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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

If anyone had come into Committee to listen to the debate without looking closely at the wording of this amendment, they would have presumed that we were debating a Bill or a clause to abolish fatherhood. Therefore, most of the speeches were in defence of the values and virtues of fatherhood. As the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, rightly said, that is not what we should be arguing today. That is perfectly proper for general debate or possibly even at Second Reading, but we are looking at which words should be in the Bill—neither more nor less. I doubt that anyone in the Committee would dispute the value of fatherhood and the need for fathers or for good male role models—grandparents, uncles, or whoever—in the absence of fathers. I cannot believe that anyone would dissent from that view, so what are we arguing about? It is not about fatherhood, or about 80, 100 or 150 pieces of research. It is not about that at all. As for my noble friend Lord Warner saying that the joint scrutiny committee wished to keep the original words in, I recall that it was a straw vote of 7:7 and the chairman voted a second time to reinsert it, so, in all fairness, it was evenly balanced. That was the result, although it could have been different on a different day, as obviously some of that committee’s members were missing. The question is whether these words are workable if they are in the Bill, and if they are—and I believe that they probably are not—whether they are also fair. If they are workable, they are not fair. If the words are meaningless then they should not be in the Bill; some people might think them a message, but frankly these are vacuous words. We should not be using legislation to carry personal views in that way. We are operating by the law of the land, which has to be administered by clinicians in their day-to-day dealings. However much we may value fatherhood—as I certainly do and have done—empty rhetoric is not part and process of what those clinicians should be engaged in dispensing when dealing with their patients. Let us say that the amendment is to be voted for and that this is not just about rhetoric but meant to have practical effects. Therefore, when a single woman presents without an obliging male in tow she is, presumably, to be refused treatment while a heterosexual woman presenting with an obliging male in tow is permitted treatment. Now, I know from eight years work on child policy that the best predictor of good outcomes for the girl child of a lone parent is if that parent goes into work, while the best predictor for the boy child of a lone parent is if that boy is in active contact with his natural father. I know and believe those things, so I am being consistent with government policy. Yet I also know that the average time that a woman spends as a lone parent is not a lifetime sentence, but two and a half years. She is likely to re-partner—for good or bad, but I hope for good. We also know that when a heterosexual woman comes with an obliging partner in tow, if that is the husband then 50 per cent of those marriages will end in divorce, and if they are cohabiting then two-thirds will break up. In other words, what happens at the point of presentation for IVF treatment bears little connection or correlation to whether a man or a male partner will, as a result, play a long-term role in the life of the child. If the woman is single, a male partner may come on to the scene and be with her. If that woman is partnered, it is unfortunately more than likely that their relationship will break up before that child even reaches their teens. Those are the facts; we do not know, and neither do they. I do not doubt that they will seek to make it work. My point is about using IVF treatment as the litmus test of whether that woman will or will not have a child, without her knowing whether the man who is there at that point will continue to be an active, engaged father in that child’s life. Much as we would wish it, the facts are that the odds against that are more than even. That is why we should not be engaged in high-flown rhetoric about the need for a father, which I share. We should not seek to put that in the Bill when in practice whatever we say in the Bill will not affect human behaviour. What it will do, to pick up the point made by the noble and right reverend Lord, is send out a different message. It will not say that fathers are necessary or desirable—it will not change that behaviour at all. It will send out a message that all families without fathers, whether the children were conceived through IVF or, even more widely, naturally, are second-class and second-rate. Those children face the reality of stigma. More than one message would come out of the Bill if this amendment were accepted. Although I recognise, along with all of us, that fatherhood is important and that the welfare of the child is paramount, those words do not belong in the Bill.