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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority for more than seven years. I welcome the periodic review by Parliament of this area of the law. I note that in the Bill there is confirmation in every respect of decisions taken by the authority. All the scientific provisions in the Bill, which I regard as excellent, confirm decisions already taken by the authority. There is evident respect for the way in which the authority has approached its job and I hope that noble Lords are pleased that the HFEA is not to be amalgamated with another body. It is where the Bill crosses over into the organisation of family life that I have more concerns. There is a risk in the unfolding of IVF and the consequent science that our humanity and the respective roles of men and women are ignored. It would be extraordinary if this House were to ignore the contribution made by half of the human race towards the upbringing of the next generation. It is important that this House should reaffirm the importance of parenting; both mothering and fathering. There would be fewer concerns if the NHS provided more IVF and if such provision as there is were spread more evenly across the country. It is important to note that the public do not take IVF for granted. Treatment rolls on into new areas and blurs into research. I hope that the House will resist the siren voices that say that IVF has become commonplace and there is no need to regulate it. Clause 7 requires regulation to be proportionate. However, I should tell your Lordships that, speaking from experience, the pressure from politics and the media are such that, whenever a relatively small but unavoidable human error occurs—for example, a lost embryo—there is a hue and cry and a call for more regulation, and it would be wise to err on the side of safety. Furthermore, private doctors in this field are among the wealthiest clinicians in the country. It is of course in their interests to ensure that, by using many embryos, the woman becomes pregnant, but the costs of multiple births fall on the National Health Service. This is unfair and I look forward to the day when no more than one embryo at a time may be used. In this field, the law is paramount but we should not forget the need for money—proper resources to enforce, to register and to fight cases—because all the time judicial review is being used to challenge interpretations, no matter how watertight the definitions may seem. Then of course there are ethics. The authority has indeed worked out ethical principles: autonomy, safety, welfare, respect for the embryo and the saving of life. In the scientific field, the Bill confirms the wider use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. That is good. I hope that your Lordships will be pleased that the deliberate choice of an embryo that is, for example, likely to be deaf will be prevented by Clause 14. The Bill confirms saviour siblings, no selection of sex for social reasons, and extended purposes for research in embryology, first allowed in the 2001 regulations. That research, once legitimated, put the UK at the forefront of world stem cell research. Interspecies embryos will be legitimated and I think that that is right. The Bill reaffirms the importance of consent. There is to be no use of gametes taken from comatose or dead persons without their prior consent, as set out in paragraphs 5, 9 and 10 of Schedule 3. I also welcome the cooling-off period of one year when consent is withdrawn to avoid further sad cases such as that of Natallie Evans, which went to the European Court of Human Rights. However, I feel that I should take issue with two clauses. Clause 14 would omit a child’s need for a father as a consideration in the assessment of welfare that has to be carried out by the doctor proposing to treat a woman. I hope that this new clause can be removed so that we revert to the law as it stands—the careful and sensitive compromise worked out in 1990, as described by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, which has held firm for all that period. The requirement is, after all, only to consider the need; it is not an absolute ban on treatment by any means, and it is well known that many single women and gay couples receive IVF treatment at clinics and have children. The argument for removing it is that it is now public policy to treat all families equally and to avoid any discrimination between persons on grounds of gender and sexual orientation and because there are inconsistencies and unknowns in the way that the provision is applied. There is no need for a father, it is said, especially given that there is provision in the current Bill for two women to be the legal parents of a child. Does a child really not need a father? Clearly, the need for a mother remains unchallenged—it is implicit in the way that the law works. I think that a child needs a father. First, we are where we are. To remove the requirement that a child needs a father is to make a fresh statement to the effect that a child does not need a father. It sends a message to men, at a time when many of them feel undermined as providers and parents, contrary to government policy in this field. Government policy is that men should pay for their children after divorce and separation and that they should take responsibility. Divorce law judges hold that contact with a father after divorce is a good thing. Recently, the Government have sought to encourage single women to name the father of their babies on the birth certificates. We are told that children who find out that they are adopted or created by donor insemination need to know their fathers. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child says that every child has the right to know and to be cared for by both parents and of course anonymity has been removed from sperm donors, which must mean that they are important. The current law does no more than require that a doctor checks whether there is a male in the social circle—for example, a grandfather—and causes parents to reflect on how to cope with the situation. Indeed the requirements have been much watered down by the HFEA code which has done its utmost to ensure that there is no discrimination without good reason. I would argue that the present law is not discriminatory. It applies to men and women: heterosexual couples, homosexual couples, married, cohabiting and others. Even if it were discriminatory, it is justified on the ground that the welfare of the child is paramount. There is a wealth of research showing that children need fathers, not just a parent. Children need to see complementary roles, the relationship between the sexes, a microcosm of society as they grow up. There is also research showing that children born to lesbian parents do well, but it is limited research, mostly carried out by one researcher in this country and of necessity the children are very young. Some research shows that those children suffer from the inevitably confused and secretive family relationships that occur. Recent reports have placed Britain at the bottom of the international league tables for the welfare of children and we know that boys without parents fail at school, that they turn to worse role models and that fathers play a great part in the upbringing of their children as well. A survey reported this morning shows that 77 per cent of the public would keep the law the way it is. After all, if a woman is pregnant and her husband dies during the pregnancy, do we not say that is a tragedy? Do we not allow her to claim damages? Many of the same arguments apply to naming two women on the birth certificate but time does not permit an exploration of that at the moment. Finally, I put in a plea. It takes courage to stand up for what is right for children; women have won respect for their bodies and their roles in the past few years; but it is time to take care of and to support men in this enterprise as well.