The government was forced to act to introduce legislation to ban the cloning of humans after a High Court judgement in November 2001 ruled that the Human Fertilisation and Embroyology Act of 1990 did not outlaw cloning, as the wording of the act covered only "live human embryos where fertilisation is complete". Cell nuclear replacement clearly does not involve fertilisation.

The bill is very narrowly drawn - with only one main clause - that would ban the creation of another human individual using cloning techniques such as cell nuclear replacement.

This would leave courts with a "simple" question in determining if the law had been broken: How was the embryo created? If created by fertilisation, or "test tube", the embryo could be implanted into a woman under licence. If no fertilisation took place, no implantation can be carried out.

House of Lords

First reading: November 21 2001 HL Bill 27

Second reading: November 26 2001

Committee and remaining stages: November 26 2001

House of Commons

First reading: November 26 2001

All stages: November 29 2001

Royal Assent: December 4 2001