The House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology has issued a critical report on the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the statutory body set up under the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act to regulate the use of human embryos for research on, and treatment of, infertility. As a result of additional Regulations to the Act passed at the end of 2001, the HFEA now also regulates embryo research carried out for other purposes such as the derivation of embryonic stem cells. While acknowledging the HFEA’s need for adequate funding, the Commons Committee questions the Authority’s assertion that its current budget should be doubled and expresses concern that the Government’s wish to see most HFEA funding come from licence fees might prejudice its objectivity in ruling on licence applications. At the same time, the Committee criticises the Authority for being slow and inefficient.
There is fundamental disagreement between the House of Commons Select Committee on the one hand, and the House of Lords Stem Cell Committee and the Government on the other, about the need for new legislation to cover new types of embryo research, and new treatments arising out of such research, that were not envisaged when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act was passed in 1990. The House of Lords Committee was set up to consider this question, among others, when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act regulations were passed by parliament. It reported in February 2002. Both the House of Lords Committee, and the Government in its recently published response, are satisfied that existing powers are consistent and adequate, but the House of Commons Committee thinks that new primary legislation is needed. It points to the legal challenge still ongoing against the use of the HFEA Act and Regulations to control research involving somatic cell nuclear replacement (also known as “therapeutic cloning”). It also takes issue with the HFEA’s recent decision to allow preimplantation genetic diagnosis with tissue matching, to enable a couple to avoid the birth of a child with beta-thalassaemia and at the same time select an embryo whose stem cells might be used to save an existing affected child. This decision of the HFEA is also currently the subject of legal challenge on the basis that it was ultra vires. The Commons Committee contends that the HFEA’s decision to allow PGD with tissue matching ran counter to the conclusions from its own public consultation about PGD, and it expresses the opinion that this issue is one that should be debated by parliament. It also makes the broader criticism that the HFEA has taken insufficient steps to involve the public in its work; in contrast, the Human Genetics Commission gets a much more favourable report from the Committee, which chides the Government for not funding the HGC adequately.