I wish to lay before the House a petition on behalf of 2,332 constituents who attend the Portsmouth institute for further education and who wish this Parliament to urge the Government to pray against the imposition of value added tax on certain adult education courses and for the repeal of legislation enabling value added tax to be imposed. They do so conscious of the fact that many of the courses that they are attending are under grave threat from the imposition of value added tax and they wish this House to ensure that the Government alter the regulations pertaining to value added tax on these courses as speedily as possible, because otherwise many of the courses will no longer be available to the people of my constituency and others in this country.

I have the honour to present a petition signed by 2,962 residents of my constituency who are responding to the Government's invitation to the general public to comment on the report of the Warnock committee. They state:

Wherefore Your Petitioners Pray that the House of Commons will take immediate steps to enact legislation which forbids any procedure which involves purchase or sale of human embryos, the discarding of human embryos, their use as sources of transplant tissue or as subjects for research or experiment (unless this is done solely for the benefit of the embryo concerned.)

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray etc.

I beg leave to present a petition in the name of the Rev. Mitchell Williams of The Manse, Eastcote Lane, Northolt, Middlesex, and a substantial number of constituents of Ealing, North which is similar to that presented by the hon. Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Evans). For the convenience of the House, I shall summarise.

The petitioners assert that human life exists from the moment of conception, that man is made in the image of God, that life is therefore totally sacred and not be violated at any stage by law or by any other enactment of this House or anywhere else. I strongly support my constituents in that view.

I shall repeat, because it is so important, the final part of the petition about which the House has already heard from the hon. Member for St. Helens, North:

Wherefore Your Petitioners Pray that the House of Commons will take immediate steps to enact legislation which forbids any procedure which involves purchase or sale of human embryos, the discarding of human embryos, their use as sources of transplant tissue or as subjects for research or experiment (unless this is done solely for the benefit of the embryo concerned.)

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray etc.

I beg leave to present a petition to the House on behalf of 50 of my constituents. It follows the lines of those presented earlier. That being so, I shall merely reiterate the important part of it:

Wherefore Your Petitioners Pray that the House of Commons will take immediate steps to enact legislation which forbids any procedure which involves purchase or sale of human embryos, the discarding of human embryos, their use as sources of transplant tissue or as subjects for research or experiment (unless this is done solely for the benefit of the embryo concerned).

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of Mrs. Chapman, of Avenue gardens, Cliftonville, Mrs Sinclair, of Thanet road, Margate, and 256 of my constituents in Cliftonville, Margate, Westbrook, Garlinge, Westgate on Sea and Birchington.

Not wishing to pre-empt this morning's debate, I simply say that the petition is similar in vein to others already presented. My petitioners

welcome the statement in the report of the committee of inquiry into human fertilisation and embryology (the Warnock report) that 'the status of the embryo is a matter of fundamental principle which should be enshrined in legislation' and its recommendation that the embryo of the human species should be afforded protection in law.

It has my fullest support.

I have pleasure in presenting to the House a petition entitled

"Petition for the protection of the human embryo,"

which has been presented to me by, and which I present to the House on behalf of, a substantial number of residents of the villages of Alderley Edge, Chelford, Capesthorne, Nether Alderley and Over Alderley in the Macclesfield constituency, which I have had the honour to represent in the House for 13 years.

My constituents feel very strongly about the Warnock report. They affirm that the newly fertilised human embryo is a real, individual human being and therefore they oppose all such practices as are recommended in the report which discriminate against the embryo or violate his or her human dignity and right of life.

Wherefore Your Petitioners Pray that the House of Commons will take immediate steps to enact legislation which forbids any procedure which involves the purchase or sale of human embryos, the discarding of human embryos, their use as sources of transplant tissue or as subjects for research or experiment (unless this is done solely for the benefit of the embryo concerned).

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

I beg leave to present two petitions to the House. The first is from 28 residents of my constituency, and reads:

To the honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The humble Petition of UK Residents Sheweth that unwanted pregnancy is a risk to young women's health, wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House do urge the Secretary of State for Social Services that:

Young women's rights to obtain contraceptive advice and information and contraceptive drugs or devices, with or without parental consent, should not be further restricted by changes in DHSS regulations or by law, as this would only result in an increase in unwanted pregnancies.

Facilities for young women and men, whether under or over the age of 16, to obtain contraception and advice on abortion if they need it, in confidence and without fear, should be substantially expanded and publicised in all parts of the country.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray."

The second petition is from 2,000 residents in my constituency and the neighbouring constituency of Islington, North, and I am delighted that the Secretary of State for Social Services is present to hear it.

It reads:

To the honourable the Commons of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, the humble petition of residents of the London borough of Islington sheweth that we protest against this Government's decision to cut the Supplementary Benefit of nearly 2 million pensioners, disabled people and others on long-term benefit by clawing back £1 from their heating additions. We are appalled that the Government has chosen to save money by cutting the benefits of the poorest and most vulnerable members of the community. Wherefore your petitioners pray that your Honourable House do urge the Secretary of State for Social Services to withdraw this contemptible amendment immediately. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I beg leave to present a petition on behalf of the pensioners of the Tyne and Wear and Durham area bearing more than 5,000 signatures.

I, too, am pleased that the Secretary of State for Social Services is here because the petition is protesting that next Monday, 26 November, is uprating day for Britain's pensioners. On that day they will qualify for a meagre increase in their pensions. However, it is one week late. The increase should have been paid this week. The Government have invented a 53-week year and delayed the pension increase, thus robbing pensioners in Great Britain of £35 million. This is the second time in six years that the Government have held up the pension increase. The last time was by two weeks.

It is appropriate that the petition, which is about pensioners, is presented today at the beginning of an important debate on the protection of life at its very inception. I have no doubt that hon. Members will be presenting very strong arguments on the Warnock report.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Cowans) is presenting the petition with me. It reads:

Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House will pass legislation to repay the increase which has been lost to pensioners by the delay of one week.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Before I call the Secretary of State, I should inform the House that because of the number of hon. Members who wish to speak I intend to apply the time limit of 10 minutes between the hours of 11.30 and 1 o'clock. However, I ask those hon. Members who are fortunate enough to be called before 11.30 to bear in mind that many other colleagues are waiting to take part in this very important debate.

I too, will seek to work towards what you have just suggested, Mr. Speaker.

When the world's first test tube baby was born in Oldham in 1978 the event was seen as a significant advance for medical science and represented new hope for many couples who wished to have children. It marked the first time that the public had been made aware of what the technique of in vitro fertilisation, or fertilisation outside the mother's body, had made possible.

Just how rapidly events have proceeded since is demonstrated by the fact that some 600 babies have now been born as a result of this technique, more than 200 of them in Great Britain. Those figures are an indication of the pace of development and the spread of the technique.

Despite the acclaim excited by the birth of Louise Brown, it was apparent from an early stage that this and other developments in the field of infertility raised moral, legal and ethical issues which could not be left to be decided by default by those working in the field. Public debate had not developed to anything like the stage that it has today. But in July 1982, given the critical nature of the issues involved, I decided that it was essential to have the benefit of a wide-ranging inquiry and advice in that area. Therefore, I announced the establishment of an independent inquiry under Dame Mary Warnock. It was almost exactly two years later, in July of this year, that I published the inquiry's report.

I am of course aware of the extremely strong feelings which the issues covered by the report raise, both here and among the public, and I respect them, but I think that we can all agree that Dame Mary Warnock and her committee have done a great service in setting out clearly and cogently the issues to which we should all address our minds.

I published the report as soon as possible after receiving it because it was clear to me that, while the inquiry had reached detailed conclusions and made some 63 specific recommendations, it was essential that we should give the widest opportunity to the public, both individuals and organisations, to express their views on them.

It does not seem to me that this is the traditional kind of consultation exercise that we have known in the past, for it is not just a matter of deciding on each of those 63 individual recommendations. The debate goes much wider and it embraces fundamental moral issues. As the Warnock committee said:

"Barriers, it is generally agreed, must be set up; but there will not be universal agreement about where these barriers should be placed. The question must ultimately be what kind of society can we praise and admire? In what sort of society can we live with our conscience clear?"

That is why it is important for there to be a wider public debate on the report. That is also why the Government were anxious for the House to have this early opportunity to debate the report.

We have already had a substantial number of comments on the report which, as with the debate that took place three weeks ago in another place, have demonstrated the wide differences of view about many of the issues raised and the strength with which those views are held. While obviously I recognise the strength of those feelings, I hope that the House will agree with me that the issues should be debated with tolerance to other views, with some humility and with the aim of reaching as much agreement as possible. I recognise that full agreement will not be obtained, but I believe that the House and the Government would be failing in their duty if they did not aim to provide a satisfactory framework within which we can release the benefits of medical advance while at the same time guarding against abuses that would undermine the special respect that is owed to the family and children and to the creation of human life.

My main purpose this morning will be to listen to the debate. I do not intend to delay the House for long. My intention is to allow hon. Members to express their views. My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health, who will be in overall charge of consultation here, will sum up at the end of the debate. I do not, therefore, propose to set out in detail the whole range of issues addressed by the Warnock report. I should like to dwell briefly on some of the major questions which I expect to be of concern to the House.

Do the Government accept that developments are occurring so quickly that there is a strong need for legislation to be enacted quickly?

I think that the Government would accept that. I would go a little further and say that, whatever happens in terms of legislation, it will be necessary to examine some areas to ascertain the interim arrangements that can be made before the introduction of that legislation.

I shall consider the standpoint from which we have to approach this debate. The impetus for the development of techniques which the Warnock committee considered is twofold. There is the demand from childless couples for help in achieving what they would regard as their right—the right to have children of their own. There is also the capacity of modern medicine and science to delve ever further into the complexities and origins of life. Those pressures have opened up new opportunities but, in considering how to use them, we must take account of other and more fundamental issues—our duty to face up to the moral dilemmas that clearly exist and to ensure, perhaps above all, that the rights of children are satisfactorily protected.

The two main techniques in infertility treatment with which the Warnock committee had to concern itself are artificial insemination and in vitro fertilisation. Artificial insemination has been practised for many years, but its use still gives rise to substantial issues, particularly in relation to the rights of children born after artificial insemination when the semen used is not provided by the mother's husband— artificial insemination by donor, or AID. Perhaps the simplest issue relates to the legitimacy of an AID child. The committee concurred with the view of the English Law Commission which recommended in 1982 that such a child should be treated as the legitimate child of its mother and her husband. That is something about which, I imagine, there is some agreement.

There are other recommendations that flow from that one concerning the legal position of children born following some types of in vitro fertilisation procedure. he issues in those cases may seem more complex, but I think that it is clear that in our decisions we should be guided above all by what is in the best interests of the child.

The second issue arising mainly from artificial insemination which has recently increasingly become a matter of public concern is surrogate motherhood—

Is my right hon. Friend accepting that artificial insemination by donor is legitimate and that that goes without saying? That is not the opinion of everyone.

I am not accepting anything. We will debate this matter. I make it absolutely clear that I am trying to introduce the issues to the House. Clearly the Government will have to come to the House, having heard the debate in the country and in the House, to make their position clear. Nothing that I say now should indicate a preconceived view.

Surely, if the legitimacy of the AID child is accepted, it would mean that the whole of the law on inheritance and responsibility would have to be revised.

That is clearly the case. That issue was dealt with by the English Law Commission.

The second issue arising from artificial insemination which has increasingly become a matter of public concern is surrogate motherhood, where a woman bears a child for a childless couple with the intention that it should be adopted after birth by the couple concerned. The Warnock committee's view on that issue was basically that surrogacy is, in general, undesirable on moral and social grounds and that where any commercial element is involved it is simply unacceptable. That is a view on which I think there will be widespread agreement in the House and outside.

The committee recommended that commercial surrogacy should be illegal. In line with what I have just said to my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison), that is a matter that the Government will have to decide urgently. I remind the House, and especially anyone thinking of entering into such an arrangement, that at present there are provisions under the Adoption Act 1958 which provide criminal sanctions against payment for the transfer of custody of a child with a view to adoption. The Government are therefore considering how far those provisions will apply in relation to commercial surrogacy and what further clarification of the law would be desirable.

For the first time in his speech my right hon. Friend has mentioned adoption. Does he agree that if abortion, which I deplore, were not so available there would be more children to adopt for people who, sadly, cannot have children of their own, and that would be a much more acceptable way of enabling people to have a child? Does my right hon. Friend agree that abortion is wrong as is the killing of a child? Does he agree that those children should be permitted to be adopted by people who cannot have their own children?

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend on the importance of adoption, but the House will have to decide whether the opportunities for adoption preclude anything in terms of infertility and treatment of infertility. After all, that is the matter with which the debate is concerned.

My right hon. Friend appears—I may be doing him an injustice; we shall see—to have come to the question of children who are in this world and to have jumped the stage of the embryo. May I have an assurance that my right hon. Friend will cover that aspect and assure us that the Government regard the embryo as totally sacred from conception, made in the image of God and something to be protected by the law?

It is difficult to cover every issue within the first five minutes of my speech. It is inconceivable that I could make a speech without coming to that issue. If I may, I shall continue with my speech. If I am continually interrupted, I shall still be talking at lunch time.

I think it likely that there will be a large measure of agreement both in the House and outside with the Warnock committee's recommendations on surrogacy, but I am well aware that views on the whole question of in vitro fertilisation are much more divided. That applies not only to the question of research involving human embryos but to the implications of some of the developments in methods of handling embryos whether intended for research or reimplantation.

I have in mind, for example, the whole range of issues raised by the possibility of freezing embryos, and indeed not just the possibility but also the fact that frozen embryos are now being kept and subsequently used for implantation where a previous implantation has been unsuccessful. The potential problems are already beginning to be revealed in other countries. There have been cases involving embryos left in storage following the death of one or other of the parents. Self-evidently such questions will require to be addressed in any arrangements we make to regulate in vitro fertilisation. What we must recognise is that this is a fast-changing field in which the frontiers of what is possible are being moved frequently and in which we cannot necessarily expect to reach conclusions which will hold for all time.

The advance of science in this field has raised the acutest moral dilemmas— so fundamental that they involve judgments about the nature of life itself. It was a passage in the recent report of the Church of England Board for Social Responsibility, under the chairmanship of the Bishop of Birmingham—I hope Ministers may still quote the words of bishops— that set out particularly clearly the complex and fundamental nature of the moral issues that scientific advance has raised. That report asked:

"Should the traditional Christian heritage be modified in the light of modern knowledge concerning the progressive stages through which the embryo develops into an individual foetus? On the one hand there are those among us who believe that there is doubt about the significance of the progressive stages through which the embryo develops into an individual foetus, and (on the principle that the safer view should prevail) they hold that full protection should be afforded an embryo from the beginning. The majority of us however believe that modern embryology enables us to make a judgment of value and believe that (on the view that the more probably view should prevail) until the embryo has reached the first 14 days of its existence, it is not yet entitled to the same respect and protection as an embryo implanted in the human womb and in which individuation has begun."

That is the decision that the House and the Government must come to. It was not possible for the whole board to unite behind a single conclusion. Certainly I recognise that there would be stongly differing views on that conclusion in the House, but I believe that each of us must be prepared—as the Church of England board was prepared— to acknowledge and to take into account the full range of moral, as well as scientific, arguments that are involved in deciding the legitimacy of research. In other words, the issue cannot just be one of research; there is most clearly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) said, a moral issue which must be decided and which goes to the centre of the debate.

It is important to have on record the fact that many members of the Church of England think that the bishops would be far better sticking to the virgin birth than to the test tube birth.

That confirms my view that I should never have quoted the bishops, but I take my hon. Friend's point.

Some of us may find the somewhat squeamish attitude adopted by some of the churches extraordinary in the light of the fact that parthenogenosis— virgin birth— has had such benign results as to give us Jesus Christ. I should have thought that there would be some hesitation, when Christian doctrine is founded on that belief, before there was sweeping condemnation from some quarters about the whole idea of in vitro fertilisation.

I am not sure that that was the point that was being put. May I leave that issue to the debate?

On the issue of research, the pace of development in research is likely to be rapid in other countries even if it were not permitted here. That is also something that must be taken into account. Indeed, before the first test tube baby was born, a substantial amount of research on human embryos had already taken place. It was necessary first to develop the fertilisation techniques and then to study the implantation process to reduce the risk of subsequent miscarriage. Research is being conducted in other areas. I have in mind two types of abnormality— there is Down's syndrome and congenital abnormalities such as haemophilia and muscular dystrophy—where research is taking place.

There is no certainty that such research will be successful, and that also must be put in the balance. I mention—let me emphasise this—such considerations, not to imply that I or the Government have a fixed view about research, or that I regard the utilitarian case for research as outweighing the case that is clearly to be put against it but to remind the House that desirable outcomes from research are possible. That also is something which must be held in the balance.

The Warnock committee devoted a substantial part of its report to consideration of the ethical and moral arguments about research on human embryos. Not all members of the committee were able to agree on all points and clearly the Government will need to consider carefully all the comments they receive. The committee's uncertainty was perhaps enhanced by the fact that the backcloth against which it was attempting to reach a view was constantly changing. The pace of development is such that during the course of its inquiry some novel concepts were brought forward in terms of treatment and research on which the committee had to form a view.

That saw its task as being to establish limits to what would be permitted, but it recognised that in a changing world new issues would arise which would require existing limits and understandings to be changed to meet them. It therefore recommended that a new statutory body should be established to regulate the provision of infertility services, research and all other aspects of this matter. There is a practical point here, and I return to the first point raised with me in an intervention. Even if at the end of the consultation we decided to create such a body there would clearly be a delay before the necessary legislation could bring it into effect, but the infertility services exist now and are expanding rapidly now. Research work is also taking place. Research and clinical activities are subject to some controls in the form of guidlines issued by the Medical Research Council in 1982 and by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the British Medical Association last year. It is to the credit of those organisations that they took the initiative in establishing such guidelines. But those are purely professional and scientific bodies. I believe the Warnock committee was quite correct— I believe the view is echoed outside— in saying that there should be a substantial lay involvement in the supervision of work in this field. That is not the case at present. I shall therefore want to consider carefully— I say this directly to my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes (Mr. Benyon)— not only whether a statutory body should be established but how we can introduce more broadly based supervision arrangements in the short term. Developments in this field are moving too fast for us not to be ready to move with them.

Today's debate provides the House with an opportunity to discuss a matter which has been of growing public concern in recent years.

Will the Minister give way?

I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not give way. I shall listen very carefully to what is said in the debate and the Governent will consider not only today's debate but all the comments that they receive in response to the Warnock report before announcing their conclusions.

The debate which is taking place in Britain is paralleled by similar debates in other countries. In approaching that debate, I believe that we start with the advantage of the analysis that the Warnock committee has provided. Not only has the committee pointed out the difficulties; it has pointed to our duties. That is a fundamental point. The techniques which gave rise to the Warnock report, and the many difficult moral issues involved, cannot be wished away. The problems will not simply disappear. The responsibility rests with us in this House and with the Government.

rose—

The responsibility of this House. and of society as a whole, is to find some ground for agreement on the legal framework that will be necessary to control developments in this area in the future.

I have always had a rather special interest in human fertilisation and embryology because the world's first test tube baby was born in my constituency in Oldham several years ago through the pioneering work of Dr. Steptoe. As a result of all the scientific advances that that event set in train, there is another much more important reason why this must surely be a unique debate in this House.

We are the first generation in the history of the human race to be faced with such ultimate questions as, "What is the nature and status of the human being?" and "Is there an absolute right to parenthood, whatever the cost?", when the answers to such questions are not merely theological or philosophical dissertations but will be reflected in scientific reality. Moreover, whatever answers or guidelines we may adopt now, I agree with the Secretary of State that we shall probably have to accept that changes in knowledge, techniques and cultural attitudes may well mean that medical codes of practice and legal sanctions will require constant review.

It is a subject that is fraught with fantasies of futuristic horror. Lurid associations with "Brave New World" embryology, Nazi medicine or Frankenstein experimentation, make debate between irreconcilable moral positions very difficult. It is to the credit of the Warnock committee that in this religious, philosophical, legal and ethical minefield its approach has been to accept the fundamental social and moral need for limits to be drawn, on the ground, stated in the foreword, that

"A society which had no inhibiting limits, especially in the areas with which we have been concerned, questions of birth and death, of the setting up of families, and the valuing of human life, would be a society without moral scruples. And this nobody wants."

