3 Whitacre Mews, Stannary Street
London, SE11 4AB, United Kingdom
Telephone: (020) 7091 7091
Fax: (020) 7820 3131
Email: information@spuc.org.uk
Government suspected of second attempt to railroad human cloning vote
Westminster, 7 December 2000--It has been revealed by various sources close to Parliament that a vote on the Government's proposals to allow human cloning is most likely to be held on Wednesday 20th December. This follows today's announcement by the Leader of the House of Commons that an adjournment debate will be held on embryology tomorrow-week (Friday 15th December).John Smeaton, national director of SPUC, responded to this
revelation by saying: "The Government is clearly desperate to avoid
debate on this controversial issue. It has deliberately tabled, at
short notice, the token gesture of another adjournment debate, knowing
full well that most MPs are not even in London on Fridays. It is most
likely that MPs and peers will now have only have a few days' notice of
the vote on the Government's statutory instrument, despite Government
promises of a thorough, long-term debate on the issue."
Mr Smeaton added: "What is even more reprehensible is that the
proposals in the statutory instrument far exceed the recommendations of
the Donaldson report, yet MPs will be given hardly any time to consider
them. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act was enacted six years
after the Warnock report, yet this government can't even allow six
weeks to debate the destruction of countless human embryos.
"We would also like to know why the government's promised legislation banning reproductive cloning was left out of the Queen's speech. Is this another broken promise on human cloning? This absence heightens the widely-held fear that reproductive cloning is still on the agenda."
