My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and many other noble Lords for bringing these amendments relating to these important and sensitive issues to the Committee today.
Amendment 265 seeks to prohibit the use of imported bodies or parts of bodies for the purpose of public display without the specific consent of the donor. The Government share the concern motivating Amendment 265 that bodies may in the past have been displayed in public exhibitions without the donors’ consent. We therefore committed in this House, during the passage of the Medicines and Medical Devices Act, to address this concern, and have since worked closely with the Human Tissue Authority to strengthen its code of practice on
public display, which was laid before Parliament last July. The code now guarantees that robust assurances on consent for all donor bodies, including imported bodies, are fully received, assessed and recorded, before the authority issues any licence for public display. The Government therefore do not believe that this amendment is necessary.
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I listened with great attention to the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Alton, my noble friends Lord Ribeiro and Lord Cormack, the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Northover, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, on these grave matters on which they spoke so powerfully. We covered much of that ground in the debate we held on Monday of this week, the details of which have been very clearly noted.
On the specifics of Amendment 282, it is already an offence to arrange or facilitate another person’s travel, including travel outside the UK, for the purposes of their exploitation, which includes the supply of organs for reward in any part of the world. The Human Tissue Act also already prohibits the giving of a reward for the supply of, or for an offer to supply, controlled material in any circumstance where a substantial part of the illicit transaction takes place in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Not only does existing legislation already capture many instances of organ tourism, we are also concerned that this amendment could cause significant unintended consequences as a result of criminalising the recipient of an organ, rather than the supplier and buyer. This amendment creates the risk of vulnerable transplant patients facing the prospect of imprisonment after being misled as to the provenance of their organ.
Finally, we are not convinced that extending existing offences would deter a determined organ tourist. All indications suggest that the scale of organ tourism by UK patients is small. This informs our belief that the best way to tackle it is to continue on the path of improving the rates and outcomes of legitimate organ donations while maintaining the highest standards of care for those in need of an organ. I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on his questions about the convention, but let me add that we are working with key stakeholders to assess what more can be done about this issue and are committed to informing those in need of an organ transplant of the legal, health and ethical impacts of purchasing an organ overseas. As I noted, our belief is that the best approach is to focus on continuing to increase the availability of legitimately donated organs.