The committee goes on to say, in paragraph 7 of the foreword:

"We realise that some people may think that we have set the limits, or have suggested that the barriers be erected, in the wrong places. But at least we hope that we have stated clearly what we think should be done, and exposed, as far as possible, the reasoning that lay behind our recommendations."

I believe that that is the right approach.

I should like to make it clear at the outset that, although I speak from the Opposition. Front Bench, the views I express are my own personal 'views. These are not matters of party political contention; they are ultimate issues that in the end can be determined only by individual conscience. On that basis, it seems to me that there is not only an elegance and lucidity in the logical presentation of the report—no doubt befitting the Oxford philosopher who chaired it—but a certain coolness and rationality which, perhaps for the same reason, is sometimes slightly detached from the uncomfortable social world that 'we actually inhabit, where unequal relations of power between the classes, genders and races threaten to make an untidy mockery, in some respects, of some of its abstractions.

The most contentious issues in the report are research on live embryos, and surrogate motherhood. On the former, the committee was clearly divided, as is revealed by the two expressions of dissent, B and C, on the issue, signed between them by seven of the 16 members of the committee. The majority recommended that experimentation be limited to 14 days after fertilisation, while a minority recommended a complete ban.

The question of when protection should be extended to the embryo— I repeat this most firmly— is at root a religious and moral decision, involving consideration of when life begins, what exactly constitutes life, whether life is defined by physical or spiritual concepts and, indeed, what protection itself actually means.

For those—I am sure that there will be many in this House—who believe that life begins at fertilisation and that full protection should be afforded from that point, the issue is clear. However, I have to point out that others take the view that the mere existence of the fertilised egg does not entail that it has the necessary and sufficient conditions for development to humanness, since it will need, for example, a sympathetic womb. On this view, the capacity to grow, achieved through nidation, marks the beginning of human life.

Others would postpone the beginning of life to the first growth of cerebral cells, at about 40 days. Others, again, highlight quickening— the point at which the mother begins to relate to the foetus as her baby—as the point at which they believe it acquires its absolute right to existence as a human person. All those latter opinions subscribe to the long established moral tradition that, sacred and precious though human life is from the beginning—whenever that exactly is—the protection afforded to it grows with the embryo's growth towards maturity.

However, even if the view is accepted that some time-limited experimentation on the human embryo should be allowed, there is inevitably a discrepancy of opinion about where that limit should lie. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology recommends 18 days after fertilisation, as that marks the beginning of the development of the brain and nerve cells. The Medical Research Council similarly proposes two to three weeks. Others recommend 30 days as the point at which the forebrain and eye develop, which herald the possibility of feeling.

The Council for Science in Society, in its important report entitled "Human Procreation", published in May this year, proposed six weeks, on the ground that the foetus could feel pain only when the complex nervous system was established.

It is clear from those different views that the issue is a moral one, that cannot, in the last analysis, be resolved by rational argument alone. The Warnock committee's case for the 14-day limit is that individuation is not complete until about 14 days. It appears that up to that point the embryo could split and form twins. On that view, the affording of full protection to the embryo flows from the point where, in a meaningful way, it has achieved status as an individual. Individuation is a significant factor in the delineation.

For those reasons, it seems reasonable that, subject to some such time limit—and as long as respect for human life is demonstrated by not allowing research except for the purposes of alleviating infertility or genetic disorder—research for those purposes should be accepted. I appreciate—it has already been made clear in the debate —that there are those who, from religious, philosophical or moral conviction, take the a priori position that all research on the human embryo is wrong and should be banned. I readily acknowledge the depth of their convictions and the strength of their feelings. However, for those of us who are not imbued with such inner certainty about those ultimate questions, the benefits of controlled research, closely monitored and regulated by a licensing body of the sort recommended by the Warnock committee, seem to be compelling.

First, and most importantly, the techniques have a great potential for remedying infertility. It is estimated that one in eight couples in Britain is infertile, which represents about 1 million people. That is an extremely large number. Infertility strikes at the essence of what is culturally defined as femaleness, and reproduction has been interpreted as the biological difference between men and women. Whether or not it is desirable, women are reared in a society which, in word and deed, implies that a woman is someone who has a baby.

I accept that it is important to try to help infertile women to have babies. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, sadly, enough material exists in the form of stillborn babies or involuntary abortions?

I do not believe that that is so. That source should be fully utilised, but further valuable and important advances could be made through research that goes beyond what the hon. Lady has referred to. For the reasons that I have given, I believe that to be justified.

Research that holds the prospect of reducing this blight on so many lives must be welcomed. Moreover, such work can reduce the incidence of miscarriage. At present, about 20 per cent. of natural pregnancies abort. Research in Edinburgh suggests that chromosomal irregularities are associated with the causes of miscarriage. But the potential for research goes much wider. Information could emerge on how a range of birth defects arises or on how cancer cells become malignant. It may also help to remedy genetic disease, which affects one in 50 children. One such disease— thalassemia— can now be identified in the foetus as a result of early work on embryonic tissue. Many treatments that we take for granted today derived partly from such work. The conquest of polio was partly achieved as a result of work on the aborted foetus.

For the future—it may be a distant future, but it is foreseeable—it could be possible to use cells, which divide to form specific organs in the embryo, to correct blood disorders or repair damaged tissue in the pancreas or even the heart, the brain or the liver of an adult.

However, I must express doubt as to whether it is wise to enshrine in statute a precise time limit for experimentation, whether 14 days or any other limit, for fear that it might be too rigid. There is as yet little consensus about when the cut-off point should be, and as we know well in the House, legislation could be notoriously difficult to alter if the general climate of opinion later was that the 14-day limit was too early or too late. Criminalisation of experimentation after what appears to be a relatively arbitrary date would seem inappropriate when, as the Secretary of State said, the matter involves rapid scientific change and calls for regular reappraisal. That was poignantly illustrated by the remark attributed to Mrs. Jean Walker, a member of the Warnock committee, who said:

"Frozen embryos did not exist when we started the inquiry, but by the time we finished, the first baby had been born."

Some flexibility is needed and can be built into the system without compromising control, which I would not wish to do.

Such a balance could be achieved by a licensing authority such as that recommended by the Warnock committee, with a lay chairperson and lay representation taking account of occupation, age, sex and differing religious, ethical and cultural views. It should be equipped with statutory powers to maintain the research and therapy within strict and enforceable boundaries of control. It should be required to publish an annual report setting out in detail current developments in the area, the guidelines being operated for approval and rejection of projects, and perhaps an assessment of research into the needs of families brought into being by the use of this technology, especially the needs of children born through AID or in vitro fertilisation.

The other central issue of the report is Warnock's proposal to outlaw surrogate motherhood. The committee's objections were based on the belief that bearing a child should be a personal and intimate relationship between mother and child, and that to embark upon a pregnancy without that commitment is somehow unnatural. Another objection is based on the breaking of the traditional sexual and parenting relationship that can be fulfilled only in marriage. There is also a question about deception as to the parentage of the child, and the objection that the surrogate might become corrupted by the money to be made from the activity.

The idea of surrogacy has been soured and abused by commercial exploitation, which is already widespread in the United States. The attempt of an American woman earlier this year to set up a scheme in London charging childless couples £16,000 to provide them with a baby, and offering a fee of £6,500 to the surrogate mother, caused widespread revulsion, I believe rightly so. Moreover, reports from the United States demonstrate the practical problems of breakdown where a handicapped baby is born or where the mother defaults. In several cases the biological mother has refused to honour the contract and hand over a perfect baby, while damaged babies have been rejected by both parties to the scheme.

The present legal position in Britain is that although surrogate motherhood is not illegal—it is difficult to see how it could be enforced—no contract between a couple and a surrogate mother has any legal validity. The Warnock report wishes to criminalise the commercialisation of the practice through surrogate motherhood clinics and to make liable at law professionals who assist the establishment of a surrogate pregnancy. Certainly, surrogacy and womb leasing make reproduction as marketable for women as sexuality has always been historically. Warnock's proposals to criminalise the procuring aspects of surrogacy, as opposed to surrogacy itself, has parallels with the present law of soliciting that are not happy ones.

The Council for Science in Society report "Human Proceation" to which I have referred, took the view that surrogate motherhood might be justifiable when the intending mother is physically unable to carry a baby herself. In those circumstances, it recommends that it should be arranged through a non-profit-making adoption agency. My view— I stress again that this is my personal view—is that with the possible exception of that very limited circumstance, Warnock's wish to ban surrogacy for profit is probably right and should be upheld.

This debate has been held in the course, and therefore before the completion, of the consultation period, for the reasons that the Secretary of State set out. It is my firm belief that there needs to be a good deal further public debate.

My hon. Friend has made a thoughtful speech, during which he said several times that it is a personal statement, and I appreciate that. However, given the large number of representations that hon. Members have received— I have certainly received many from my constituents—opposed to the major recommendations of the report, will my hon. Friend make it clear that when the House of Commons votes on these issues, this matter, as it traditionally would be, will be conducted on the basis of a conscience vote, and that therefore there will be a free vote?

I fully recognise the strength of feeling behind my hon. Friend's view. As my hon. Friend will know, a decision on that has not yet been taken—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I would be surprised if my view did not have universal acceptance throughout the House.

How can the hon. Gentleman say that such a decision has not been taken, when the real decision is the decision for every Member of Parliament individually as to how he votes on this issue?

The hon. Gentleman is making an obvious point. I was merely saying that the matter has not been discussed, but I cannot believe that there could be any other conclusion than that there should be a free vote according to the individual consciences of every hon. Member. That follows from everything that I have said, and I cannot believe that anyone could take a different view.

There should be further public debate on this, and am sure that there will be. For those reasons, I take the view, which is slightly different from that taken earlier, that there should be no hasty or precipitate legislation. However, it seems to me—again this is my view—that there is a need for action by Government in the fairly near future on certain limited points. I would define those as the outlawing of surrogacy, the banning of the sale of semen, the securing that babies born through AID are accepted as legitimate and the establishment of the licensing authority to exercise control through the setting and enforcing of standards for agencies in both therapy and research. Perhaps also, the Government should provide resources to ensure that professional counselling in this sector can play its proper and potential role. The latter is very important.

Such a package of measures, while wholly respecting the ultimacy of human rights, would offer a properly enforceable framework, in which, above all, there would be assistance to remedy infertility, so that many more childless families would be enabled to experience the richness of parenthood and a full human life. If the Warnock report helps to achieve that alone, it will have been well worth it.

rose—

I remind the House that, even if speeches are limited to 10 minutes, the number of hon. Members anxious to catch my eye is such that not all will be able to speak.

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services that the Warnock committee has performed a valuable service. Its report has brought to the attention of Parliament and the people activities now taking place under the cloak of helping to overcome the disturbing and distressing problem of infertility, and not a moment too soon. The report reveals developments in embryology that are already under way that will have dire legal, social, ethical and eugenic consequencs for our nation and perhaps for all mankind.

Astonishingly, the committee performed its task without first considering the very question on which all else depends—the nature of the human embryo. It did so without any guiding moral principles. It has failed to recognise the human embryo as worthy of protection in all its stages of development. On the contrary, the embryos may be bought, experimented upon, sold, mutilated, frozen for up to 10 years, or simply killed when they are no longer of any use.

The Warnock report fails to defend marriage as the only proper framework within which children should be conceived and brought up. It views children as a product that can be born to unknown fathers, or even to fathers who have been dead for many years. One looks in vain for any reference to love or, more importantly, to the needs of children, who are our lifeline to the future.

True, the report makes proposals for curbing the worst excesses; for example, there are to be licensing arrangements. True, there is a welcome recommendation in regard to the commercial exploitation of surrogacy. True, it is recommended that experimentation on the human embryo should cease on the 14th day; and there is even an expression of dissent from three members of the committee on the use of human embryos in research. However, the general effect—I must speak as I feel—is repellent. Like the other place, I hope that the House will leave the Government in no doubt that that is its view.

I have been privileged to be a Member for almost 35 years, and never in all that time have I approached any subject with a greater sense of fear than this. As Lord Denning said in the other place:

"there is at the moment no law and no restriction whatever. Medical scientists and medical men can do as they like…without any control. These are dangers to our society."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 31 October 1984; Vol. 456, c. 541.]

On this the Warnock report offers us no comfort. It considers that the human embryo should have some status in law, but this is to be waived in certain specific circumstances. It argues that unless such a waiver is made, research for what it calls "beneficial purposes" will be frustrated. It used to be said that necessity is the tyrant's plea for every infringement of liberty. Necessity for research is a plea for snuffing out the life of human beings and is something that we should reject.

In the past, common law has protected the child who has quickened in the womb, and that was generally thought to be somewhere about the third or fourth month. We know now, as a result of genetic research, that that is not so, and that the human embryo from conception is growing and developing all the time.

Does my hon. Friend agree that this goes to the heart of the matter? If we accept that life begins at conception, as many religions through the ages have told us and as modern genetic science tells us, is it not arrogant to put ourselves in the position of God and be prepared to experiment or traffic in life?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and has put his finger on the crucial point. Practising Christians and Jews will recall the message that the Lord God delivered to the prophet Jeremiah:

"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou cameth forth out of the womb I sanctified thee".

But if we are to speak solely in scientific terms, that can be put another way. We now know from genetic science that all the characteristics of the human person are found in the embryo from the moment of conception, so what right has anyone, however brilliant, to tamper with human life—

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I am under an injunction to be brief, although, with respect, Mr. Speaker said that the time limitation would operate only from 11.30 am. I do not wish to delay the House unduly.

Lord Denning asked the key question about the human embryo in the other place, and his words need to be repeated:

"Is it a thing? God forbid! It is not a thing…I would suggest that the only logical point at which the law could start is that the child, the human being, starts at the moment of conception and fertilisation. From that point onwards there is a gradual development in its environment. So I would hold—and I would hope the judges would hold— that from that moment there is a living, human being which is entitled to protection just as much as the law protects a child. If it does protect it in this way, it cannot be sold or bought, it cannot be destroyed, it cannot be experimented upon for research or the like."— [Official Report, House of Lords; 31 October 1984, Vol. 456, c. 542.]

Six medical practitioners were members of the Warnock committee, in addition to the director of the Medical Research Council mammalian development unit. Yet, despite those seven experts, the report does not anywhere bother to tell us how it would define a human being. It tells us instead that the point at which a human embryo becomes a human being is purely a matter of arbitrary decision. But it cannot be a matter of arbitrary decision for hon. Members, who will have to provide protection at law.

Warnock comes up with a compromise that is based on no principle whatever, and says that experiments on the human embryo should be permitted up to 14 days but not beyond then.

How can any civilised society accept that on the 13th day the embryo does not count, it is just a piece of jelly; but that at one minute past midnight on the 14th day it suddenly becomes a human person who is entitled to the full protection of the law? Let the House reflect for a moment on the suggestion by Warnock that there might be all manner of magic cures for human beings if such experimentation is allowed. It says, for example, that there is no substitute for the use of human embryos in research into diseases such as Down's syndrome. But that is simply not true. The world's greatest expert on that disorder, Professor Jerome Lejeune, submitted evidence to the Warnock committee. In the normal way, one would have thought that his evidence would have been noted. After all, it was Professor Lejeune who first established that Down's syndrome was due to an error in the chromosomes. Thus, he became the first scientist in the world to identify chromosomal disease. Since then, he has identified at least 20 more such diseases, and is generally recognised as one of the foremost geneticists in the world. Professor Lejeune's evidence made it clear that successful research is being carried out into possible cures for such disorders in centres all over the world, but without the use of human embryos.

Even if Professor Lejeune were wrong and the only way of carrying out research was by experimenting on embryos, does my hon. Friend agree that if the destruction of human life is wrong, the fact that a benefit might flow from it cannot justify it?

Of course, that is the central moral point. That is why the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) was right to demand some sort of assurance from the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). Although the hon. Member for Oldham, West seemed to be speaking for himself, he was speaking from the Opposition Front Bench. If he wanted to speak solely for himself, he should have done so from the Back Benches. But the hon. Member for Monklands, West had the moral courage to stand up and ask for freedom to vote in accordance with his conscience.

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) behaved quite properly, and I was very proud of the speech that he made. I accepted the general tone of his remarks in the way that he intended the House to receive them.

The hon. Member for Monklands, West is having to wrestle with his conscience and will have to make his own decision at some point, just like the rest of us.

Nonsense. There is no conscience problem.

There is for the rest of us.

The plain fact is that Lejeune's evidence was ignored because it did not fit in with the committee's preconceived ideas. It would surely have upset the apple cart to have to admit that there are far more efficient ways of finding cures than by the use of embryos. But the deception went further. There had to be members of the committee who would recognise that it was arrant nonsense to suggest that research on embryos up to 14 days would produce significant results. I shall explain why.

I am advised that the chances of accidentally producing an embryo with a genetic disease are very slight. That means that scientists would have to begin by deliberately trying to induce disease in the embryo. Having created an embryo with chromosomal abnormalities, they would then have to set to work to find a cure, which would involve waiting a considerable period of time, and far longer than 14 days. So, having taken the trouble to produce a diseased embryo or having poisoned one with drugs—which is another of Warnock's recommendations— is it really logical to stipulate any specific time at which its life should be terminated? Indeed, it is not.

Dame Mary Warnock herself seemed to recognise that when, in a BBC television broadcast on 18 July, she told millions of viewers:

"Of course, the 14-day rule may be changed."

The hon. Member for Oldham, West gratuitously implied that there are many learned bodies in this country that want it to be changed. In their view a 14-day limit is nonsense. I have little doubt that unless Parliament acts promptly, the rule will be changed. Indeed, it is highly probable that experimentation of an improper kind is already taking place.

Let us consider the framework within which such laboratory work is being done. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State knows that research is now being carried out within the guidelines 'Aid down in 1982 by the MRC. There are six guidelines, but I shall quote just one, which states:

"Studies on interspecies fertilisation are valuable in providing information on the penetration capacity and chromosome complement of sperm from subfertile males, and should be supported."

That is where research is already leading us. The Warnock committee was plainly worried about that, and in paragraph 12.2 the report states:

"Both the hamster tests and the possibility of other transspecies fertilisations, carried out either diagnostically or as part of a research project, have caused public concern about the prospect of developing hybrid half-human creatures."

A little later, the report slates that another cause for concern is

"the suggestion that a human embryo might be transferred to the uterus of another species for gestation. While the available animal work does not suggest that it is at all likely that human embryos could be nurtured in the uterus of another species, the possibility that such an experiment might be attempted must be recognised."

The report at least suggests that the latter possibility should be made a criminal offence. Good, but it is nevertheless clear that the report is happy about the existing MRC guidelines. It is prepared to recommend that the human embryo should be used up to 14 days on the strict conditions that the researchers abide by a new commandment— "On the 14th day, thou shalt kill." That is what the report recommends. That is what, according to Warnock, should be the law of the land.

It has long been accepted that war is far too serious a matter for generals. It is manifest that medical research Of this nature cannot safely be left to medical scientists. It is supremely important that legislation on this aspect alone— never mind anything else— should be introduced without delay. The use of the embryo for experimentation is an affront to humanity, and there is no room whatever for compromise on the matter.

There is a further consideration which should be at the forefront of our minds. Parliament does not always speak with one voice, but, at least m the present century, it has had a keen interest in protecting children from exploitation, cruelty and neglect. Nowhere does Warnock pay any regard to the needs of children produced by the new techniques. It concerns itself solely with the need of individuals—not necessarily married couples—to have a child. Even Warnock admits that we do not know what is likely to be the long-term effect on the child of the freezing of the embryo. The truth is that we do not even know what the short-term effects of freezing may be. Medical scientists are not infallible. They make mistakes, like the rest of us. Some years ago, women threatened with miscarriage were given oestrogen. Not until the children of those pregnancies reached puberty was it discovered that the oestrogen given to the mothers had, in some of the children, caused cancer of the vagina. My right hon. Friend knows perfectly well how many other such disastrous instances could be quoted. Nowhere in the report are those problems investigated. Nowhere does the report discuss what legal recourse the children would have if—God forbid—they found themselves faced with a tragic disability as a result of being frozen at the start of their lives—I repeat, "at the start of their lives".

We need to ask a simple question: if it is discovered that in vitro fertilisation causes damage which is detected later in life, who will be held responsible in law? Will it be the parents, one of whom may have been dead for many years? Will it be the donor, the doctors, or perhaps the storage authority? I hope that my right hon. Friend will share with us his thoughts on that horrendous question. Meanwhile, I share my thoughts with him. It is time to call a halt to this wickedness and to outlaw, for good, experiments on the human embryo.

