It is difficult to track the changes in the political culture of Britain, perhaps particularly difficult from an observation post in the House of Lords.

Twenty years ago, Margaret Thatcher was still in Downing Street and the hereditary peers were still Members of our House. Yet 20 years does not seem a very long time in which to judge the cultural changes of a nation; indeed, one can sometimes feel that little has changed in the forms or attitudes of the British Parliament.

I recently voted in the report stage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which is now causing such a disturbance in the House of Commons, with Cabinet ministers calling for a free vote and threatening to resign.

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This was my second Embryology Bill. The first was introduced by a Conservative government, was carried through both Houses on free votes, and became law in 1990. I have some memory of those debates in the House of Lords, in which there was broad agreement that cloning of an animal-human cell would be intolerable. The 1990 Act forbids it.

I listened with attention to the same debate on the 2008 Bill. Lord Alton of Liverpool made a very persuasive speech – at least it persuaded me – introducing a proposed amendment to outlaw animal-human cloning. I will not say that he was overwhelmed by the broadsides of scientific argument, because his own arguments stood up very well under fire, but the majority in the House of Lords was convinced that the scientists should get the Bill they wanted. As the Bill goes to the House of Commons, animal-human cloning is in, and the Alton amendment is out.

I remain unconvinced. It is true that the scientists are asking only for experimentation in the laboratory; there will be no animal-human embryos implanted in a human or animal mother, let alone taken to term. There will be nothing such as Ovid describes in one of the worst lines in Latin poetry: “Semibovemque virum, semivirumque bovem.” That means “A man, half ox, an ox, half man.” Yet I reflect on the changes of attitude between the 1990 Act and the 2008 Bill and fear they will not stop here.

One should make an allowance for the impact of removing the hereditary peers, they were the reserve troops of common sense. For some reason, the hereditaries had, in terms of history, bred back to their Tory roots. Hereditary Whigs, with the exception of the historian, Earl Russell, who sat on the Liberal Democrat benches, were few and far between. I suppose one should add the occasional Whig duke, such as the late Duke of Devonshire, the man who had the best manners in England.

The typical hereditary peer had some military experience – now rare in the House of Commons – also some farming experience, and was likely to regard himself or herself as a countryperson, though with a flat in town. They saw themselves not as politicians, though most took the Conservative whip, but as the sort of hereditary jury of the nation. Many of them were Anglican churchgoers.

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