater risk at any time simply because storage is long-term and staff have changed. Staff change in many in vitro fertilisation units at yearly intervals. I have to take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Patten. The scientific community cares passionately about ethics. Indeed, if you look at the literature on the ethics of in vitro fertilisation, you will find that the majority of papers which take account of ethical issues have been published by practitioners in the field, often, but not always, after consultation with ethicists. Finally, even if we decide that longer-term storage is not possible, there is no doubt that there are a number of women who are requesting storage for longer than 10 years at the moment. I get e-mails—very pathetic ones—from women whom I no longer treat, but who have run out of time and whose circumstances would still be appropriate for having a child. Nobody here would doubt that. In cases of donor treatment, they sometimes want to have the same donor as a parent. That is not unreasonable; I know a number of patients who have wanted that. There is a risk that we might destroy that. Our biggest problem, and the concern that we should be addressing, is that when we start to have very punitive legislation, we have seen that, in practice, these patients go overseas. Once they do so, the very problem to which the noble Lord, Lord Patten, referred—the question of secrecy—is much more likely. In fact, if you prevent this practice, you will increase secrecy of parentage—exactly what you do not want to see. I beg noble Lords to think about that if they decide to press a Division on this Motion, which I hope they will not do. Also, the other problem that we are very concerned about is that we know that when women and families go overseas, they are exploited and not cared for as well as they would be under the regulations which Parliament has so wisely enacted in this country.