I listened somewhat wryly to the opening comments of the Secretary of State about expedition and delay. It is now six and a half years since, with the hon. Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine), and on the day following the birth of the Oldham baby, I initiated a debate in Committee considering the genetic manipulation regulations in which I put forward a demand for a committee such as the Warnock committee. That was not all. I repeatedly asked for such a committee in questions to the Prime Minister, but it was not until March 1982, when I demanded in an Adjournment debate that such a committee should be set up, that any move was made.

I do not complain of delay on the part of the present Government. The delay was the responsibility of successive Governments. I do not complain of the delay on the part of the Warnock committee, which, in my view, has acted heroically and with extraordinary expedition in wrestling with complex problems.

I do not comment on the delay in order to show my own prescience but because I believe that there is now a need for expedition in precisely the areas specified by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). I believe that this is an area where decisions could be taken by the House, and that there is a further decision that should be taken. We should immediately set up the proposed central committee to ensure that the opportunity to have in vitro babies is not confined to patients in private clinics in the west end of London but exists throughout the National Health Service. I am profoundly concerned that womenfolk of Wales should have the same rights and opportunities to have a baby as do wealthier women who can make use of the facilities in private clinics.

In my view, the generosity of spirit of the hon. Member for Castle Point has been exploited by the familiar antiabortion lobbies, which, whatever their value may be, have been unable to distinguish between the problems of abortion and those of in vitro fertilisation. The bad example set by the hon. Member for Castle Point and, in my view, by the House of Lords should not be followed. The debate should not be a wake. It should not be full of forebodings and woe. It should be a celebration. We should never forget the agony endured by the many women who are infertile. One married couple in 10 do not have children after many years, and most of that infertility is involuntary. That gives some idea of the scale of the problem.

I have my prejudices. I am prejudiced in favour of the family. I want to ensure that all who wish to enjoy an anchored and stable family life should be able to make use of the opportunities which science now affords. If one starts with that prejudice, one takes a very different view from that of the hon. Member for Castle Point.

The hon. Member for Castle Point has referred to the Bible. I remember the story of Abraham and Sarah. Sarah suggested to Abraham that Hagar should give him a son he lacked because Sarah was barren. The good Lord told Abraham that he would have a child by Sarah. The Bible records that Abraham laughed, and fell upon the ground with laughter. Perhaps that was not surprising. Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90. However, a great miracle came about. The agony of Sarah, we should remember, is the agony that is suffered by all those in our community who are childless. If the myth is true, and if the good Lord had not been bountiful towards Abraham and Sarah, perhaps I would not have been here.

It was not only Abraham who laughed and mocked when he was told that a miracle could happen. People in this country laughed and mocked at Bob Edwards and Mr. Steptoe and all those engaged in the work. I am not thinking only of the churches. The Medical Research Council attempted to sabotage the work of those clinicians. The MRC insisted— and the Government were foolish enough to listen to it—that no funds should be given for the research that needed to take place. The secretary of the British Medical Association wanted to place a moratorium on the work of Professor Craft and others. If we had listened to such authorities, hundreds of children would not have been born to those who yearn to enjoy the greatest boon and blessing that anyone can be granted—the blessing of parenthood.

Unhappily, infertility seems to be increasing. That may be the consequence of too easy access to abortion facilities, of the coil or of the pill. It is certainly a consequence of the change in sexual conventions. Such factors lead to infections of the fallopian tubes and to other conditions. This is certainly not a time when the House should stand back and say that under no circumstances should we permit research which will make a greater degree of success available to all who long for the blessings of parenthood.

By what moral right does the hon. Member for Castle Point or anyone else say that we should stop research when thousands, perhaps millions of our womenfolk cannot have children? People must think the issue through more and not, in a spirit of moral censoriousness, believe that they should take a superior stance over those of us who most definitely take a contrary view.

With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a short statement about the business for next week.

The business on the Opposition's fourth allotted day on Tuesday, 27 November will now be as follows: until about 7 o'clock a debate on an Opposition motion on the failure of Government policies to safeguard the natural environment and the national heritage of Britain, followed by a debate on an Opposition motion on the crisis in the shipbuilding industry.

I thank the Leader of the House for his statement. Is he aware that since the negotiations earlier in the week we have had the appalling announcement about further closures and redundancies in the shipbuilding industry? It seemed right that we should give immediate attention and consideration to that grave matter. My great worry about the pace of redundancies throughout the country is that we shall constantly have to demand from the Government time for debate on that urgent matter which affects so many of our fellow citizens.

This is the second time in two weeks that a change of business has been announced in a Friday statement. Will the Leader of the House recommend to right hon. and hon. Members that if they wish to know the business for the following week they should attend on Friday mornings instead of Thursday afternoons?

Under this Government one cannot detail the business for the following week because there are so many redundancies. Only this morning I received a telephone call telling me that a Jarrow steel rolling mill was to be closed causing another 246 redundancies.

The unemployment rate in the area is far too high. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will see the Prime Minister and ask her to meet a deputation from south Tyneside council to talk about the dereliction and the deindustrialisation of south Tyneside. Unemployment is too high in Jarrow and south Tyneside. The people of Jarrow—

Order. The hon. Member will be able to raise the subject on Tuesday if he catches my eye.

Unemployment is too high—

Order.

I thank the Leader of the House for agreeing to a change of business on Tuesday because in the north-east we are desperately concerned about the effects of cuts in the shipbuilding industry. We are worried not only about the yards themselves, but about companies in my constituency which supply the yards.

Will the Leader of the House take on board what my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) has just said and see whether he can ensure that the appropriate Minister is present to answer detailed questions which hon. Members representing north-east and north-west constituencies will want to ask about the redundancies?

Is there not a relationship between the debate on Tuesday and the statement which might be made next week about the future of regional assistance? Would it not be appropriate if hon. Members had that information at their disposal at the time of the shipbuilding industry debate because on Wednesday hon. Members may discover too late that some areas are to lose regional assistance?

A number of points of substance will be featured on Tuesday. In that debate I shall examine what the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has said.

May I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) it gives me no pleasure to make on a Friday a statement adjusting business because it causes inconvenience to the House generally, and inconvenience to me in particular.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The information that we have received this morning is very serious. The Minister should have made a statement this morning about the redundancies. It is not good the Leader of the House making excuses. When he was in the Chamber yesterday he was gibbering away to his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that a point of order must be made to me, not to the Minister.

We turn to calmer waters.

I was drawing the attention of the House to the continued need for research. Certain stances are adopted. I should have thought that those with Christian beliefs would realise the historical need for great caution. I responded, in an intervention earlier. I did not do so frivolously, although I thought the intervention inept, and drew attention to the phenomenon of parthenogenesis as expressed through virgin birth which led to the benign consequence, according to Christian myth, of giving Christ to the world. I suggested that perhaps the churches should bear that in mind. I go further. When we talk about the attitude of religion to research we should bear in mind how the Pope originally acted towards Galileo when he condemned him for his insistence upon scientific truth.

The hon. Gentleman refers to Galileo, but in that instance it did not matter whether he was right. Indulging in the act of creation matters very much indeed.

I do not understand that. If it did not matter the Pope would not have been in such a pother. I think that scientific truth matters in all circumstances, as all truth does. From Galileo's time to the time when Catholic Vienna thwarted Sigmund Freud in his attempt to publish and would not even grant him a professorship is long enough a period to make the Catholic and other churches recall and so be wary when they make an assault upon the advances of science.

There are many reasons for more research. The success rate of in vitro pregnancies should not be exaggerated. The expectations of those who want children should not be raised unnecessarily. Even in the replacement of single embryos the success rate is only between 10 per cent. and 15 per cent.

Who has the moral right to say that research which can be done only on a conceptus outside the uterus should not be encouraged? Who has the right to say that we should not encourage those who want to increase the incidence of success and so prevent the agonising of every woman who wants a child but cannot have one? Who wants that woe to continue if research would enable those women to have a child? I do not understand how women Members can condemn women who seek in vitro fertilisation and prevent them from taking advantage of research.

I am surprised that the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) should confuse the wish to have a child with the moral right to have a child. I have borne a child. I did not have a right to have my daughter; I wished to have her. The confusion must be dispelled.

The intellectual confusion is in the mind of the hon. Lady. It is because it is such a fundamental right that it is set out in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. It is there stated that everyone has a right to parenthood. To suggest that it is a mere caprice for a woman to have the benefit of bearing a child is to devalue womanhood and parenthood. I do not go along with the view presented by the hon. Lady.

rose—

There are many other reasons why research is necessary, apart from increasing the incidence of success. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West mentioned in passing, there is need for more research to be undertaken on miscarriages. I understand that 60 per cent. of conceptions result in miscarriage. Fortunately, most miscarriages occur at an early stage. There can, however, be few who do not know how miscarriages can impinge upon families when they take place at a late stage.

Women outside this place are only beginning to be aware of the issues. I hope that they will take up the cause of all those who are undertaking dedicated research into miscarriages. If that requires work upon the conceptus—it is evident from the research that is taking place in Edinburgh that it does—I hope that women will insist that it takes place. Let us allow the work of scientists to go ahead to reduce the risk of miscarriages taking place at a late stage following a long period of expectancy on the part of the woman. Whatever judgments are made, I hope that moral superiority values will not be claimed by those opposed to this work. It is important that research continues to quench the miscarriages that are taking place. The research opportunities are happily becoming increasingly available.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When Mr. Speaker was in the Chair earlier this morning, he said that the 10-minute rule for speeches would begin at 11.30. Will you consider protecting the interests of all Back Benchers, Mr. Deputy Speaker? It seems that there will be only two or three speeches before 11.30. If you were to decide to introduce the 10-minute rule now, it would assist us.

I have no power to alter the decisions of the House.

Judging by the mood of Conservative Members, it is time for an opinion different from theirs to be expressed. I believe that that opinion will be shared by millions outside this place when they become aware of the issues that are involved.

The Welsh Office has initiated an investigation into the high incidence of congenital disabilities in my constituency. There is a dismal record of congenital disabilities throughout the Principality. There is no region in Britain that suffers, for example, more from spina bifida than the Principality. In Gwynedd the figures are horrifying. However, there are those in this place who apparently believe that on moral grounds they can condemn the research that is taking place, which may be assisted by an examination of the conceptus. I am not prepared to say in future to those born with congenital disabilities that I took a decision in the House which made their condition more likely when the possibilities were that it could have been avoided.

Some congenital diseases are lethal but there is growing hope that we may be able to conquer them. Against that background I am not prepared to adopt the didactic views that are coming from the active lobbies. Those who sat on the Warnock committee heard the evidence of the whole scientific world and not that of one scientist. They came to the conclusion that it was necessary for research to continue on embryos created for a specific purpose. Those who are dodging the issue, such as the members of the Church of England social responsibility group, by saying that only spare embryos should be used are not facing the realities. The number of spare embryos is diminishing increasingly. Multiple embryos are part of the injection process in in vitro fertilisation and that has a direct bearing on the diminishing number of embryos. The increasing use of freezing means also that the number of embryos diminishes. It is being realised increasingly, clinically, that we have no right to put back into the womb anything but the best embryo when a number are available. The embryo that is put back into the womb must be the one that is most likely to result in an unblemished baby. Research should not be based on spare embryos that are likely to be defective.

I have served in the House for a long time with the hon. Gentleman and I respect the strength of his convictions, but will he not equally respect the fact that there is widespread unease in the country about what is being done in the name of the objectives of which he speaks so passionately, and the speed at which they are moving? Does he agree that there is a real need for an early curb to be introduced while Parliament decides what to do? Whether that curb should be a moratorium such as the one sought by the townswomen's guilds or the 14-day limit suggested by the Warnock committee, and what the ultimate answer should be will be a matter for the individual conscience of all Members, decided by a majority vote in the House. Does not the hon. Gentleman recognise that there is widespread unease throughout the country and that that calls for early action by way of a curb by the House?

Of course there is anxiety. Some of it is well-founded but some of it is ill-founded. I hope that we shall explain to the nation that much of its anxiety is ill-founded. There are those who are apparently exploiting abortion issues and the matters that arise from them in a way that is doing a great deal of damage to research possibilities. It is no use talking about our scientists doing dedicated work as if they are enemy aliens who are engaged in criminal activity. They are a dedicated group and it is time that some hon. Members stopped taking such an insular view.

Our research scientists are already being tempted to countries such as Australia and the United States to the detriment of work that could be done to help the women of this nation. There is certainly need for control over a wide range of the matters considered by the Warnock committee but I suggest that the committee which decides whether research should continue should be separate from the committee that is now proposed. The committee proposed by Warnock will have a wide range of advisory and executive functions. It will be a heterogeneous group and, because it will be representing so many religious and ethical opinions, there will inevitably be coalitions and horse trading in dealing with research matters. That is not the way to deal with them.

There should be a separate committee, with tough powers, a lay chairman and medical and scientific members who could adjudicate on the propriety of the proposed research and decide whether it is frivolous or aims to improve the fertility of men, the possibility of conquering genetic diseases and the likelihood of women who have IVF succeeding in having a child. Those issues should be considered coolly and by a predominantly scientific committee in which the medical and scientific world has confidence. I ask the Minister to consider establishing such a committee.

We could then avoid this present easy talk of trying to bring scientists under the threat of the criminal law. Such a committee could monitor their work and would be far more effective than what is proposed.

I sense from the mood of the House that we shall hear more speeches in the same vein as those that have already been made by the hon. Member for Castle Point. It is a great pity that hon. Members who take such views do not give the same consideration to life when considering the nuclear issue. I do not hear them raising their voices against the spread of nuclear missiles and bombs, which could end—

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) is bringing in material that is extraneous to the debate.

I remind the House that we are debating a motion for the Adjournment.

As a result of the nuclear build-up, the next generation could be the last generation. In those circumstances, there are other preoccupations that could come to the fore apart from those that are apparently coming to the fore in this debate.

I believe in life; I believe in the family; I believe that the millions of people who want to be parents have a right to become parents. We should set up a committee to monitor the research carried out by our dedicated scientists and make it more likely that we could have a community with far more anchored families.

I can tell the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) that there will indeed be many more speeches from the Conservative Benches along the lines of those that we have already heard, because fundamental moral issues are at stake.

The hon. Member for Torfaen made a muddled speech and I was sorry that he confused an issue on which we are all in agreement. There is no argument about the fact that IVF can bring great happiness and benefit to many families who have not been able to have children. The point at issue, as was rightly spelt out by the Warnock committee, is the unease about embryonic manipulation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State clearly set that issue before us when he talked about the moral, Christian and complicated legal issues involved.

We must settle those matters. We must not wait for the medical profession or public opinion to move one way or another. We are discussing fundamental problems which must be settled here. Also, we must not wait for other countries to decide for us. What we do in our society is a matter for us to decide, and we must take the responsibility. It is not sufficient to wait until events that are foreseeable occur and then decide whether they should have happened. We can foresee many developments that would be obscene and deplorable.

The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) spoke about the benefits of embryonic research for various conditions. As a doctor, I would have been interested to hear whether the hon. Gentleman based his remarks on genuine medical evidence or was merely stretching medical speculation to cover advantages that we do not know will be gained.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spoke about the human values at stake in the debate and rightly pointed out the speed with which events are moving. Research is moving so fast that we cannot wait much longer before taking action to monitor what is going on.

I do not agree with all the conclusions of the Warnock report, but it has done a great service for the House. As Hugo Young pointed out in a recent article in The Guardian, the report's initial reception was almost unanimously favourable. The BMA called it a "brilliant" report. However, Hugo Young pointed out that as time has gone by the report has not weathered well. He discussed the licensing authority, about which I am very worried, and pointed out that with

"a whistle of concern and a sanctimonious mutter"

the Warnock report

"would authorise and encourage the creation of embryos purely for research"—

that is different from doing research on embryos that are already available—

"the deployment for research of 'spare' embryos produced for an attempted fertilisation, the freezing of embryos for 10 years prior to their disposal."

It is an uncivilised concept that we should hold a human being in ice for 10 years and then destroy him. Mr. Young also referred to the sale of embryos under licence and concluded his moving article:

"If there is to be any respect for the embryo it should surely, in morality, be a total respect".

My view is that the next logical step is to accept that, while the ovum and the sperm have a potential for life, life begins at conception. It is unacceptable to bank fertilised ova and to experiment on human embryos, even for the first 14 days. It is wrong to implant five, six or seven ova into one woman's uterus, as has already happened, and to indulge in surrogate mothering, a matter on which I agree with the Warnock report.

Other issues flow from all this work. What about the wider concepts? What about animals and genetic manipulation? What is our view on inserting parts of living animals into human beings? The baboon heart incident was regarded by many of my constituents as offensive, obscene and unnecessary.

As the Warnock report reminded us, there is the possibility of implanting fertilised ova into animals. The sheep-goat has already shown us the possibilities opening up of human-animal fusion; the mythological centaur begins to become an awful potential reality.

Is not one of the most insidious threats and risks to humanity that if, even under tightly controlled laboratory conditions, we allow so-called closely controlled experiments during the 14-day period, even the most stringent statutory authority could not ultimately control the nature of the experiment? Only the scientific technicians in charge of the experiments will be able to decide.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have paid particular interest to the sort of research being undertaken, and whole areas of research now being considered are, I believe, wholly against the concept of any civilised human society.

The hon. Member for Torfaen referred to the atomic issue. In the recent television series on C. P. Snow's books we were reminded that the atomic scientists in the 1940s got round to examining the long-term implications of much of what they were doing, and examining their consciences, only when it was already too late because the reins of decision had been taken out of their hands. If we do not act with authority, and rapidly, we shall find that scientific experiments intended for one purpose only have already rushed far ahead of what is acceptable.

The Warnock committee is right. We must set barriers—limits which should not be crossed. But who is to set those barriers, what should be the limits, and when? There is great urgency in this matter. The barriers should be set by this House, not by people outside. We, as a civilised Chamber and as a civilised society, should say that there is a limit to going too far down this road. Let us set it quickly and clearly.

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Order. I remind the House that I am now applying the 10-minute time limit on speeches.

I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak. I sympathise with the two or more hon. Members who will not be able to contribute to the debate because of the length of a previous speech.

Like so many hon. Members who have spoken, I commend the members of the Warnock committee for their brave attempt to grapple with some of the issues that need such vigorous thought. Of course, some criticism can be made of the way in which the committee conducted its business— for example, the lack of dimension from some of the women's organisations that might have added to the spectrum of opinion in the committee.

A new build-up of moral issues is coming before Parliament for decision. We are concerned very much more with scientific advances than with other questions that are particularly and peculiarly ethical matters. I suspect that this issue is only one of a number that we shall have to debate. As hon. Members have said, it is crucial to debate those issues here. We must determine that science will not dominate our deliberations and decision making, but rather will serve our decisions.

The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), in his excellent speech, said that we must approach these issues with considerable intellectual vulnerability. To try to pretend that we can suddenly and easily find answers is to approach the issues with an arrogance that is not befitting this House. However, to do nothing is as dangerous as doing the wrong thing. I am tempted to suggest that we put the hon. Members for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine) and for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) into the same room and let them fight it out. That could be a substitute for another Warnock committee. The hon. Member for Torfaen suggested that there should be almost no controls, while the hon. Member for Castle Point suggested almost total control. We cannot reach a decision on these issues by taking such rooted positions.

It is important to consider some of the constraints upon our decision making on such issues. A hierarchy of constraints may be impinging on our decision making. There is the real issue of whether there is a natural order within society that one disturbs at society's peril. Are there physical and psychological constraints that we must take fundamentally into account when we decide on pragmatic issues that have come before us because science has reached a certain point?

I find sex selection alarming. What will be the outcome of being able to select the sex of a child? That takes us further and further into the realms of eugenics—and history has shown that to he appalling in its consequences.

Are there values in the wider community that are imperilled by decision making on such issues? They may not be as physical as some of the physical and psychological effects on the individual, but they are no less real. We may undermine the security and stability of our community if we make the wrong decisions.

If there are no absolute rules— and I accept the opinion of the hon. Member for Castle Point—where do we fix the relative rules? We are talking about permissive powers— not about forcing people to do something. What is repugnant to one person may not be so repugnant to another. Therefore, we must accept that it may be right for the House to determine that certain possibilities are available to people for them to take up if they are not as concerned about that issue as others may be.

There will be conflict between the benefits to one group and the damage to the deeply held views of others. Those views have been forcefully expressed this morning. There is legitimacy in the views expressed in the petitions presented this morning. We must ask whether those wishes and deeply held feelings are capable of being legislated for. It is not a question of saying that the views are not legitimate or are not an appropriate expression of moral outrage; the question is whether we can legislate for them and whether we must take into account side effects. We may have to take a step-by-step approach to evaluate the effects of the decision before moving on. I accept that there is an urgency about some of these matters, but some of them could be left until we have seen the effects of earlier decisions on society.

