Statement from Science and Technology Committee dissenting members

A rebel group of MPs from the Science and Technology Select Committee today issued a statement saying that the committee's official report on human reproductive technologies was "unbalanced, light on ethics, goes too far in the direction of deregulation and is too dismissive of public opinion and much of the evidence".

The five dissenting members - Paul Farrelly, Kate Hoey, Tony McWalter, Geraldine Smith and Bob Spink - said: "Had all of us been able to have been at the final session, sadly, as it stands, we would been forced to vote against adoption of the report.

"This report was always going to be controversial but to adopt an extreme libertarian approach from the start, on the basis that there was never going to be unanimity, was wrong. A thorough redrafting was needed, to put ethics and regulation back at the heart of all the conclusions, but this never happened."