[2nd Allocated Day]

My hon. Friend raises a key point. If we were to make prospective parents aware of the possibility of donation, we could address the major deficit in the BME community. I will not take up too much of the House's time, but I hope Members will bear with me as I reiterate some of the important points that drove me to table these amendments. Patients in the UK requiring a bone marrow donor have a one in four chance of survival. Only 50% of those looking for a donor will find one, and of those who do so only 50% will survive. Many of those who find a bone marrow donor do so too late for the treatment to be successful, which contributes to the failure rate. Greater provision of cord blood could help patients get treatment faster and improve the chances of survival. Greater provision of cord blood would give many who currently have no bone marrow donor a potentially life-saving option. The baby's blood that is left behind in the umbilical cord contains many different types of cells, and some of them are stem cells, which have been shown to have a number of medical applications. Over the past 20 years, collected cord blood has been used for transplantation in the same way as bone marrow, so we can square the circle and see the advantages of drawing attention to the benefits of collecting cord blood and requiring the Secretary of State to ensure that this is done consistently and banked accordingly. Researchers believe that cord blood has the potential to treat many more diseases once adult stem cells are properly understood. Trials have shown that cord blood may be helpful in treating brain injuries in children. It has also been developed for other possible treatments, including for testicular cancer, multiple sclerosis and diabetes, and for regenerating damaged heart cells. The potential is exciting, therefore. It is particularly valuable in the treatment of leukaemia. It can be used as an alternative to bone marrow transplantations. Collection of umbilical cord blood is a far less invasive procedure than extracting bone marrow, and the units can be collected, frozen and stored for years, which leads to fewer complications and makes transplants more readily available than for bone marrow. More importantly, it is easier to find matching stem cells from cord blood than from bone marrow. If we can develop a proper infrastructure for the collection and storage of cord blood, that will do much to alleviate the severe shortage of life-saving stem cells.