There is a crucial need to protect people from exploitation—sexual exploitation, financial exploitation and even exploitation by society because of the pressures that may be put upon them. At the root of the debate is the question of infertility. We are told that 10 per cent. of partnerships do not have children. Unfortunately, that figure has been plucked out of the air—there is no scientific research to back it. Perhaps it would be valuable to study the accuracy of the figures, and decide how many partnerships voluntarily did not have children.

It is a natural and understandable human desire to have children. However, sometimes family pressures are put upon people to have children. There is also pressure from society—a hidden view that someone is not a complete person unless she has had a child. It is possible that too much pressure is being put upon people and that that affects the way in which we are considering the issue before us.

Those of us who in our eyes are fortunate enough to have children need to be humble and sensitive towards the feelings of those who do not. However, we need to have more counselling and support available to enable people to decide, perhaps even a freer atmosphere, whether they wish to have children under any system.

I do not think that the advances in science, technology and knowledge have necessarily been very beneficial when they have produced multiple pregnancies. It can hardly be argued that that is a natural consequence of what has been achieved in recent years.

Not only will the large issue not go away. The individual issues within it will not go away either. In that respect it is necessary to consider some of the individual issues.

One area where there may be greater support in the House is that of the licensing of experimentation and the work which may go on. I suspect that there will he broad support in the House for the view that it is necessary to have a considerable lay element within such a licensing authority rather than risk its being dominated by the medical profession or other scientific backgrounds.

A question has been raised about whether the benefits of the technology are to be freely available. If they are not, to whom are they to be available? Who is to decide who should benefit from it? Is it to be available from the National Health Service, or will there be some form of medical choice so that people may avail themselves of these new techniques? I suspect that the National Health Service will have to provide some of these services freely and that it cannot be left to the private sector.

I accept the report's conclusions on AID— [Interruption.] I suspect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have run foul of the 10-minute rule.

Cold print cannot effectively cope with the weight of emotion that there is on this subject. We still have to legislate and deal with the issues as they come before us.

The conception of human life, the formation of the body and, eventually, birth are both mysterious and miraculous. The hon. Members for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine) and for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) quoted from the Old Testament scriptures, and I suppose that I shall be in order in quoting from the same scripture. King David said:

"I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Torfean say that he believed the Old Testament in respect of his own lineage and then question the lineage of Jesus Christ. I remind him that the Old Testament scripture makes it clear that Christ would be virgin born, in the prophecy of Isaiah. I am sorry that I have not more time to deal with that now. However, I do not believe that the Christian religion is a myth. I believe in the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My first criticism of the Warnock report is that nowhere in it is there provided a reasoned exposition of what has been called the scientific status of the embryo. The committee states the view of those who say that a human embryo cannot be thought of us as a person or even as a potential person. I can only draw the conclusion that the committee accepted the non-personhood theory of the embryo by the fact that it recommended its use as a guinea pig.

I hold that the right to life is more important than any other right—even the right of the family. I believe that the embryo has human life and therefore is a human person. If we tamper with that embryo we tamper with a human being.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman. I have only 10 minutes, and I have already had to use five of them to deal with the comments of the hon. Member for Torfaen.

The committee also holds that the embryo should have some status in law, yet it maintains that the human embryo may be sold. I thought that the House had repudiated slavery long ago. To buy and sell the living body of a human being is slavery and is barbaric. For Warnock to say that the embryo should have a special status and then to say that it is a saleable commodity is at best contradictory and at worst hypocritical.

The embryo may be frozen. For the first time it is suggested that we should make legal a medical procedure which is not to aid the person concerned. Who can say what will happen when the embryo is frozen? We are told that the current ignorance of the possible effects of storage is accepted by all—even by those who produced this report.

It is to be experimented upon up to the 14th day after fertilisation. Yet it has been recognised even in this debate that there is a great difference of opinion about whether it should be 14 days, 30 days or even more. I say that from its conception it is a human being and must not be tampered with.

Then we have the suggestion of drugs and what should happen when they are used. Even Dame Mary herself, during a BBC television programme on 18 July said:

"Of course, the 14-day rule may be changed."

We all know that it will be changed. Once scientists have 14 days, they will agitate for more and the matter will escalate.

Interspecies fertilisation is an abominable thought. We have been asked whether we have the moral right to say anything about this. We have the moral right, the legal right and the duty to defend human life. That is what this debate is about.

I am glad that the recommendation of the committee is to ban surrogate parenthood. I do not see why a rich couple should be able to hire the womb of a poor person and pay for what they want. That is totally immoral, and the House needs to reject it out of hand.

I am glad to have the opportunity to intervene in what so far has been an all-male debate. That is a pity when we are discussing a subject which concerns women just as much as men, although I accept, of course, that women must have the assistance of men to procreate.

In July the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, of which I am chairman, invited two members of the Warnock committee to address it. It is a pity that more of the hon. Members present today did not listen to them, because they might have got rid of some of the antique prejudices that they have been expressing.

Professor John Marshall, of the Institute of Neurology, opened his statement by saying:

"I think that during the lifetime of most of us there have been three events that have had a cataclysmic effect upon us. The first was nuclear fission which has given us the opportunity to annihilate our species; the second was the landing of the first man on the moon which has altered our whole cosmology; and the third was the birth of Louise Brown in 1978, the first child born as a result of in vitro fertilisation."

Professor Macnaughton, who is professor of obstetrics at Glasgow, said:

"Most of us are fortunate in having no difficulty about having children and we do not appreciate how overpowering a problem it is for a couple who cannot apparently have a child. People will say, 'Well, it's not a killing disease.' That is so. It is not like cancer. But I have had in my 24 years of dealing with this two patients who actually committed suicide because they could not cope with infertility. It is indirectly a very serious condition."

The Warnock report addresses a number of problems that have received a great deal of attention in the media, much of it sensational and ill-informed. Infertility is a real problem that causes immense distress to those couples who suffer from it.

rose—

Those of us who have been able to prove our fertility cannot comprehend how distressing it is to be unable to have one's own child. There are people who say that we should not do anything to help an infertile couple to have a child. Apparently, that is the belief of Conservative Members, but the Warnock committee rejected that view. It went on to consider several ways in which the distress caused by infertility could be relieved. Some of the matters discussed in the report are controversial, and we have heard expressions of that during this debate. Surrogacy and embryo freezing are controversial. I do not think that the House really comprehends that fact, even though it is almost an all-male House. [Interruption.] I said that it is almost an all-male House. There are only about 19 women in the House.

Male infertility occurs in about 40 per cent. of partnerships. AID has now been accepted as a proper way of treating the problem. In 1960 a report was published stating that that method was unacceptable and undesirable and should be strongly discouraged. That was 1960, and medical science has made progress and public opinion has changed. The method has developed, so that about 1,000 children are born each year as a result of its use. If that proposal had been crushed at the beginning, many families would not have been able to have a child. Legal problems, including paternity and inheritance, must still be resolved. It is time that the Home Secretary gave some attention to absolving the donor from all rights and duties towards the child. That would regularise the position.

In vitro fertilisation was developed during the past 10 years. It is still fallible, and its present success rate is only between 15 per cent. and 25 per cent. Steptoe and Edwards pioneered IVF. The problem of multiple births—this is an acute problem—connected with this technique has yet to be resolved, but I am sure that if medical science is allowed to continue its work that will happen.

Surrogacy is the issue that causes great concern today. The woman who bears the child will not have contributed any genes towards that child. The child is not genetically hers, although she gave birth to it. Reference has been made to the position in America, where this technique has developed. For large sums of money, agencies organise surrogate mothers, but I think that we would find that approach to be unacceptable. Legislation may be required to deal with that development as well.

There is another view that surrogacy should not be accepted. We all know that it is not possible to put the clock back once a technique has been developed and proved safe. It is difficult to prevent those procedures from being carried out. There is rightly great concern about the fact that research is conducted on human embryonic material. The Warnock report recommends that such research resulting from IVF should be permissible but controlled. The evidence given by the Royal Society to the Warnock committee showed that important studies are being undertaken into other aspects of human embryology that can be advanced only by research on human, as distinct from animal, embryonic material. We must bear that point in mind. There is a need for this work to be a matter for local ethical committees, as is already the practice for other research in this field.

It is surprising that Conservative Members have said so little about the proposal to set up a licensing body, comprising lay, scientific and medical members and a lay chairman, and an inspectorate to ensure that the terms of a licence are properly observed. I believe that such a licensing body would provide adequate safeguards to cover all the anxieties that have been expressed.

Many people believe that it is wrong to experiment on a human embryo. I believe that that is a matter for individuals to decide for themselves. Having achieved in vitro fertilisation, progress will not be halted, so inspection and regulation are important. That is why it is so necessary to set up a proper licensing body. I hope that we shall not lose sight of the fact that a child needs two loving parents and a stable relationship with a father and a mother, for the establishment of the gender role is important. The report takes a pragmatic view and states:

"we could react only to what we knew, and what we could realistically foresee."

That is the basis of the report. The report states:

"in our pluralistic society it is not to be expected that any one set of principles can be enunciated to be completely accepted by everyone."

That must surely be true of every major breakthrough in many areas of medical research. At the beginning, a breakthrough is not always accepted by everyone, but it is generally accepted when it has proved itself. The committee went on to say:

"This is not to say that the enunciating of principles is arbitrary, or that there is no shared morality whatever. The law itself … sets out a broad framework for what it morally acceptable within society … Individuals or communities may voluntarily adopt more exacting standards."

The expert bodies and witnesses called before the committee and the committee's evidence and recommendations present us with the basis of a proper scientific and legal set of rules and safeguards which I hope the whole House will accept. I hope that the Home Secretary will take on board the clarification of some of the difficult legal issues that are involved in in vitro fertilisation.

I speak today not only as a Member of the House but—as we have been told, fortunately—as a mother of two sons. In the light of the Warnock report I believe that it is for Parliament and the country as a whole to determine our attitudes towards experimental practices for the next 20 or 30 years. As many people will appreciate, the scientific world has come a long way in the past two or three years from the first test tube baby, to womb leasing and to the possibility of baby manufacturing. I and many other people find it incredibly frightening that the moral, legal and social aspects of these developments remain largely unrecognised, little considered and unable to adapt to the scientific progress. If the Government do not act now—this year, this month or even this week— we shall merely encourage exploitation, mismanagement and social disaster.

A recent example from Australia serves to show that the report of the Warnock committee must be acted upon immediately. There are in a Melbourne hospital two frozen embryos who may or may not be entitled to inherit 8 million Australian dollars from their "parents" killed in a plane crash. No one appears to own the embryos, and there is doubt whether the embryos have legal status. It appears to be up to the doctors to decide their fate. Science is again light years ahead of ethics and the law.

It is easier to deal with these problems under three broad headings—problems of multiple birth by drugs, in vitro fertilisation and surrogate mothers. The immense effect on the lives and welfare of childless couples is beyond compare, and we have already heard that some have even been driven to suicide. While we all recognise the plight of thousands of parents who are unable to have children and while we can appreciate their feelings of being cut off from the rest of their age who are happy parents, we must question the use of the so-called fertility drugs. They are undoubtedly a boon to childless couples, but how controlled is their use?

The woman from Liverpool who last year gave birth to six healthy babies was understandably delighted, but will she still appreciate her fortune in 10 years' time? While it may be somewhat churlish to bring the matter of money into the subject of the value of human life, we must consider the social consequences of what we are doing. Is it good for society, the community or the immediate family, for a woman to give birth to six children at once?

In Hammersmith, an unmarried 31-year-old woman gave birth to four children—test tube babies—when she already had four children. Es the massive addition to her household a social as well as a scientific triumph?

A further aspect of the new fertility drugs is that comparatively little research has gone into their long-term effects. Do we know how they will affect a woman's body over a 10, 15 or 20-year period? Once again, we appear to be playing at guessing, with human lives as stakes. When will we have specific guidelines on the use of those drugs?

In vitro fertilisation is the second matter that I wish to raise. Many hon. Members have already spoken on the subject. It has been rightly heralded as a new era for infertile couples, but it has brought with it incredible dilemmas. If we allow multiple fertilisation, do we allow the doctors to discard unwanted or imperfect human embryos? Do we allow embryos to be grown merely for research? Is it then murder if the embryo is allowed to die? Will we in the future allow the growth of human embryos in laboratories for use as spare part supplies of tissue and organs?

As the legislation stands at the moment, there is nothing to prevent the growing of embryos in vitro for up to. say, 30 days before allowing them to die. The Warnock report has limited that to 14 days, and demands criminal sanctions to prevent trans-species fertilisation and unauthorised use.

The simple fertilisation of a woman's egg by her husband's sperm which is then replaced in her womb seems acceptable. It is the other possible permutations which raise legal and moral questions.

The Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church have published their response to the Warnock report on human embryology. There is a considerable distance between them on the vexed question of when life begins. The Anglican document prepared by the Church of England Board for Social Responsibility is close to the Warnock judgment— that there is a real difference between an embryo at its earliest stage of existence and from about 14 days onward. A minority on the board, however, were close to the Roman Catholic position that human life starts at conception and should enjoy full protection from that point.

Under the Warnock report the number of eggs to be replaced is not limited but the number of children from any one donor is to be restricted to 10. The storage of embryos is limited to 10 years, but there are no guidelines on the use of spare embryos within the 14-day period, and that will worry many of us. We seem to be allowing the growth of spare organs from the cells of an embryo. Will society accept an artificially created organ bank? In a recent MORI poll, 51 per cent. of people were against all experiments on embryos, and 75 per cent. were against the production of embryos solely for use in research. Will society accept the sale and purchase of human embryos—an embryo marketing board? The ideas are horrific. As for the use and abuse of human embryos up to the 14-day limit, how can Parliament legislate to introduce such an arbitrary limit based upon the difficult concept of the so-called primitive streak? What will happen in cases where the so-called primitive streak appears on day 13? Do scientists continue within their legal rights or do they stop on that moral boundary?

Is it the same Government who legislate to give far greater rights to laboratory animals yet at the same time encourage the use of human beings in such ways?

It is imperative that we act now on this report to limit all forms of experiment or research, and to go further and ban all forms of IVF except where the wife's ovum is fertilised by her husband and replaced in her womb. If we do not take such a positive stance we create innumerable legal problems of inheritance, such as we have seen in Australia. I hope that that will prevent arguments about maintenance, custody of and access to the child developed from the ovum of its legal mother and the sperm of a donor, or from the husband's sperm and the ovum of a donor. Despite the obvious relief that these techniques can provide for childless couples we must, at least for the time being, limit IVF to the husband-wife permutation.

Only when we can come to terms with the social and legal problems of this development can we allow science to progress. The legal recommendations suggested by the Warnock report and the English Law Commission are unwieldy in practice and will seem illogical to many people. It is possible that the genetic mother is no longer to be the legal mother. Although it is difficult to see what other compromise the Warnock committee could have reached, it has avoided the bold step of limiting IVF to the one permutation, which would have allowed a necessary breathing space.

I realise that I am running close to your time limit, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but if the Goverment do not wish to go down in history as the Administration who turned a blind eye to the highly questionable genetic tinkering that worries and frightens many people in this country they must intervene to draw acceptable lines to control fertility drugs; to limit IVF; and to end commercial exploitation of human birth.

There has been enormous interest and a great deal of informed and—I am sorry to say—ill-informed opinion and discussion on this subject. I can well understand the fears that people have about the technologies opening before us. There is no doubt that people are apprehensive and wonder what will happen.

It is right for us to discuss the subject, but we should be discussing it as rationally as possible. It was proper to set up the Warnock committee to study these complex issues, and the Government ensured that doctors, lawyers, scientists, theologians and high level social workers were represented on it, who could give their views and come to decisions— some of them varying. They were all eminent people, and they were all experts. But there was one group of interested and informed people that was not represented— women. Despite the fact that women produce children and are the central subject of the report, I find it staggering that the Warnock committee did not include a lay representative from, perhaps, some substantial women's group.

Furthermore, when we come to the evidence that the Warnock committee received, and which is listed at the back of the report, we see that there is a large body of evidence from many different women's groups—The Mothers Union, The British Housewives League, the League of Jewish Women, the Maternity Alliance, the National Council of Women in Great Britain, the Soroptimists, the Rights of Women and the National Federation of Women's Institutes—but none was called to give oral evidence. They all submitted written evidence. There is no star against any of their names at the back of the report.

I also find it staggering that the Committee did not take any of their views into account orally. Hon. Members have probably received a brief from the National Federation of Women's Institutes which states:

"We regret that there was no representative of a woman's organisation on the Warnock Committee and that no woman's organisation was invited to give evidence."

I remind the House that the Women's Institute is not a way-out, lefty, loony, feminist group; it represents 350,000 women in the rural communities and is regarded with great respect. It produces some very fine material.

I believe that there is a gap in the thinking of the Warnock committee, distinguished though its members were. If legislation is introduced, this House will eventually be asked to decide. But this is a male-dominated House, and that dominant male voice will decide the future of millions of women. I share the view of my hon. Friend the Members for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) that those women have a right to be heard and a right to have their interests protected.

The Warnock committee recommended that the decision as to who should qualify for assisted fertilisation techniques should be made by doctors, and that doctors should choose the people on whom those techniques are to be performed from

"heterosexual couples living in a stable relationship".

That recommendation denies the woman and her partner some choice, and leaves it in the hands of a particular group of people—doctors—who may not necessarily be the right people to decide.

The committee took evidence from Dr. Edwards and Mr. Steptoe of Bourne Hall clinic but I was surprised to find that it did not take evidence from Mr. Robert Winston, who is the head of a very big infertility clinic at the Hammersmith hospital, perhaps the biggest in the country and perhaps one of the biggest in the world. Hammersmith hospital practises not only IVF but a range of infertility techniques, yet the committee did not see fit to take oral evidence from Mr. Winston.

As many hon. Members have said, infertility is a tragedy to those who want to have children. A significant number of women continue to be infertile because they are given the wrong drugs, often by inexpert general practitioners. Sometimes the women have been given the wrong drugs, for such long periods that they have passed the point at which they would he allowed to adopt a child.

The proposal that health authorities should review their facilities for the investigation and treatment of infertility is a very good one. I hope that the Minister, will be able to reassure us that, if the proposal is accepted, the funding for such infertility clinics, run by health authorities, will not be at the expense of women's health budgets in other directions, which have already been cut considerably over the past two or three years.

It is obvious that, as proposed in the report, a licensing board is needed to regulate the therapeutic use of IVF, artifical insemination by donor and embryo donation. That makes good sense. I echo the hope expressed earlier in the debate that the board will be composed of as many lay members as possible, because that is important.

I share the view of those who say that surrogacy should not be on a profit-making basis. That should be outlawed. But without a lot more thought and discussion I would hesitate before saying that no one should be able to take part in a surrogacy arrangement. It would be going too far too soon to say that a fourth party—a doctor, a nurse or someone who is supporting the three people principally involved—should be liable to prosecution, as suggested in the report. We should be cautious before including that proposal in any legislation.

The other main controversial issue is the regulation of research. I do not share the view of some Conservative Members that life begins with the embryo, or with the conceptus, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen more correctly calls it. There should be an eventual limit to and some control of research. We all have nervous feelings about the kind of research which could take place. Nevertheless, having thought about it deeply, I am convinced that it would be wrong to limit research to 14 days or even to 40 days. There should be a separate licensing authority to control that research and enable it to be done in the interests of society and humanity. That is what research has done so far.

I welcome the report because it has opened up discussion of the subject. I hope that we shall have much more discussion before we take any further steps.

My right hon. Friend is to be thanked for having commissioned the Warnock inquiry. There are cynics who will say that no Government Department ever sets up a committee of inquiry without being fairly sure of what it is likely to find. For that reason, I thank my right hon. Friend for the way in which he introduced the debate and for saying that he would keep an open mind on the subject.

There is undoubtedly a large volume of public concern over the way in which human embryos are being treated, which has been commented upon increasingly in the press. Lord Denning said in another place that medical men can at present do as they like with embryos. They can buy them, sell them, kill them, freeze them, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Dr. Vaughan) said, even implant them in gorillas. There is no law to stop them. That is abhorrent to the vast majority of people in our society, as was shown by the MORI poll taken this summer.

