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Department of Health

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We are, of course, talking about children, and about the circumstances in which couples, and in some cases single people, have access to help to become a parent. From my point of view, a gay couple who go through the process of surrogacy are capable, and in some circumstances entirely capable, of providing a long-term loving home for a child. If a lesbian couple or a single woman wish to have fertility treatment—rather than, for example, donor insemination—that is a perfectly acceptable way of proceeding. Personally—I emphasise that I speak entirely personally—I would prefer that, legislatively, we enabled children to be brought into the world to parents who want to give them a loving home, using the welfare of the child as a continuing measure, rather than trying to restrict that. Too few children are being brought into loving homes, and too many are being brought into unhappy homes where they are not loved and not looked after. The hon. Member for Norwich, North, who should take pride in ownership, with his Committee, of this report, said that he would rather take penalties in the last minute than go through this again. We would all prefer that, as he might succeed. He touched on the whole question of the HFEA’s role. I confess that I do not understand why the Committee concluded that the HFEA’s tasks of policy interpretation and of inspection and maintenance of standards are necessarily incompatible or subject to a conflict of interest. I think that its understanding of the role that fertility clinics play and of developments in technology—and its interface with clinical practitioners—are an essential part of informing policy. I accept his point that by dint of working with 1990 legislation the HFEA must increasingly make policy decisions that were not anticipated in 1990 and which legislators at the time would have expected to be brought back to Parliament for consideration. That is one of the reasons why we must have legislation, which I hope might establish a slightly more flexible structure that allowed Parliament to take more of the policy decisions, a decade or two hence, rather than leaving such matters entirely to the HFEA. In passing, as the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon spoke well of HFEA members, let me say that I have been impressed by their work in my dealings with them. I know that the Committee has had criticisms of them, not least in the past. I am grateful for the work that Dame Suzi Leather has done as chairman. She is now moving on, and although I do not necessarily agree with every one of her statements, I think that she has helped tremendously and tackled some difficult issues extremely well in a public context. My hon. Friends the Members for Salisbury (Robert Key) and for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) touched on the contest between scientific capability and the framework in which it should be exercised. I am not sure that I could ever help my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury with his question about what heaven might consist of, and I doubt that he was asking my advice on the subject. However, his comments about not stopping science are terribly important, and pre-implementation genetic diagnosis is a good example. We are clear that there are circumstances in which we would not want PGD to be used. For example, would we expect it to be used to try to eliminate a small increased risk of a certain disease later in life? No, I do not think so. In that area, however, the legislation will introduce not broad prohibitions, but a range of criteria, which will have to be determined over time and as science develops. That is one of the compelling reasons for having an interface between lay and scientific views. As the Committee made clear, however, that interface should not just take place in the HFEA but in a dialogue between the HFEA, the scientific and medical community and Parliament. It is important for that to dialogue to continue. To echo a point that was implied by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree’s comments, science may continue to change, but science does not drive ethics. As we have in part set out to do, we must make clear not just the ethical framework but the ethical standards that apply to this area of technology. Reproductive cloning is a good example. I cavil slightly at the argument that reproductive cloning technology might have changed in 20 years’ time, which of course it might—human reproductive cloning might even have been achieved in other parts of the world. However, I cannot for the life of me see why this country’s legislative framework should do anything other than say clearly that we are against it and that it will not happen here. I do not subscribe to the view that because science changes, our law must change. On some matters, we must be quite clear. The legislation will contain both broad prohibitions and sets of criteria in certain areas, and we must be clear about the distinction between the two. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) referred to clearer legislation on sex selection criteria, which is a good example. We must make clear where those boundaries are to be set. The Committee was right that, for instance, the criteria for the use of human-animal chimera, PGD and pre-implantation tissue typing must be set out to a greater degree in the new legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) made an important point about donor anonymity. In Committee, we made precisely that point, and voted against the regulations on those grounds. I am disappointed that the Minister brought forward legislation and whipped it through without a free vote. The Committee noted that, and subsequently discovered that the legislation was drafted on the basis of poor evidence. As a consequence, those providing fertility treatments are suffering. The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) made an important comment, which I echo, about the availability of fertility treatments. I declare a sort of interest, although not a personal one. While Louise Brown may have been born in Oldham, the scientific work was undertaken at Bourn Hall clinic in my constituency, and I am vice-chair of the all-party infertility group. Two years ago, the Prime Minister said that the NICE guidelines, especially on the availability of three cycles of IVF, should be achieved, and that the Government would make clear further progress on that. More than two years later, that has not happened. As a consequence, there are still serious inequalities in the availability of treatment. With regard to my constituents, from last September to this spring, my primary care trust stopped making fertility treatments available. It has now started to make them available, but it has limited the number of contracts to 200, which means that fewer couples are gaining access to fertility treatment than are coming on to the waiting list. Some PCTs are setting perverse criteria, such as not making fertility treatment available until women are 36 years old, whereas the NICE guidelines were designed to optimise the cost-effectiveness of fertility treatments provided through the national health service. The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East took an admirably utilitarian view of fertility treatments, and said that they contributed to the country’s economy as a whole, which is no doubt true. From my point of view, I just meet couples who want to provide a loving home to children and who, in my view, should be given the opportunity of having their physical impairment remedied by the NHS, as it remedies many other diseases. Infertility is a disease, and it has a big impact on people’s lives. Bringing loved children into a loving home would have an enormously positive impact on those lives, and would do a great deal for society.