UK House of Lords reject bid to delay stem cell research

A bid to delay new laws legalising research on stem cells from human embryos has been defeated in the Lords.

Peers instead gave the go-ahead to new regulations allowing the research and for a committee to be set up later to look at the issues.

Crossbench peer Lord Alton of Liverpool's bid to delay the regulations until a select committee of peers had investigated the issue was rejected by 212 to 92, Government majority 120.

The Government successfully argued for the move, which could aid research into chronic illnesses like Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's, to go ahead.

The House decided to support without a vote a separate amendment backed by the Government from Lord Walton of Detchant, an eminent neurosurgeon, to allow the Order to go ahead, while the issue was debated by a select committee.

MPs have already backed the Order, which is due to come into force at the end of the month.

However, the decision followed tough opposition from religious leaders including the Archbishop of Canterbury to protest at the way the Government is changing the law to allow testing on stem cells derived from so-called therapeutic cloning of human embryos.

They sent an open letter to all peers ahead of the debate, urging them to stand fast against ministers and warning that "these complex questions deserve to be examined in far greater detail than a brief parliamentary debate on an unamendable order would permit".

Their plea was supported by Lord Alton who warned there was nothing therapeutic in the procedure for the new human embryo which, once it had been used, would be destroyed.

But junior health minister Lord Hunt cautioned the House against voting to delay research - a decision which would reject the view of the Commons.