In that context, I welcome three of Warnock's principal recommendations. The first is that the human embryo should receive some protection under the law—save that I would substitute "full protection" for "some protection". The second is that the unauthorised use of an in vitrio embryo should be a criminal offence. The third is that a new statutory licensing authority should be set up to regulate infertility services which involve in vitrio fertilisation or artificial insemination and related research. I agree with my right hon. Friend that lay involvement is essential, and I welcome his statement to that effect.

I urge the Government to legislate without delay on those matters to bring to an end the abuses which are the cause of so much public concern and distaste. I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement that he will consider making controls in anticipation of legislation.

However, I am unable to support some aspects of the Warnock report, and I would detain the House beyond 10 minutes if I were to list them all. If I say that I start, as do several of my hon. Friends, from the premise that the human embryo is a human being from conception—not a "potential human being" as posited by Warnock, but a "human being with a potential for full development"— hon. Members will readily conclude where my differences with Warnock lie.

It is interesting that, no matter how closely one reads the Warnock report, nowhere is there a denial that a human embryo is an individual human being from the moment of conception. Nor does it deny that human life begins at conception. Indeed, it spells out in paragraph 11.19 that from conception there is but continuous and well-charted development. From that premise, it becomes impossible to accept recommendation 12 that a human embryo may be used as a research subject for up to 14 days after fertilisation. As many hon. Members have said, nothing happens at the 14th day to justify the recommendation. The embryo does not change at that point from a pin head of jelly to a human being. The reference to the primitive streak is merely to take a convenient signpost in the process of development at which to reach a compromise with those who press for experimentation regardless of anything else.

Significantly, the report does not say that from conception an embryo already has the full genetic code to lead to its ultimate maturity. That is the most important factor of all. Hence, the essential question to be asked is whether it is permissible to carry out experiments on human beings for the benefit of others. Whether there is a limit of four, 14 or 40 days is irrelevant; the difference is simply in what one can see, not in what is.

Other far-reaching consequences flow from the recognition of the embryo as a human being. As Lord Denning said, if it is but a thing it can be owned, sold, and bought. If it is not a thing but a human being, it belongs to no one. Instead it has rights as a human being. Above all else, it is a completely defenceless human being and therefore has the right to full protection from the rest of the community and its laws. It has the right to live, to develop, to grow, to be born, to become a child and to be brought up in a family knowing its mother and father. It has the right not to be dissected, not to be mutilated, not to be traded for the gratification of another human being, not to be frozen, not to be planted into the body of an animal or made into a half animal and half man. Those are the basic issues with which we are faced, and no amount of rationalisation by those who wish to justify experimentation can escape from them.

I appreciate that I have raised what the Warnock report calls moral questions

"that involve not only a calculation of consequences but also strong sentiments."

I believe that it goes far beyond that. We are concerned essentially with the legal definition of human life; from the way we define that flow all consequential rights and duties. Not every scientist or doctor may be wholly satisfied that life begins with conception, but complete scientific consensus is not a necessary basis for law. A basis for law is the consequence of that law upon our society and upon the rights and duties of its individual members. We define the legal beginning of human life otherwise than I have suggested at the peril of society as a whole.

The speed of developments in this area have made imperative the intervention of Parliament in the control of embryological study. The Government were right to set up the Warnock committee to advise us on how to approach such difficult moral, scientific and legal questions. The Secretary of State was right to advise the House at the beginning of the debate that hon. Members should approach these matters in a spirit of humility, recognising that although decisions will have to be made by us, partly as matters of conscience and partly as matters of judgment, we must respect the views of those who do not share our standpoint.

I looked with hope to the report of the Warnock committee for guidance that would be so convincing that Parliament could legislate in this area with a sense that all the relevant issues had been considered carefully and that the conclusions and recommendations of the committee were underpinned by strong arguments. The committee claimed that its recommendations were supported with strong argument, but many of them—especially those in the more controversial areas—are not underpinned by strong argument.

The report is shot full of unstated premises, which may be common but which none the less are controversial. To take one example, there seems to be an assumption that AID is not only widely practised but that it is morally acceptable to society, and that an expansion of the practice would be desirable and would, in due course, remove some of the difficulties faced by children who are the product of AID. Another unstated premise is that the substitution of a natural parent by a donor in the process of conception is a treatment of infertility. It is constantly referred to as such, but it is not a treatment for infertility. At best, it may be a psychological consolation for one or more of the partners to a marriage that they have a child who is genetically related to one partner. However, this cannot properly be described as the treatment of infertility.

There are also a number of arbitrary recommendations in the report. I pick these out, admittedly in a random way, because the report does not give us the foundation on which we should legislate, and one has to illustrate this point by example. For example, it is suggested that a child who results from AID should be told certain facts about the donor. The two facts that it is recommended should be made known to the child when he attains the age of majority are his ethnic origin and his genetic health. There is no argument anywhere in the report as to why those two facts alone should be revealed, or why any much more wide-ranging information should not be revealed. That is a defect and falls short of the report's stated intentions.

The report makes a recommendation that embryos may be stored for up to 10 years. However, nowhere in the report is there any argument in support of that recommendation, and a recommendation does not carry any weight without arguments to support it. The report suggests that with AID no one donor should father more than 10 offspring, and speaks of the dangers of possible genetic difficulties resulting from too many donations. The figure of 10 appears likewise to have been plucked fom the air and is unsupported by any argument. On all the tricky and difficult decisions to which the committee has addressed itself, it does not support its conclusions with compelling arguments.

The report recognises in its introduction that the public would very much like these matters to be decided by reference to some principles, and that is a correct observation. The House finds it easier to legislate on such a sensitive subject by reference to principles, but we face the major difficulty that there is no common agreement as to what those principles should be. The Warnock committee, having presumably taken that view, failed to attempt to spell out any principles at all.

My intervention today is necessarily brief, as I hope that the House will have an opportunity to return to these matters in more detail when, as I hope, the Government introduce legislation to deal with them. Those of us who wish to influence legislation should declare, as far as we can, our principles. The first principle that I advance is that both partners in the marriage should be in as equal a genetic relationship to the offspring of that marriage as is possible. If there is a genetic imbalance in the relationship to the offspring, there is a potential danger not only to the relationship of the husband and wife to each other, but of the offspring to the two partners of the marriage. The Warnock committee acknowledged that that was a problem, but did not seem to form a view as to what should be the law that flowed from that recognition.

The second principle is a much more difficult one to enunciate with any degree of moral certainty, and that is the point at which life begins. It is undoubtedly the case that the whole process of development and the whole potentiality of development from the moment of conception is a continuous one, interrupted by scientifically recognisable stopping points on the way. The difficulties of legislation to recognise the right of life as beginning on any of those stopping points are very real, and I do not take an absolute view on this. However, Parliament has to take a view and therefore has to take one that is most easily defensible.

Although I recognise the force of what the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) said about individuation, I nevertheless believe that the moment of conception is probably a better starting point, and accords more with the public's moral perceptions. I shall have to deal in summary only with the three major issues upon which the committee made recommendations because of the time limit. However, I accept its views about surrogacy almost in their entirety—

Order.

I sometimes think that it would be a good thing if the Service Committees had placed on the wall of every hon. Member the saying, "Hard cases make bad laws." Of course it is hard not to have a child when one badly wants one, and the longer one is childless the more desperate one becomes. But it would be a very bad law indeed if, blinded by tears for the barren, we legalised Warnock's proposals.

For this House to allow experimentation on human embryos would be a terrible step—even if it was only for 14 days after fertilisation. Scientists and, indeed, some hon. Members, are already clamouring for more time than that, and no one can possibly avoid the conclusion that if scientists are allowed human embryos for 14 days it will not stop there.

Questions buzz round my head like bees. Who would monitor the age of the embryo? We can be sure that only experts could do it. Have we got so many medical experts that we can spare teams of them to go round monitoring the age of embryos, or will there be embryo inspectors? Would the scientists have to fill in a form to say that the embryo was the right age? Would the matter be left entirely to them? If so, would there be swoops at dead of night to see whether the embryo was 14, 15 or 16 days old? I wonder whether the fridge will be cleared out every so often. I do hope so. How can we possibly justify giving rights to 15-day-old embryos while denying them to 14-day-old embryos?

Would the scientists really down scalpels at 11.55 pm on the 14th day? Of course not. I have heard attempts made to justify that rule by the suggestion that the little thing may feel pain after 14 days. Well, good gracious me, if that is the only problem, why not anaesthetise them, then they would not feel pain? We could then go on, as the hon. Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson) wanted, to 40 days, six months or whatever. It would be impossible to enforce the time restriction.

Experimentation would undoubtedly go wider and wider. Once we accept that human life can be sacrificed in the name of medical science we are lost. To create human life especially for experimental purposes is fearsome. Much has been said about the number of people outside the House who strongly disagree with Warnock's proposals on that point. I draw the attention of the House to the opinion of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Its president said:

"GPs are in a unique position to balance the debate between public and medical specialists. Our view is that experimentation would be to the detriment of society, overwhelming any progress made. Too many problems are involved when you start blurring the time at which you decide the embryo should be given full status."

It seems such a calculating business to flush an egg out of a woman, to obtain sperm from a man, and to mix the ingredients in a test tube before shoving it into the deep freeze. It is a bit like a housewife buying a packet-mix from a supermarket store, cooking it all up and then popping it in the freezer to save time at the weekend. As Lord Denning said in the other place:

"Is that compatible with human dignity?"— [Official Report, House of Lords, 31 October 1984; Vol. 456, c. 541.]

Warnock prides itself on having taken an unemotional view on the matters placed before it. I am all for calm judgment but if the day has really dawned when we can feel no emotion about such things as fertilising an animal egg with human sperm or inserting a human embryo into a female animal, we have created a world that is utterly opposed to God's law. I am thankful that Warnock considers that it should be against the law to place a human embryo into an animal. However, the committee seems to consider that it is perfectly all right to mix up animal eggs and human sperm, so long as the process is subject to licence. The idea of a joint animal and human embryo created and used for medical experimentation is totally repugnant, and Warnock is wrong to assume that such developments could be stopped somewhere along the line. Let us not forget the sorcerer's apprentice, the man who rode the tiger and the story of Pandora's box. Once one breaches the principle that human life is sacred, there will be no stopping that line of development. There will be no final barriers, because it is almost impossible to say where the final barriers should be.

What of the children born as a result of such abnormal practices? Nowhere in the whole report does Warnock give any consideration to the life of the child who is being created. We look in vain for a recommendation that, before a child is artificially produced, some consideration should be given to its probable upbringing. Before a child is placed for adoption, the most searching and careful inquiries are made into the life that the child will have and the people who are to be allowed to receive him. Have they enough money? Are they loving people? Is it a good home? These matters are most carefully scrutinised if a child is to be adopted. In contrast, the Warnock committee is concerned only with the adults. Anyone who decided on a whim to have a child should be allowed to have a child in this way, never mind what kind of life that child might have. Single women, single men, and homosexual and lesbian couples, could all be accommodated from the test tube. There is only the somewhat weak caveat that

"as a general rule it is better for children to be born into a two-parent family".

The emphasis everywhere in the report is on the wish of the adults. Not a thought is given to the child so frigidly and coldly created by science. Yet children are God-given, not man-made.

Questions about the life of the child must be buzzing around all our minds. The adopted child has the right now, under a law passed in this House, to find out about his parents and to go and see his mother. Why should a similar right not be given to a child born in this way? But how on earth are all the facts to be known? The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) says that there are two facts which such a child should have the right to know. An adopted child has the right to know much more than that, but if a child is born as a result of in vitro fertilisation, we may not even know what his antecedents are. It is wrong that adopted children should be treated so differently from children born by these methods.

How will children react when they find out that mummy never even knew daddy, that no love or human emotion was involved at their beginning, and that they had done a pre-womb stint in a cold store? What awful nightmares will a sensitive child suffer when he learns that?

What about the medical need to know one's family background? The child may need to know whether he may have inherited heart disease, or short-sightedness. How could he find out? It has been accepted that a great many children will never be told the truth about their beginnings. Children will be brought up living a lie. I tremble to think of the likely effect on them.

What will happen if a child developed by such methods is born with a handicap, is ugly, stupid or bad? I can imagine the parents' reaction. They would say, "Of course, this is not our child at all really. It's stupid and can't do anything but it was never ours in the first place." All sorts of dangerous questions are involved.

"O what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practise to"

conceive.

I am happy to be speaking within the 10-minute limit because I am not sure that I can add a great deal to the debate. As it has progressed I have become more, not less, confused. That is not because of contributions by hon. Members, but because it is difficult to think coherently about the issues.

The Secretary of State said that he hoped that the debate would produce a coherent moral stance from the House of Commons. The Secretary of State's wish will certainly be unfulfilled. All that hon. Members are giving him is a check list of what they would and would not support in legislation. I do not want to do that. I prefer to examine the weakness of the moral position of those who oppose my view and the weakness of my own moral position.

The only hon. Member who has spoken so far who has consistently thought through accepting donation by third parties is my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson). She said that once one accepted the principle of donation there was no logical reason why one should not accept the principle of surrogacy, provided that no payment is involved. My hon. Friend did the House a service by thinking through to where we may land ourselves once we concede the principle of donation.

My own position is weak. If we were considering a Bill today, I should vote against any experiments on embryos. Many others would vote likewise. However, I accept that we are debating the issues today only because experimentation has already taken place. The advance of fertilisation outside the womb has taken place only because we have allowed that experimentation. I see the weakness in my position.

In a pluralistic society we have no agreed moral principles to bring to bear on the issue, but we have to draw a line. My view is that although we have already allowed experiments, I cannot support experiments beyond this point of time.

From what we have heard today there is an urgent need to regulate and legislate roughly within the framework of the Warnock report. Some aspects, like commercial surrogacy, can easily be isolated and acted upon more immediately. Further aspects require detailed study before legislation can be accomplished.

I am disturbed by the dilemmas highlighted in Warnock. I wish that I had the consolation of a standardised moral view. Perhaps my upbringing in the Church of Scotland, which demands an intellectual purism, is against me now. It denies me that comfort, but I must be in the majority in finding it difficult to square my views on abortion, for instance, with my repugnance to the creation in vitro of embryos for trading, experimentation and killing off. There should be a consistent principle in my mind, but there is not, because I see the logic of having a time when abortion is necessary, though that is destroying human life. I understand that abortion is the destruction of human life and there is the balance that tells me that experimentation has the same effect. There should be a consistent principle in law to avoid problems arising later, but that will involve a lengthy exercise.

I shall not condemn the Warnock committee's report. Indeed, I congratulate the committee on its heroic effort. There are those who castigate it for an academic lack of passion, yet we challenge its moral views. I suspect that there is no balance in moral views. If we try to balance them, we only weaken or dilute.

I appreciate that infertility is perhaps the most shattering experience for any woman who partners and loves someone. I am lucky that I have been able to bear a child. This debate must highlight the compassion that our society has for the childless. Much of what we say today should be tempered by the other side of the coin which tells us that as much as possible should be done by providing consultation and advice centres, for example, for those who are in that unfortunate position. We should look for options to some of the rough stuff that we read about in the Warnock committee's report. Therapeutic techniques are important, and that is where our finances should go if we have the sympathy and compassion for the infertile that we profess.

We are facing a terrible dilemma. We are told that we have the right to have children, but that the world is overpopulated. Should we be encouraging people to have children, which basically and technically they cannot have, in a world that we can hardly afford to feed? We know very well from recent problems in the Sudan and Ethiopia how difficult it must be for large families in those areas. At the same time, we want healthy children in our society, and in some ways that can depend on the experimentation which goes on to assist procreation and additions to the population.

The limits on embryo experimentation should be strict. I doubt whether it is necessary to produce embryos in vitro at all when there are sufficient pathological specimens readily available. I suspect that we are not being very honest with ourselves, and perhaps the Warnock committee has not been very honest with us. I believe that Britain and other European countries have gone well beyond the experiments that we are discussing. I know that in Sweden 20 years ago a foetus was kept alive in a tank for 15 weeks before being injected with formaldehyde. If that happened 20 years ago in a so-called civilised country, I begin to wonder what is happening behind the closed laboratory doors in this country today.

The medical profession must put its house in order. Regulation, as well as legislation, is essential. It made my blood boil to read the statement that ethics must alter with technology. That smacks of Hitler's Germany. It was in response to that sort of view that Aldous Huxley wrote "Brave New World" in the late 1940s. Hon. Members may remember that in that book the savage killed himself because he could not stand the sort of life that existed on the earth—the unnatural existence, with cloning and experimental breeding.

Family life is important and we must preserve it. The difficulties involved in experimentation help to undermine the basic family unit which keeps this country going and on which all our legislation and moral principles are based.

In February, I attempted to introduce a Bill to outlaw commercial surrogacy clinics. I believe that the child matters more than even the wishes and desires of potential parents. I want children to be brought into a world of caring parents. We know that children who are born naturally are often not brought into such a world and that some couples who desire children through surrogacy would be very good parents. However, they are parties to the sale of children and, as has already been mentioned, we abolished slavery at least a century ago.

The child is stigmatised, because, whatever we say, he or she is initially illegitimate. The psychological damage caused to that child could be incalculable and might lead to all sorts of complications in his or her later family life.

Above all, the foul commercial element that is involved in the clinic not 50 miles from London, which already has six children in utero, must be outlawed as speedily as possible. It was reported to me that the person who runs the clinic, who is not a qualified doctor and has merely had some form of nursing training, has said what pleasure it gives her to see the joy that results from what is done at the clinic.

We are here not to condone one person's highly eccentric forms of pleasure, but to protect society, and we should do that. I hope that we shall shortly give all these matters urgent consideration and introduce legislation.

rose—

Order. The next speech will also be bound by the 10-minute rule.

I shall not need 10 minutes, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I take a simple view on this matter. One's attitude to the Warnock report depends on one's basic view about whether a human embryo is a life. If one believes that, the Warnock report becomes unnecessary and can be put in the waste paper basket.

I believe that an embryo is a human life. Therefore, I do not advance to the next principle, which is that, for the first time, medical science should experiment on a human being not for the good of that human being. Man should not become the slave of science rather than vice versa.

A few years ago there was a magnificent and successful campaign in the House and in the media on behalf of thalidomide children. The principle established by that campaign was that an unborn child had certain rights—rights to be protected against injury from drugs or from anything else. If it has the right to be protected against injury from drugs, it has the right to be protected from experimentation and death.

If we do not accept the principle that an embryo is a human life, we find ourselves in a confused position—as Warnock did. He sets out to lay down moral principles, yet not one moral principle is stated in the report. He simply states a set of rules with no underlying principles. One example of the committee's confusion is that underlying the whole report is the feeling that the committee had a certain queasiness about the subject and that, therefore, it must genuflect towards certain liberal and social values—

Apart from the general confusion of the hon. Gentleman's views, he seems to have gender confusion. Warnock is a lady. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will not add to the confusion—

Order. The hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) has already addressed the House at some length, and the 10-minute rule still applies.

I accept the correction of the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse). I was thinking not of the gender of the author but of the report itself. The report declared that the embryo of the human species must have some protection in law. What protection does the committee propose? For every day of its 14 days existence it will be experimented upon, and, at the end of that time, it will be put out of existence. What sort of protection is that?

It is not often that there is total agreement between the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) and myself. Successive British Governments have, over the years, sought to find areas of agreement between us. Now that they have found such an area, they must act upon it and introduce the necessary laws.

I declare an interest as the foster parent of a severely handicapped child who was advertised as needing parents. There are many such unwanted children—up to 20,000. Anyone with personal experience of children with such difficulties would not wish to minimise those difficulties but would wish to do everything possible to reduce the chance of children being born with such terrible handicaps.

I have been following the debate with close interest. I can testify to the strength of public feeling on the issue. Last month I held a public meeting with a panel of experts, and it was oversubscribed as soon it was announced. Some 200 people attended, with more than 300 people applying. I heard a full range of views.

The crux of the matter is events at fertilisation which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) said, is a mysterious and wonderful moment. If it was not, we would not all be here today. But that magic, mysterious wonderful moment is not a perfect process. Those who believe that human life automatically starts from fertilisation must face the fact that riot all embryos are human. Accidents occur and embryos are conceived that are not human. My hon. Friends the Members for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine) and for Antrim, North must face that fact.

I received a letter this week from Patrick Steptoe on that very point. He says that the fertilisation of eggs is not a perfect mechanism which takes place immaculately every time. An accident could cause an embryo, capable of development and of implantation, which under most circumstances could not be regarded as human. An accident, not just a deliberate act, could cause 69 chromosomes or even 92. Such an embryo would represent a new species if it survived.

If we accept that such embryos are not human, and that only some embryos are human, we cannot automatically demand the status of human beings for all embryos from the moment of fertilisation. This is a fundamental fact. Not all embryos are human. The issues are not black and white. Therefore, we must have some process which distinguishes between embryos which are human and those which are not.

I cannot support the case that we should wilfully implant in a womb an embryo which we know is not human. We must reject species which are not human or which would cause problems, cancers and other growths in the mother.

Will my hon. Friend suggest when he thinks humanness begins?

This is the kernel of the matter, because we have to look at embryos to see whether they are human. That being so, I accept that embryos should be examined to establish that they are normal human beings. Only then should we agree to their implantation and development as human beings.

Research and experimentation must be strictly controlled and aimed at establishing that embryos are normal human beings and not aberrations. In any case, there is a natural process of rejection in the womb itself.

I comment briefly on some of the other recommendations in the Warnock report. I reject the buying and selling of embryos and their long-term storage. Storage should be for short periods only, extendable by agreement of both parents. Surrogate IVF should be limited to couples who can have their own genetic children.

I call for early legislation, and I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend confirm that he had in his mind interim legislation at least on some of the more straightforward aspects. On some of the others, I hope that the House is not in a mood to pass the sort of legislation which years ago called for a man with a red flag to walk in front of every car. I look forward to early interim legislation, and I call upon my right hon. Friend to take action in this respect.

In my view this is not an anti-abortion issue, and it is wrong that those who believe that it is have tried to hijack the debate for their own obsessive purposes. It is not an anti-abortion issue. It is a pro-fertility, pro-children issue, and that is how it should be looked at. We cannot throw away this opportunity to deal seriously with the deep unhappiness of unwanted childlessness.

The criterion in forming my view about the deliberations of the Warnock report is that of the greater good that its recommendations afford our society. I will have no part in any lobby or any argument whose recommendations will in practice discriminate, punish or prolong the needless misery of childlessness.

The issues investigated by the Warnock committee that I wish to discuss fall broadly into two main groups. The first is those concerned with aspects of medical practice and scientific research into infertility. The second is those concerned with accountability and control of such practices.

Infertility is a male problem as well as a female one. At the moment no one can answer a childless man when he asks, "Can I father a child?" The only ultimate test is penetration of an ovum by sperm. In a few laboratories sperm from infertile men are being used to test their ability to fertilise ova which have been donated voluntarily by women undergoing sterilisation. This is an important part of a prognostic investigation into male infertility. In my opinion it is preferable to attempted trans-species fertilisation. In any case there are limitations on what can be learned from the fertilisation of a hamster's egg.

The donation of ova by women for the tests has been made possible by the popular response of women. More than 40 per cent. of the women approached have agreed to the donation of an egg. However, there should be guidelines on the collection of ova from women, with written consent being obtained from them and with no exploitation involving money. There must also be strict regulation of the drugs used before that surgical operation with the first criterion being to protect the women.

If sympathy with the infertile informs our criteria, research of this nature is permissible to help overcome male infertility. In those circumstances, I cannot agree with the view that insists that once the ovum is penetrated in this way it has the same status and rights as you and me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If we are to follow that endless reductionism, it is true to say that everything is alive—one cell, one sperm, one ovum. However, I go along with the Warnock committee's recommendations which set the 14 day limit on conceptus research and limits the nature of such research. Contrary to the report, I oppose testing toxic substances on embryos. As Warnock points out, however, voluntary regulation of aborted material has worked to the enormous benefit of pregnancy treatment. Therefore, why cannot statutory regulations via a licensing body work equally well for embryos derived from in vitro fertilisation?

Research into the following areas offers infertile women better diagnosis and treatment. The first aspect is spontaneous abortion. About 60 per cent. of normal pregnancies and almost 90 per cent. of in vitro fertilisations are spontaneously aborted. There is a lack of information on how to reduce that risk of abortion in infertile women. The spontaneous abortions are largely caused by abnormalities and stunted development in the foetus. Research is needed to establish the precise conditions to maximise the chances of viability through full-time pregnancy. Success would mean less emotional trauma for the would-be mother and a reduction in needless medical expense and time in post-abortion care.

Secondly, early detection of embryo abnormality and methods to perfect re-implantation screening of in vitro embryos would reduce the unhappy consequences of the present system of late screening and subsequent abortion.

Thirdly, research is needed into the origins and treatment of conditions that endanger the life of the newborn child. A number of conditions that arise uniquely in the early human embryo can threaten its survival. Research into the detection and origins of the therapy for malignant tumours and chromosome abnormalities in early embryos is justifiable when post-natal detection is too late to save the life of the child. Much benefit will come to society with the reduction in the unhappiness associated with infertility. For those reasons, I believe that a limited and highly controlled amount of experimentation is permissible and beneficial to society.

Another aspect involves accountability and control. The Warnock committee provides a good framework for controlling the practice of in vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer. However, the report is unsatisfactory in four other respects. First, medical practice must be contained within the NHS where proper controls can be ensured. There are many other examples in society where such controls cannot be made effective in private institutions. It is unethical to encourage profit making from human unhappiness arising from infertility. Once the practice is fully established within the National Health Service, highly priced offshore deals will lose their appeal.

Secondly, high technology has been accepted as the only focus of anxiety by Warnock. I believe that that is a mistake. There is a danger of high technology taking priority over other health care. The Warnock committee was probably blinkered by its obsession with "high tech". We should support initiatives in alternative medicines and therapies which may well be more effective and less medically contentious and expensive.

The third aspect relates to the licensing body. That was recommended by Warnock and is to include lay as well as medical and scientific representatives. I welcome that but hope that the representation is more open than that on the Warnock committee. That committee did not include representatives from women's organisations such as the women's institutes. Women and women's organisations should have a voice on fundamental issues such as those affecting their rights to choose to have children.

My fourth point is about social control. An element of social control is embedded in the Warnock recommendations. I object to forcing the infertile to fit into traditional family structures by restricting access to the new technology to couples. The married couple are not to be regarded as the only recipients of medical treatment. Treatment should be available to single men and women, who can already adopt and foster children. There is no place for the encouragement of dubious social judgments in medical family planning.

Once those unsatisfactory features have been dealt with, Warnock can contribute to the well-being of society through the elimination of the misery of infertility.

Apart from the natural revulsion which I share with every person with whom I have discussed these developments, I have neither seen nor heard any evidence to suggest that anyone has the faintest idea where they will lead or what condition of life is in prospect for those who are selected for survival or those who are born of such persons.

This is experimentation gone mad. Why 14 days? Upon what basis can a distinction be drawn between those selected for survival and those to be destroyed? Those selected for survival are selected before the end of 14 days. It must be assumed that they will have life, for otherwise they would have no purpose for the researcher. The justification for destruction cannot be sustained on any logical basis, let alone the moral dimension.

Already in this country, at least 50 human embryos have been created and grown specifically for research. The implications of that for future legislation, for criminal law and for ethics are grave. Can we, in our so-called civilised society, condone, whether under licence or not, in any circumstances the development of human-animal hybrids— humanoids— the development of fully grown "unbeings" for the extraction of spare parts for surgery, or the use of surrogate mammals for human reproduction? I say, emphatically, no. Whether or not those scientific developments are sustainable now, the inexorable movement towards them will surely accelerate, and the proposed licensing authority will be pushed further and further down the slippery slope.

The nightmare creation of a super-race, and with it the super-prole, seems to be near at hand. With an ever-expanding world population, will not the temptation for future unscrupulous politicians to use the technique of cloning and the mechanism of sex and genetic selection, as a means of eliminating or containing unproductive, unwanted surplus people, become irresistible? We cannot and must not avoid that question or, indeed, any of the other questions raised by fie new techniques. There will be those—there are already, including the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher)— who dismiss all such matters as futuristic and implausible, but serious and respected medical experts tell us that it is within reasonable contemplation, and that the so-called successful experiments have only just begun.

I accept that the Warnock report specifically and rightly condemns certain practices, including commercial surrogacy— which is not the central issue— and recommends that they be made criminal offences. My view is that most, if not all, of the developments under review could be, and probably are, covered by the criminal law in a long line of cases from Bracton to Blackstone and down to the present day.

With regard to the administrative machinery proposed in the report, I have to admit that I was glad to note the proposal for a licensing authority. It is clear that that is the centre of gravity of its recommendations. I do not have the time to examine every aspect of what that would entail, but, particularly in the light of my concluding remarks, I invite the House to consider the potential precedents for legislation in this area— provisions taken from the Medical Acts and from the Medicines Act 1968, and the arrangements which are made to deal with the medical and ethical procedures under those Acts and within the General Medical Council and the British Medical Association.

The proposed licensing authority would be given power to determine ethical matters, although how it would fit in with parallel ethical and disciplinary committees and their standards needs much clarification. So do the unsatisfactory current Medical Research Council guidelines and related guidelines on the subject. We have to remember that the Medical Research Council began to engage in this kind of research only after the Steptoe-Edwards programme had been initiated in 1978.

I note that in the conclusions of the report there is reference to areas within which guidance must come from sources other than Parliament. I take that to refer to self-regulation within the medical profession, whose members include the protagonists of those very developments.

On the subject of self-regulation, I remind the House of what Dr. Michael Thomas, who was then the chairman of the BMA ethical committee, said in 1982 when the inquiry was first under way:

"We must say to the public, 'you cannot leave us without moral guidance on this; you cannot turn your back on this issue and leave us with the responsibility … the medical profession is not the guardian of public morals'."

The problem is that, under the conclusions of the report that there should be a licensing authority, the advice upon which it would proceed—even with the recommended substantial lay representation—would turn on that of the medical experts, as is already the case under the Medical Acts and the Medicines Act 1968. The lay representatives would be at a hopeless disadvantage, quite apart from other pressures to extend the area of research, and despite the Nuremberg code of 1947, following the Nazi atrocities and subsequent declarations on the subject.

As for the role of Parliament, I would prefer a criminal law solution to the open door of a licensing authority. Legislation is required, but how that may be drafted and devised has yet to be settled, although the sooner that is achieved the better; the fewer anomalies there are, the easier it will be. If Parliament decided to go down the criminal law route, which I would prefer, irrespective of the international dimensions of the problem, it would terminate the violations of humanity as a matter of criminal law.

How will the House arrive at a measured and responsible decision? Will it be by White Paper and Bill in the immediate future? The responsibility lies with Parliament, not with the medical profession, but Parliament must be properly informed. That could be achieved by a Select Committee with full opportunity to hear evidence from experts on both sides of the subject, and I believe that that is necessary.

The Warnock report is an inadequate basis on which to proceed, even after consultations upon it have been concluded by the end of December. We owe it to future generations to have a proper debate in Parliament. If a private Member's Bill were introduced this Session to cover the ground, and if it resolved the matter in terms of criminal law, which I would prefer—such a Bill need not be lengthy—that would dispose of the matter in relation to urgent public policy. In such circumstances I would advocate a Special Standing Committee instead of a Select Committee to ensure that we consider the Bill properly and consider the legal and moral imperatives implicit in it with the care that the subject deserves.

In conclusion, I quote the words of the great judge, Lord Radcliffe:

"The civilisation of which the English law is one form of expression has been built with labour and sacrifice beyond record upon the structure of certain beliefs as to the nature of man and his purpose in society."

However we proceed, the eyes of the world will be upon us. Therefore, let us ensure that, for the sake of our national integrity, we act upon those beliefs and do the right thing, in this case, for the right reason.

I have listened to the debate carefully and with great interest, and I am grateful for the opportunity of contributing to it, albeit briefly. Those hon. Members in the Chamber today who, like me, are fortunate to be blessed with happy home lives and children will be just as concerned as I am about the problems of married couples who are unable to conceive for one reason or another. However, as many hon. Members have said, no one has an absolute right to have a child, whether she is fertile or not. The condition of childlessness is not an illness in the accepted sense of the word.

The publication of the Warnock report has paved the way for full discussion of the many complex issues raised by the accelerating developments in human reproduction. The conclusions of the committee pose legal, moral, psychological and social questions about surrogacy. artificial insemination and the storage, use and disposal of human semen, ova and embryos.

The technique of in vitro fertilisation started simply as a means of circumventing incurably blocked fallopian tubes in women faced with the tragedy of infertility. It has been estimated that as many as one in five couples may be infertile or sterile; therefore, one would have expected the Warnock committee to have made some recommendations on how to tackle the root causes of the problem. The committee admits that there is a need for research, but misses a golden opportunity to give guidance on how to overcome what could be called the "sterility crisis".

In vitro fertilisation as a means of treating infertility has many grave moral implications and is also an extremely expensive treatment. Many hon. Members have stressed the need for such treatment to be available to all who need it, not just to those who can afford it, but we must also pick our priorities in the NHS. We shall never have enough resources to provide for everyone all that they believe they should have.

Nowadays great emphasis is placed on preventive medicine, and it would have made much more sense for the Government to conduct investigations into the causes of the increasing numbers of infertile and sterile couples, and then to prevent the problem before it occurs.

In recent years there has been an increase in the number and variety of sexually transmitted diseases. Many of them can leave women, particularly young women, infertile.

Chlamydia, which is now one of the most common and serious of the sexually transmitted diseases, can lead to infection of the fallopian tubes, requiring their removal. Others can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, which may leave young women sterile or infertile. Much of the sex education material that goes to schools minimises the risks to young people who engage in early and promiscuous sexual relations. In one such book, they are told:

"catching VD is just rotten luck."

How misleading and irresponsible such literature is, especially when young people are told at the same time to have sexual intercourse as long as they practise contraception.

All this ignores the fact that most forms of contraception such as the pill do not prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. For example, the use of the coil—the intra-uterine device—can itself lead to pelvic inflammatory diseases and to ectopic pregnancies. These, together with abortion, can pose a serious threat to a young woman's ability to have a baby later on when she wishes to do so.

The Government should ensure that the consequences attached to promiscuous sexual intercourse should be made clear to young people in any sex education that they may receive in schools. This would be a constructive, major contribution to curbing some of the causes of infertility. I was horrified to find that 90 per cent. of cases of infertility are due to preventable causes. That is a statistic of which the House should take notice in the context of this debate and the issues revolving around in vitro fertilisation.

It also amazes me that there was no mention in the Warnock report of the advisability of launching a campaign warning of the real and dreadful dangers of sexually transmitted diseases to the young. The Health Education Council, which is so voluble on the dangers of smoking, for example, is deafeningly silent on the subject. The widespread use of contraceptive drugs and devices by young women that can have serious long-term effects on their fertility, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the consequences of abortion will continue to grow as long as sexuality and conception are removed from their true context of love, marriage and family life.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the Warnock report is that nowhere in it is marriage mentioned—it speaks only of couples. I take up the point made by the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), who mentioned couples. He spoke of heterosexual couples, but there is also the problem whether, in the future, lesbian and homosexual couples can acquire a baby by surrogacy or other means. This is deplored by most hon. Members.

Acting according to the best interests of the child is the first priority. Most can accept in vitro fertilisation and artificial insemination by a husband as methods of overcoming infertility. Those methods can be justified, and will not upset the natural order of things, because they do not threaten the bonds of the conventional family unit. However, the practices of the artificial insemination by donor and egg donation adds a new dimension that is unacceptable, bringing, as both do, the intrusion of a third party to distort family life.

Many hon. Members will no doubt be interested in an article that I saw only today, which talks of the establishment of sperm banks elsewhere in the world, and what might happen if AID were available to all and sundry, as has already happened in the United States, the article says:

"A sperm bank superbaby was born in 1982 to Dr. Alton Blake, aged 40, who was impregnated with an embryo fertilised with sperm from a Swiss sperm bank where the donors are said to be intellectual geniuses. Baby Doron"—

would hon. Members believe—an anagram of donor—

"has an IQ twice normal. At four months he was found conducting records of Mozart and Chopin and was able to drink from a glass when most babies are only able to do this from about a year onwards."

Do we really want to set up that sort of organisation? What kind of sick society do we live in when such things happen?

For example, how could Warnock recommend that children born as a result of artificial insemination by donor, egg or embryo donation should be registered as if the couple were in every way the legitimate father and mother, when they most certainly are not? What about the implications for inheritance? We have already heard that the whole law of our country would have to be changed. Every adopted child has the right to know about his natural parents, but not the AID child. His origins are cloaked in secrecy and even deception.

The most worrying aspect of the report is the recommendation concerning experimentation on the human embryo. Indeed, that has been reflected in the contributions of many hon. Members who have spoken most eloquently on the subject. I believe that human life begins at conception, and a law should be introduced to protect the embryo, just as it does the child. The embryo could not then be bought or sold, and it could not be destroyed or experimented with. Many people feel a deep concern that we are tampering with the most fundamental principles and nature of life.

It is interesting to note the differences of opinion within the medical profession as to when experimentation should be allowed. All of us might reflect on the fact that the profession has been proved wrong in the past on many major matters. Scientists do not necessarily know what is best for us. Many people feel genuine unease and concern because they do not want such matters decided by so-called experts.

We are here not to take the narrow view but to look at the problem from everyone's point of view and to reflect the fears and concerns of the people of this country. Like many others, I hope that the Government will act quickly, because we need curbs, not tomorrow or next year, but now. I hope that the Government will legislate now, positively, to protect innocent and totally defenceless human life.

Those who have sat through the debate will agree that the application of the 10-minute rule has been more than amply justified. I found the short, sensitive and relevant contributions of my hon. Friends, the Members for Reading, East (Sir G. Vaughan) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) of more use in clarifying my mind over the issues than some of the longer contributions made before 11.30 am.

When listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East, I have heard not only the voice of the expert but the voice of a man sensitive to the problems facing humanity. We are trying to grapple with a problem facing humanity as a whole, and with the difficulties involved in genetic engineering. But I join my colleagues in hoping that, however agonising a decision we may ultimately have to make, there will be speedy legislation. Everyone knows that the scientist is a curious man and his curiosity is not always related to the good of the human being or race.

I believe that even the medical profession is sometimes guilty of trying to shock for reasons of self-publicity. In this field where human emotions are so much involved, we must consider carefully, and act directly in the interests of our constituents and humanity as a whole.

This is an international problem, and I hope that we shall hear more about international co-operation. It would be of little use for us to pass legislation affecting this country if the whole system could be side-stepped by some whizz kid on another continent.

I have not yet heard what I consider to be a reasonable defence of surrogate motherhood for commercial gain. It may have been practised for years for other reasons. Those involved have usually been closely related, and I make no comment on such cases. However, where personal gain and vast sums of money are involved, we are trafficking in human lives. We should consider the problems that could arise. A handicapped child could be produced. There might be problems connected with inheritance. Such problems would far outweight the good of enabling an infertile couple to have a child. I realise that I am rushing in and making moral judgments, but I believe that that is what we are here for. Ultimately, the good of the child—at whatever stage of its development—must be put above all other considerations.

I should also like to refer to the proposals on the use of embryos in experiments. Somewhat to my surprise, I have received more letters, round robins and petitions on this subject than on any other subject that has aroused concern since I became a Member. Many caring people agree with many of the sentiments expressed by my colleagues today. They, too, feel that we stand at the door, with a slippery slope before us, when we experiment on humans but not for the benefit of the human on whom the experiment is conducted.

On the radio this morning I heard a discussion with a Scottish doctor who has apparently—I am delighted to hear it—been successful in rebuilding the heart of a very young child. He said that it was the first success after seven failures. When challenged on the ethics of his action, he said that it was his duty to give viable life to that child and that that was his sole purpose in carrying out that treatment. I can accept that, but I cannot accept the conducting of experiments on human beings in the full glare of television and radio publicity—experiments in which the media seem almost to take a ghoulish delight. I suppose that the media are entitled to report what is happening, but I believe that sensitivity has been completely lacking in reports of such experiments, one of which has been referred to today. If, despite an attempt to save his life, it becomes clear that a person is not going to live, he should at least be allowed to die with dignity, even if he is a very young child.

I know that some of my colleagues wish to take part in the debate, and I hope that my brevity will not be taken as a sign that my feelings are less deep than those of some other hon. Members. I appeal to the Government to take on board the fact that there is great concern about the matters that I have mentioned, and especially about the fact that surrogate motherhood could become a booming business before action was taken. Even if it is only a holding operation, we should legislate on the matter in the near future. I appeal again for a free vote in the House on what is an important matter of personal conscience.

Today's debate is possibly one of the most important that we shall have this Session. It concerns our attitude to human life. I have no doubt that members of the Warnock committee worked long and hard, but I regret that in many respects the report reveals an attitude to human life which can be described only as casual and which I find deeply offensive.

The language in the report illustrates my meaning. It contains references to a "storage authority" and the phrase "spare embryos" is used. They are spare only in the sense that human life has been created but is not needed in the quantity in which it has been created. At a time convenient to the earthly deities who created it, it can be disposed of or put into storage for up to 10 years until someone finds a use for it.

The report strives to find a justification for experiments on embryos. The distinction made between so-called "spares" and the creation of embryos for the specific purpose of experimentation is bogus, as is the notion that there is some magic about the 14-day limit. Other hon. Members have dealt with that and I shall not repeat their arguments, with which I agree.

I see no moral distinction between the use of a so-called spare and the creation of an embryo specifically for experimentation. I see no moral distinction between allowing experiments up to 14 days and not thereafter, whether it is up to 40 days or two months. Like many other hon. Members, I believe that the only starting point for human life is the point of conception. I am not a scientist and I do not pretend to have a deep understanding of the technicalities, but as a layman I have heard no argument that convinces me that any other starting point or unique point exists in the creation and development of the human being other than the point of conception. One's views follow logically from that.

The reaction of the House and the Government to the report is clear. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) said, there is urgent need for legislation to outlaw any experimentation on human embryos and to provide full protection for all human embryos.

The common thread of the debate concerns morality. We cannot say that it is not up to us to pass judgments on morality, because that is exactly why we are here. Whether the condition of the people is best elevated by Socialism or Conservatism is a matter for infinite debate, but the fact that the elevation of the people is a noble end in itself is beyond debate.

The hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) described eloquently the misery caused by childlessness. He asked by what moral right we should deny the technology that would relieve that condition. We all want that condition to be relieved, but if it is relieved by killing human life at whatever stage in its development it cannot be correct.

I concede that to create a being in vitro and to place it back in the womb of a woman who wishes to conceive it through her husband in wedlock is permissible. However, when a string of embryos is produced with the hope of producing the same result and, as the hon. Member for Torfaen said, the best one is chosen and the rest are disposed of—presumably they go down the plughole— that seems to be the language of the master race. I do not wish to cause offence by saying that I was surprised to hear that language from that source.

We must address ourselves straightforwardly to the question of when human life begins. It says something about the Warnock committee that every time it comes up against a hard problem it tries to split the difference. It is a classical and elegant example of squaring a circle every time one is found. The best example is to be found in paragraph 11.19, which states:

"there is no particular part of the developmental process that is more important than another…Thus biologically there is no one single identifiable stage in the development of the embryo beyond which the in vitro embryo should not be kept alive."

That is true enough as far as it goes, but there is a stage which precedes the developmental process, which positively initiates it, which is fertilisation. Fertilisation as an exercise in science, logic and morality is obviously a unique event. If that is the point at which human life starts, I cannot understand how we can justify experimenting on embryos, whether they are byproducts or whether they are created for that purpose.

The impression is gained from reading the Warnock report that if a woman wants to conceive she should be allowed to do so, that that is fine and that we should produce spare embryos. Again, it is suggested, in effect, that if it is a good idea to investigate genetic disorders, we should start experimenting on spares. When we finish with them, presumably they can be flushed down the lavatory or put down the plughole, it matters not. In short, every time we conceive of an idea which is good in itself, we can forget completely about morality. I find that approach repugnant and I hope that it will not form the basis of any legislation.

There are two other examples that I can give to the House where the Warnock committee has decided to split the difference. First, there is the example of the child who was born by AID. Such a child is not to be entitled to know his ancestry but an adopted child is so entitled. What is the reason for that in logic and morality? Perhaps it is a matter for the AID child that flowers in the refrigerator on father's day will have to be consolation enough.

It is beyond belief that I can pick up the Warnock report and find that the committee disapproves of the process whereby the semen of a dying or dead husband, who might have given a donation of his own semen before he underwent radiation treatment for a cancer from which he subsequently died, is disapproved of, yet the possibility cannot be ruled out that a lesbian couple might decide to go in for parenthood and receive the anonymous donation of someone who, for all we know, might have fallen down the steps and broken his neck on the way out of the hospital after giving the donation.

The trouble with the Warnock report is that it has so frantically tried to find consensus that in the end it has compromised on principle. I like to think that the House will have no part in that.

In spite of the stature of its members and the clarity and brevity of its prose, the Warnock committee seems not to have addressed itself to the central question, which is the nature and status of the human foetus. Paragraph 11.9 of the report states:

"Instead of trying to answer these questions directly we have therefore gone straight to the question of how it is right to treat the human embryo."

The committee dodged the moral issue because of the difficulties. However, Parliament cannot dodge that issue. We are at a watershed and I agree with the hon. Member who said that the three most recent cataclysmic events have been nuclear fission, landing a man on the moon and the subject of this debate. So great has been the advance in recent years and so rapidly is the research programme moving that the law must come into play quickly. That was the point behind my intervention in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Speed is of the essence and action must be taken by the Government. It cannot be left to private Members' legislation.

The key question in this incredibly difficult matter is when life begins. No amount of jargon and no number of legal treatises can save each one of us from having to make our own judgment. The hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) has made his judgment; we must all make our own judgments. Nobody can get out of it.

The legal aspect was dealt with in another place by Lord Denning, who said:

"I would suggest that the only logical point at which the law could start is that the child, the human being, starts at the moment of conception and fertilisation."

He added:

"I would hope the judges would hold that from that moment there is a living, human being which is entitled to protection just as much as the law protects a child."— [Official Report, House of Lords, 31 October [984; Vol. 456, c. 542.]

Leaving aside religious teaching—although that is important for me— the position outlined by Lord Denning is the only logical position. That has been accepted in recent decisions, including the decision in the thalidomide case. The abortion legislation, which many of us think is imperfect, has also made the point that the child is worthy of protection at all stages.

I do not see how anyone can maintain that somewhere between conception and birth, the embryo—that is a horrid term— becomes a human being. I take the unequivocal view that human life begins at conception. I thought that that was also the Christian view, but it seems that the ecclesiastical trumpet is giving forth a somewhat uncertain sound.

The Warnock report concentrates on the problems of infertility. Everyone sympathises with couples who wish to have children but cannot. This is an emotive subject, but it is dangerous to allow our desire to help such people to further processes that are morally and socially wrong. I have no hesitation in accepting IVF when only a husband and wife are involved and when the fertilised egg will be implanted in the mother. However, I cannot go beyond that; surrogacy, AID, freezing and the rest are repugnant. Research is especially repugnant, because so much of it is irreversible. Once experiments get into what is technically known as the gene pool, there is no way of drawing back.

I greatly admire the medical profession, but it loves to play God while not wanting the responsibilities of being God. It is significant that we are discussing this matter in 1984. I read the report with a growing sense of dread which culminated when I read the appalling term "storage authority". Really! This is indeed the brave new world.

We have reached a watershed and Parliament has a heavy responsibility. We must act quickly and decisively before terrible changes overtake us.

The report is tailor-made for anyone who wants the embryo as a guinea pig. I recently presented a petition to the House on behalf of 2,200 of my constituents who were unanimous in their condemnation of experiments with human embryos. They considered that there was no respect for the humanity of the embryo.

We know from the Warnock report that there is no definition of the status of an embryo. For the first 14 days, a scientist might consider it to be an interesting cluster of cells, ready to be viewed under a microscope, to satisfy the whims of scientists. Yet on the 15th day, it becomes a legal entity. That is entirely wrong. As Lord Denning said in another place, the legal rights of the unborn should begin from conception. He hoped that judges would consider that, from then onwards, the embryo would be entitled to protection by the law just as much as the law protects a child. Indeed, there should be no difference because an embryo is a living being.

The whole report appears to be void of sound legal advice. Many people are listed as taking part in the committee, but there are no legal definitions in the report. It simply suggests that an embryo is not the same as a human being— and I cannot agree with that. There should be protection from the time of conception because a living being is being created. It should be protected through birth and into adult life. The attitude towards human life shown in the report is ethically unsound. No one should be allowed to tamper at any time with a human being.

Other countries researching into genetic disorders do not carry out research on human embryos, so why should Britain? We have heard about Down's syndrome, but know very well that experiments abroad do not use embryos—so why should we? Doctors will be given the right to use in vitro fertilisation to create and select more embryos. That right will allow them to play around with more eggs than are necessary for the mother's womb. Such experimentation is disconcerting. When any poor or abnormal developments are found in an embryo, it will be chucked out. That is sick. I do not see why anyone should have the right to do that. I recognise that they want the perfect embryo, but what gives them the right to judge?

The Church's view is clear that the destruction of any human embryo is the killing of a human life. Some human embryos may be frozen for 10 years. We do not know the effects of 10 years in a deep freeze—will the embryos be good or bad? They could be storing a disease or deformity for future generations that may corrupt the world.

Louise Brown was a success as a test tube baby, but we must remember that she will always be an experiment. Mixing the inter-species fertilisation with humans and animals is disgusting. A human mixed with a hamster seems ridiculous. As we see in paragraph 12(3), human sperm may fertilise hamsters' eggs, but I do not think that that is right. It cannot further research. The committee did not address itself properly to research. We do not need such research. The only people interested in that sort of creation are those who satisfy themselves by going to a fairground stall to see such creations. It is not right and should not be allowed.

I ask my right hon. Friend to define legally the entity of the human embryo. It could be sold, frozen and experimented upon. What chance has it— and it is a living body of a human being—if it is damaged because it is frozen? In 10 years a child might be born in a terrible state. Is that really fair?

Infertility is obviously of great concern to many of us. I am one of the young Members of Parliament, and I do not yet have children. I appreciate that some people will have trouble in trying to have children. I am not heartless—I think that they should have fertility treatment. But I would advocate artificial insemination only by the husband, not by anyone else. If we go the other way we go down a dangerous road and give preferential rights to what I would call illegitimate embryos. They become real children, muck up the law of inheritance and disrupt the whole position even over ethnic strains. There are problems because clones could be created, as we saw in the film "The Boys from Brazil". Do we want that to happen here?

Surrogate motherhood—womb leasing—is not on. It should be outlawed, and most hon. Members appear to agree. Any contract that is made between the surrogate mother and the husband of the childless couple could turn out to be very difficult in practice. I cannot see how it could be enforced: for example, I ask for a white baby but instead I receive a black one. Is that a breach of contract?

Who wants multiple fertilisation? With 75 per cent. of the public opposed to the production of human embryos for research and experimentation we parliamentarians have a responsibility for future generations. Experimentation on embryos is unnecessary and presents a serious threat to mankind. I urge my right hon. Friend to consider this very carefully.

We face some very difficult choices, and some hon. Members have displayed a remarkable confidence in their command of ethics and morality to which I and many other hon. Members could not aspire. We more humble souls, confronted with these dilemmas, must wrestle with the conflicting arguments and our consciences as honestly and humbly as we can.

To this task I bring no special skills. All I can do is to draw on my own limited experience, illuminated, or possibly blurred, by my own ethical and political convictions. I have also consulted as widely as I have been able over the past few months and, because I am a man, I have tried particularly to seek the views of women.

My principal relevant human experience of what we are discussing is that I am married. My wife and I chose to have children and, fortunately for us, no powers beyond control—God, nature or providence—stood in our way. We now have three healthy children. Whatever may happen in the future to us or to them, their births were a source of the most profound joy, fulfilment and wonder to their mother and to me. Trying to bring them up is a more mixed blessing, but so far the joys and rewards outweigh the worries and difficulties.

It is part of my political creed that I want for everyone the opportunity to share in the privileges, pleasures and satisfactions which have been made available to me. But at present infertility denies the joy of childbirth to as many as one in 10 couples who wish to have children. This denial is no petty irritation. It can cause great suffering, sour the most loving relationships, embitter the happiest of people and make others vulnerable to the quacks who batten on human misery. We owe it to our fellow citizens, both men and women, to do all that we can to help those who wish to have children.

At present we do little. We do not know how many people are getting advice or treatment for infertility. We do not even have a firm national figure of how many people are infertile. We know that infertility has a low priority in our medical affairs. Family planning clinics are often most vulnerable to cuts when health authorities are looking for economies. Hospital waiting lists for gynaecological treatment at present total nearly 100,000 women.

Infertility of both women and men can be affected by poor general health, bad living conditions and poor diet. We know—or we ought to know—that much infertility results from hazards encountered at work, yet no systematic national campaign has been mounted to identify and eliminate such hazards to reproductive health. This has been left to the valiant efforts of campaigning groups, predominantly women's groups, and also to the TUC and individual trade unions.

The General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trades Union produced an excellent document for its members, listing the processes and substances that may be hazardous to the reproductive health of either sex. That one leaflet puts to shame the efforts, or lack of effort, of successive Governments in this sphere.

I believe that whatever happens with Warnock today, or in the future, we should decide now that our national duty is to mount a campaign to ensure that we have a healthier society generally and, as part of that healthier society, that avoidable infertility is ended. It is in that context that we should look at the high technology end of the spectrum dealing with human infertility on which the Warnock report concentrated.

We are provided with opportunities for alleviating the miseries and problems that infertility inflicts on individuals and society and, at the same time, letting loose upon society the forces that could do more harm than good. I cannot help feeling that Mary Shelley's spectre of Dr. Frankenstein's monster impinges heavily on our subconscious when we address ourselves to the problem of embryology, causing a fear of and revulsion against the possible products of the ruthless pursuit of knowledge for its own sake or the application of medical techniques to create monsters or superhumans. We should rightly be on our guard, and, as lay people, state that we have a right to a say in these matters; that they should not be left to a self-selected, scientific, predominantly male, elite.

That said, I must say that I support the use of in vitro fertilisation for people to whom it can give the chance to have children. Having accepted that, we face practical dilemmas. Everyone who says that he accepts IVF faces those same practical dilemmas. Medical techniques at present produce more eggs and embryos than are needed for implantation in the mother. To use the material not needed for implantation to seek to improve the success rate of IVF and the prospects of combating infertility and genetic malformations is acceptable, subject to certain safeguards. They include the consent of the women concerned and the most rigorous outside scrutiny and regulation. Logically, I must accept experiments on eggs freely donated by women who have them removed during sterilisation or other medical treatment. Therefore, I broadly support the Warnock report's proposals for controlling experimentation. However, I have considerable reservations about the extension of those controls to cover artificial insemination by husband or by donor.

Surrogate motherhood is another point that arises from the advance of fertilisation techniques. I feel that Warnock goes too far in seeking to outlaw it altogether. In certain circumstances, it seems to me that surrogacy for love can offer help to people who might not otherwise obtain it. As the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Ward) pointed out, surrogacy has gone on for centuries and is going on now. That is surrogacy for love. Surrogacy for money is a different matter. I, and I think every hon. Member, utterly reject the alien concept of womb leasing— the exploitation of human misery for gain— which has developed in the United States. I cannot understand why some people are so surprised by its development in the United States, because a society where human blood arid human tissue are bought and sold every day is not likely to jib at womb leasing. These ethically unacceptable practices inevitably arise from having a commercial system of medicine. Unlike Warnock, I believe, for those reasons, that we should outlaw the purchase or sale of sperm, eggs or embryos.

That brings me to another aspect touched upon in this debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse). Our infertility services should be supplied by and within the National Health Service to everyone who needs them. That is the only way they will be available to everyone, regardless of wealth. The way in which some of the pioneers of in vitro fertilisation made their reputation in the National Health Service, at the Oldham general hospital and the Royal Free hospital, and then did a bunk into the private sector to the Bourne Hall clinic and the Cromwell hospital disturbed me greatly. It must be recognised that their actions contributed to the doubt that many people have about the capacity of doctors to reach ethical decisions in this particularly difficult sphere.

Hon. Members have mentioned many issues today, and I do not have much time left to comment upon them. My view is that to some extent the proposals in the Warnock report would give too much power to doctors to make decisions when many of those decisions could be left to women. Doctors should not be able to determine which women will have fertilisation techniques made available to them. Therefore, we must all carefully consider every aspect of the report.

One aspect that does not appeal to me is the prospect of sex selection. To permit or encourage sex selection solely because people would prefer a boy or a girl is something that we should resist as strongly as we can.

I welcome the opportunity given by the report and the debate to discuss the matter. I feel, however, that some hon. Members have come to the debate with strongly formed ideas. I suppose that [have contributed one or two myself, but on the problem of working out and wrangling our way through to a morally satisfactory solution to these dilemmas, we shall have to continue to listen to one another and be prepared to modify our views. If we study the evidence given to the Warnock committee, we will observe that some of the organisations that gave evidence have, since the committee reported, changed their views. That is to be welcomed in this difficult sphere.

We are all seeking a way through. I am a fan of one of the most well-known people to have ever occupied the House of Commons—Oliver Cromwell—who, in one of his less acerbic moods, said:

"To be a seeker is to be of the best sect after that of a finder—and so shall all humble seekers be in the end."

I hope that we shall find our way through to a satisfactory solution. We shall only do so if we genuinely seek it and do not thrust our preconceived opinions down people's throats.

This is the first time that I can recall in many years of debating against the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) when I have risen to my feet to find that I agree entirely with his peroration, but indeed I do today. That rather sums up the mood of the debate.

In a week during which people have been debating the status and standing of Parliament, today the general public have been looking to us to give some leadership and guidance through a moral maze that faces us as we realise that scientific and medical advances have thrown up new problems for our law and the whole system of ethics, with which we must grapple urgently and reach a decision.

It is already clear that there will be a wide range of opinion across the Floor of the House, as there is outside, regardless of the ordinary party affiliations. There will be some strange alliances and strange disagreements before the many debates are over.

The role of Front Benchers, as has been said on both sides of the House, is sometimes to express personal opinions, but if I express personal opinions they will be almost by accident because it seems to me that the Government's role is to assist Parliament and the public in to reaching conclusions on these issues as quickly as possible and then to facilitate them. The Government's main contribution so far has been the report and this debate.

It was in July 1982—somewhat later than the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) would have wished, but ahead of most of the public controversy and concern—that my right hon. Friend set up the committee. The report has been produced remarkably quickly, given the task that we set Dame Mary Warnock and her colleagues. Today's debate is an important step in the consultation and consideration of action that has to follow upon the publication of the report.

I should like to defend Dame Mary Warnock and her colleagues against some of the criticisms which have been made of them. I do not think that any hon. Members intended to attack them but at times moral fervour carried one or two of my hon. Friends into an apparent dismissal of the report.

I do not think that we should assume that the members of the committee had preconceived opinions or came from the same background or that they found their task an easy one. In the foreword the committee pointed out that the reality of its position was that the personal feelings and reactions of its members were as diverse as those presented in the evidence to them. The membership of the committee comprised every range of opinion, and it is remarkable that the committee came so near to unanimity on so many difficult issues. As paragraph 3 of the foreword states:

"Whatever our original feelings and reactions, we have all found that our feelings changed and were modified as work progressed and as we examined the evidence in more detail."

My right hon. Friend and I have been immersed in the subject for longer than some hon. Members but not as long as others who have spoken today. I share the feelings of the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen). Like anyone else in politics, I long ago had to clarify my thoughts on issues such as abortion, and I thought that I would be able to clarify rapidly where I stood on all the issues in the report, but that has not been the case. My views are not only becoming modified; I am finding greater difficulty in arriving at certainty on some of the issues than I at first expected. Probably most other hon. Members have had the same experience. That leads to the consideration of how far we have to strive to reach the maximum agreement that will enable us to carry with us as many right-thinking members of society of all views as we can in putting together legislation or any other guidance.

The achievement of the Warnock committee was that it was able, even with its diverse views, to put together laboriously a report which could be put to the public. Inevitably, this House has gone in the opposite direction. In the debate, most hon. Members have shown strong feelings of considerable depth and tended to advocate their own feelings. In a sense, they have taken apart the agreement reached in the report. Indeed, many hon. Members have denounced the conclusions of the report. As we take the matter further, we shall have to strive to get nearer to some consensus, so that we can establish guidance and protection for members of the public.

rose—

I apologise to my hon. Friend for not giving way, but I have very little time.

We live in a pluralist society. Therefore, no individual ever finds that all the laws and professional rules entirely coincide with his own opinions. What is needed here is a set of laws and rules which the right-minded majority of society will accept, given that we approach the problem with tolerance of the range of views and life styles in a country such as our own.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mrs. McCurley), I envy those who have come to the debate with firm religious or other opinions. I also understand that for them it is difficult to accept other points of view. I am sure that there are laws in this country that they would rather not have, but that they realise they must accept them in a society such as ours.

It was the problems of infertile mothers or the infertility of some women that led doctors and scientists into the area initially. A range of views were expressed. I listened to the vehement campaigning of the hon. Member for Torfaen and to the almost equally strong support of the rights of parents put forward by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) and, again, the hon. Member for Leyton.

No one can take too simple a view about the problems of infertility, and no hon. Member did. It is no good saying that childless couples can adopt children, because that ignores the profound emotional problems of those who suffer from infertility. However, with respect to the hon. Member for Torfaen, it is not enough to say that the European Convention on Human Rights says that one has a right to found a family. He did not say it, but it could be deduced from his statement that almost any means of achieving that end would be tolerable. I prefer the compassion expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde and by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) to the crusading verve of the hon. Member for Torfaen.

To take the simplest case, there are couples who are biologically capable of reproducing themselves and their genes, but who need some medical assistance or intervention to enable them to do so. Few would say that any medical intervention to produce a child is unnatural or wrong, although the Warnock committee discovered one or two who did. But once we accept that there is a facility to help someone to have a child with whom she has a genetic connection, the next question to ask is, within what bounds should that person and those who assist her be kept? That must be decided by society, and I agree with my hon. Friends who said that the child's interests must also be considered. Indeed, it could be argued, as the Warnock report did, that the child's interests should be paramount.

I hoped that there would be at least one simple issue in the debate, and the general view seemed to emerge that commercial surrogacy is an unattractive possibility looming on the horizon. If it is decided that legislation on that subject is required, I am not sure whether the drafting of the legislation would be as simple as some might imagine. It may be difficult to decide who has committed what offence in what circumstances. Many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson) and the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), had reservations about unpaid surrogacy in the exceptional circumstances where a couple are capable of having a child, but the wife cannot bear one, and a sister or another surrogate offers to bear the child for her. I have no clear views on that matter, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde that it would be useful to keep in mind the primacy of the interests of children, bearing in mind everything that might go wrong in the process, even if it is carried out among three people who know each other and who have the best intentions.

I have left to the last three minutes, probably fortunately for me, the most controversial issue, which is the use of human embryos not only to help fertilisation techniques and to assist infertile couples, but for the purpose of research. As the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras said, if we allow in vitro fertilisation, present techniques will automatically produce surplus embryos. Therefore, doctors must decide what to do with those embryos, which poses many dilemmas.

I hope that I do not run the risk of sounding patronising if I say that, as someone who has listened to the entire debate, I thought there was a tendency for those on each side to parody the views of those with whom they disagreed. No one said that the end justifies the means or that the demands of medical research and science are paramount. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) said, no one is entitled to end human life in the interests of medical research, and that has not been contemplated.

However, it is impossible to sweep aside the anxieties expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham), who said that research on spare embryos could be extremely significant in treating handicapped children, such as those with Down's syndrome. A problem with science is that one can never be certain. A scientist can never tell what he will discover. Partly, he is going in to areas that he does not know, and we have to have rules.

On the other hand, nobody is saying that a human embryo is just another example of human tissue. Whether we all agree with the view of the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) that it is a human being, and that is the end of it, and whether we give it all the rights that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) so passionately set out, with what he regards as full protection, or whether we do not find it so easy to agree with them, we all agree that we should treat it with respect and that it is not just another sample. Therefore, one has to decide to what extent it is legitimate to carry out research upon it while treating it with respect, and whether bounds can be set within which research can properly be tolerated. Those bounds cannot just be left to the medical and scientific establishment, and that was the view of every hon. Member who spoke.

I wish to raise the issue of the most deplorable figures for unemployment that Lambeth has known, and to condemn the Government, who are the author of that catastrophe.

If anybody wishes to study the consequences of free market economics, monetarism and what I am sure that the Minister would be proud to call the capitalist system, he needs only to walk about 100 m from the mother of Parliaments to begin his course in the London borough of Lambeth. Lambeth stands on the doorstep of one of the richest capital cities in the world, yet it has been reduced to a wretched state of poverty and despair. From time to time that has led to individual and sometimes collective violence. Everybody knows that we had an outbreak of riots in Brixton in 1981. We all know that Lord Scarman found that one of the contributory causes to and one of the background reasons for that mass and expensive outbreak of violence was the social conditions of Lambeth. However, since the Brixton riots in 1981, unemployment has gone up by 50 per cent. The position is deplorable.

Numerically, Lambeth has the greatest male unemployment, the greatest single female unemployment, the highest total of all-round female unemployment and the greatest single total unemployment in London. If we look at the categories in terms of percentages, we have the third highest level of unemployment of males, of single females and of totals throughout the Greater London region. In October, the official figure for the number of unemployed in Lambeth was 24,847 people, on Manpower Services Commission statistics. That is an increase of approaching 400 per cent. since the Government took office in 1979. It means that of the population, from babies to pensioners who are wondering whether their local post office will be closed, only one in 10 works as a percentage of those who are what is called economically active.

That figure of 24,847 unemployed is only the official statistic which has come about after the Government changed the method of collecting unemployment statistics about a year ago. The unofficial figure is higher and more likely to be accurate, and is calculated by the employment division of the town planning department of Lambeth borough council. It is more accurate because the statistics take into account those who fail to appear on the official statistics because they do not claim unemployment benefit. Those figures, taking into account those who are in reality unemployed but who are not registering for benefit, give an unemployment total of 27,583 people—8 per cent. up on unemployment in October 1983.

These figures are unofficial, but they do not lack credibility. If one translates them into levels of unemployment for men and women, they give us a rate of unemployment for males in Lambeth of 25·4 per cent. That means that more than one man in four is out of a job in my borough. For women, the figure is 15 per cent. That percentage rate of unemployment in Lambeth is almost exactly twice as high as the overall rate of unemployment throughout London, and 50 per cent. higher than the national rate of unemployment.

Lambeth is especially raw and vulnerable. Yet what contribution do we get from the Government? Yesterday they proposed to abolish one of our biggest employers, the GLC, which is one of the greatest providers of employment in its own right as a county authority as well as being responsible for the provision of leisure facilities on the South Bank, which is part of my borough, although not part of my constituency.

The memorandum to the Bill introduced by the Government proposes that one effect of abolition would be 8,000 redundancies. I accept that they will not all occur in Greater London or in my borough, but under the Bill a substantial part of the Government's programme for London involves the creation of redundancies.

The overall figures that I have given are bad enough—they are appalling—but the figures for the young unemployed in Lambeth are catastrophic. I would not have believed the figures and would have thought that they were someone's black propaganda if I had not seen them for myself in the publication of the MSC.

The number of full-time education school leavers now unemployed in Lambeth is 3,562. At least, that is the number of those claiming benefit. I shall put that into context.

Recently my local education office, told me that in Lambeth about 2,000 children a year left our schools to seek employment on the labour market. But the figure for unemployed full-time school leavers is 3,562. In other words, it is almost twice as high as the yearly total of people leaving school to seek employment, despite the fact that 926. school leavers in the constituency are on the youth training scheme. The figures would amount to about two and a half years supply of school leavers in the borough if it were not for the youth training scheme.

The figures are a catastrophe and even underestimate the dimensions of unemployment. A good many people, even young people, do not register for benefits and so do not appear in the figures. Those catastrophic—it is not too strong a word—figures also disguise the fact that about two out of three black school leavers in my borough are likely to be unemployed. I cannot be sure of the exact figures, because for the past two years the Government have ceased to collect them on ethnic unemployment, but going back to the position in about 1982 I should say that it is likely that about one in two white school leavers and two out of three black school leavers are unemployed.

The Government's response is only 583 vacancies for about 27,000 people looking for jobs. Between March 1983 and March 1984 there was a 50 per cent. rise in the number of those aged 20 years or under who are unemployed. During that time young male unemployment rose by 84 per cent. But there is yet another facet of the despair, disillusion, poverty and deep sense of grievance that the situation creates. I refer to the duration of unemployment. The unemployed of Lambeth are not browsing round the labour market deciding whether they want jobs and changing from one job to another, but are in a sort of economic detention camp.

In July 1984, 9,500 of Lambeth's unemployed, or 41 per cent. of the total number unemployed, had been out of a job for 12 months or more. Another 4,500, or 20 per cent. of the total, of those officially unemployed, had been out of a job for more than six months. From my experience as a Minister in the Department of Employment I know, as the minister will know, that the longer someone is unemployed the more chance they have of remaining unemployed. That has two further effects. It adds to the sense of grievance, rejection and hopelessness among young people and most certainly adds to the anger of the older unemployed who find that when their unemployment benefit runs out after 312 days their life savings— particularly if those people are in their fifties and sixties and have been thrifty enough to save some money—will begin to run out. They are denied unemployment benefit and are subject simply to the social security payment rule. Thus the life savings that they have put away for their retirement begin to run out because they have to support themselves in that atrocious situation. I blame the Government. One could not say that the people of Lambeth have priced themselves out of the labour market. There are 95,000 households in my borough and 51,000 of them receive rate rebates. Many of the householders who receive rate rebates are working people. One cannot say, therefore, that wages are too high.

One could not say that there are too many strikes in Lambeth. I do not think that anyone in Lambeth has heard of a strike, except perhaps a one-day strike. One cannot say that the problem is caused by inflation, because it is true that the rate of inflation has fallen from about 10 per cent. to about 5 per cent. over the past three years. One cannot say that the state of the pound is to blame—that our goods are overpriced in overseas markets or our services overpriced for foreign visitors. On the contrary, the pound has fallen in value. One cannot say that there is a shortage of capital. From Lambeth one can see the City of London, where billions of pounds are pumped not into our inner city areas but into foreign investment.

One cannot, therefore, blame the people of Lambeth for creating the unemployment. One cannot accuse them either of not making a contribution. The Government have doubled their rates. They are paying much more money in that way. The Government have also doubled VAT. The people of Lambeth are not failing to contribute by way of taxes. The Government have taken away the earnings-related supplement for unemployment benefit and cut the rate support grant by £140 million over the past five years. The Government have cut housing benefit, so the people of Lambeth are contributing more in that way, too. The Government have closed some of their hospitals, brought about compulsory sackings at St. Thomas's and King's College hospitals, and cut services at those hospitals. One cannot accuse the people of Lambeth of not contributing to the general good through additional burdens of taxation in its various forms.

There should be no lack of demand for labour. There are over 25,000 people on the housing waiting list in Lambeth. In London as a whole there are 235,000 people on housing waiting lists, and nearly 40,000 a year are described as homeless. Houses in London, as in the rest of the United Kingdom, are deteriorating faster than they are being repaired or replaced. Private tenants, local authority tenants and owner-occupiers share the same problems of deteriorating premises and inadequate grants. The Government cannot say that there is no demand for the labour of the people in my borough.

One body has made a positive and specific contribution towards dealing with unemployment in my borough—the GLC's Greater London Enterprise Board. The Government's response to that contribution is to abolish the GLC. I have here a list of the schemes which GLEB currently has in hand. They are for the most part ethnically led. That means that they are to deal with some of to worst areas of unemployment in the borough. Ten small business schemes will create about 55 jobs. In the middle of my constituency, in Milkwood road, GLEB is developing five acres of land for industrial purposes. One hundred and thirty four jobs will be created and the construction work will occupy 65 job years.

Throughout the borough of Lambeth the Greater London training board, again assisted by the GLC and the London borough of Lambeth, is providing various forms of training in order to give people access to jobs. Neither the GLC nor the borough is in any way unwilling to try to stem the appalling tide of unemployment, hopelessness and despair, and the consequent social instability.

Unemployment is not an issue for the unemployed alone; it affects the whole community. I can see what is happening around me. the community is falling apart as a result of the scandalous effects of Government economic policy in a borough which is not distant and which is not suffering from the structural decline of traditional industries. The borough is on the doorstep of Parliament, but it is subjected to massive unemployment, massive poverty and deprivation.

I do not know what the Minister can say which will bring us any hope, but I make no apology for raising the subject, which is in the forefront of the mind of anybody who is interested in society, the community or politics in Lambeth.

I fully accept the seriousness of the unemployment problem in Lambeth, just as I accept the sincerity of the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) in raising the matter. Some of his language was intemperate and some of his accusations were unwarranted, but that does not diminish the concern which he obviously feels about the subject. The hon. Gentleman described in graphic detail the frustration and hardship suffered by many of his constituents. I shall try to answer as many of his comments as possible. I shall refer to my colleagues in other Departments the issues that fall outside my responsibility, such as his curious accusation that the Government have caused the compulsory sacking of 30 people at St. Thomas's hospital. A reply to that charge will be sent by my colleagues at the DHSS.

I shall preface my answer with some general remarks about unemployment because these truths are, alas, universal and affect Lambeth as much as any other part of the kingdom.

Unemployment is the most serious problem facing not only this Government but Governments throughout the industrialised world—although we have suffered more than most. Unemployment in the United Kingdom has been rising for the last 20 years. It was rising sharply in Lambeth— and everywhere else— when the hon. Member was a Minister in the Department of Employment nearly nine years ago.

The root causes of unemployment are obvious. Our industries were overmanned, our workforce was undertrained, we were slow to change and slow to adapt to new technology, we paid ourselves more than we should have done and we became steadily less competitive. As a result, firms in Lambeth and elsewhere could not sell their goods. They closed down and shed jobs. People in Lambeth with jobs outside the borough were thrown out of work for the same reason.

In addition, Lambeth has its own special problems, as the hon. Member explained. He said that unemployment had risen by 50 per cent. since the riots of 1981. It is not inconceivable that those two facts are related. The reluctance of industry and commerce to go to an area which has been so grievously afflicted by riots is understandable and creates a vicious circle. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues would do well to consider that.

This year I have taken over from my hon. Friend the Minister of State as my Department's representative on the Lambeth inner city partnership. I look forward to the next meeting on 19 December when I shall hear a great deal more about the problems.

In common with many other inner city areas, Lambeth has additional severe economic, environmental and social problems. It suffers from bad physical conditions, lack of suitable sites for large firms and an inability to attract new jobs.

The hon. Gentleman said that the Government had offered only 600 vacancies. The Government do not offer any vacancies. Vacancies are offered by private firms and establishments. They create permanent jobs and their expansion, if conditions are right, will continue to generate new jobs. It is not appropriate for the hon. Gentleman to blame only the Government for the special problems that affect Lambeth or to look only to the Government to remedy them. None the less, because of the special problems we are providing substantial urban programme resources to the area through the inner city partnership. This year £13·5 million has been allocated, and a substantial proportion of this will be spent on schemes to stimulate the local economy and provide employment.

A wide range of schemes is being supported to promote the construction of new industrial units and the provision of refurbished workshop units. Units covering about 165,000 sq ft have been given the go ahead this year, using £3 million of urban programme money.

One example with which I am sure the hon. Gentleman is familiar is the development of five acres of former railway sidings at Milkwood road where infrastructure work is being carried out to encourage private sector investment, and industrial units are being constructed.

Another example is the conversion of the former Bon Marché department store into the Brixton enterprise centre, with over 130 workshops, offices and shops. It was £800,000 of urban programme money that allowed this £3 million development by BAT Industries to become established, and it will soon be providing up to 500 jobs. The centre opened last month. Most of the retail units have already been let and 80 new small firms have rented offices or workshops.

It is particularly encouraging, bearing in mind what the hon. Gentleman said about the high proportion of ethnic unemployment, that over half these firms are owned by young black people. I noticed that the success of the operation was highlighted in The Standard earlier this week.

The inner city partnership has, in addition, allocated £900,000 for loans and grants to businesses. In the first six months of 1984–85, 73 firms have been assisted, 55 of which were new businesses. As a result, 235 new jobs are likely to be created and 152 existing jobs preserved.

Lambeth Council's business advisory service has been funded in large part through urban programme funds. It currently has 300 clients and deals with 1,500 queries a year. This is another example of the Government providing the support when it is needed and where it is needed, in order to help businesses that will provide the jobs of the future. On top of this, another £1·2 million of urban programme money is being spent on evironmental works—a large proportion in industrial and commercial improvement areas—to make Lambeth a more attractive place for investors and shoppers. We have to remember, too, that with nearly £7 million of the inner city partnership allocation being capital resources, many jobs are created on building work during the implementation of the programme.

The Government's urban programme aid to Lambeth—I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give credit where it is due—is an example of the Government's concern and their commitment to regenerating the local economy. Lambeth is deriving particular benefit from my Department's special employment measures because of its high level of unemployment. Many of the measures are designed to protect the more vulnerable groups such as the young and the long-term unemployed. Over 500 people in the Lambeth area are benefiting from the community programme and nearly 600 from the job release scheme.

The main thing that the Government can do to help industry is to put the economy on a sound footing, and we have made considerable progress in doing that. The hon. Gentleman must allow me to put to him some figures that highlight that progress in a national perspective.

Before the miners' strike began to affect the figures, output was at its highest ever level—up 3 per cent. between 1982 and 1983. Growth in the United Kingdom in 1983 was the highest of all the European Community countries. The combination of that level of growth and inflation at 5 per cent. is the best since the 1960s.

Manufacturing investment is estimated to have risen by about 15 per cent. in the first half of this year.

Where from?

I am glad to see the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) in the Chamber.

Manufacturing investment is directed to places where investors believe that they will get the best return. That is why it is in the interests of the whole community that places to which it is desired to attract investment should present as attractive an appearance as possible.

rose—

I do not know whether it is in order for me to give way to the hon. Gentleman

Order. With the consent of the Minister and of the hon. Member who intiated the debate, the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) may intervene.

When I asked "where from?", I was asking from what base the percentage increase was calculated. I believe that manufacturing investment is 20 per cent. down on 1979 levels.

I will not intrude at short notice into the arcane subject of collecting statistics, but I will try to make sure that the hon. Member is appraised of the dates from which the figure was drawn.

The hon. Member for Norwood mentioned vacancies. Over the country as a whole, we have seen a steady rise in vacancies, to their highest level for four and a half years. The hon. Gentleman said that the number of unfilled vacancies in Lambeth was disappointingly low, but in October it was up by more than 40 per cent. on a year ago. Between April and October, the employment service placed more than 8,000 people in employment in the Lambeth area—20 per cent. more than in the same period last year—and many more will have found jobs by other means.

We have stopped the haemorrhage of job losses throughout the country. Whereas 1·5 million jobs were lost between June 1979 and June 1983, 250,000 jobs have been created in the past year. However, there remains the burden of our existing level of unemployment. That is inevitably aggravated by the steady increase in the labour force, which has grown by 400,000 since 1979 and is still growing. That gives some idea of the scale of the problem. We have to run even to stand still.

I gather that Lambeth borough council has estimated that 60 per cent. of Lambeth firms employ fewer than five people. Against that background, I should mention the enterprise allowance scheme which, as the hon. Member for Norwood knows, is an incentive to unemployed people who are deterred from starting their own business by the potential loss of benefit. So far, 55,000 unemployed people throughout the country have been helped to set up in business.

The response to the scheme in south London has been encouraging. Since its introduction, about 550 unemployed people have taken advantage of this opportunity, and nearly 400 people are currently receiving the allowance. As my hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced recently, the numbers taken into the scheme have recently been increased and will be increased again in the spring of next year. I hope that the hon. Member for Norwood will suggest the scheme to those of his unemployed constituents who might feel able to consider it.

The small businesses in Lambeth have a tremendous employment potential. They are an essential part of the economy and an important source of new jobs. We aim to remove any unnecessary restraints on their growth.

We are improving access to funding through, for example, the business expansion scheme, which is increasing the flow of venture capital, and the loan guarantee scheme which helps those who are unable to secure backing from traditional sources. I hope that the hon. Member for Norwood will draw the attention of local business men to those schemes when he talks to them about their problems.

We are helping to increase the stock of suitable premises, including small factories and workshops, such as those in the Brixton enterprise centre, and we are extending the enterprise training capacity of the MSC.

No survey of our measures would be complete without mention of the youth training scheme. I was disappointed that the hon. Member for Norwood appeared to suggest that his constituents on YTS were in the same position as the unemployed. There is a great distinction. Those on a training scheme are adapting and making themselves more easily employable when they emerge from the training. More than 900 people in the Lambeth area are receiving training under the YTS and more than 1,500 places have been made available since April. The hon. Member mentioned the large number of school leavers in his area who do not have jobs. The whole House will find that figure shocking, but I wonder how many of those school leavers rejected of their own volition the idea of joining the YTS.

Almost half of those on youth training schemes are of ethnic minority origin. A large proportion have no qualifications and many have learning difficulties with English as a second language. Yet a recent survey of schemes—