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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

I wish to make one point, of thundering simplicity and already touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Alton—that when we speak of a child having a right to a father, we are speaking not about one right but about two. One is the right to know who the father is. The second is the right to have the prospect of a relationship with that father—if possible, as there are practical difficulties. Both rights have to be considered at a meaningful time in the age of the child. As far as the right to know the father is concerned, I am sure that there would be no dissent in the Committee with the proposition that a person has the inalienable moral right to know where half his genes come from—quite apart from the question of international conventions, where that right is enshrined in the convention on the child. Can there be a more fundamental human right? Put another way, would anyone wish to deny that right, where it can be reasonably exercised, to any person? If I am right, that forms a very impacted background to what we are considering this afternoon and may be the very beginning of wisdom. If you accept that a child has the right to know who has procreated him, who is responsible for a large part of his personality and half his genes, then I think that it has some light to cast and, indeed, some very impacted influence on the second question—whether there should be a chance of a relationship. There are hundreds and thousands of fathers in England and Wales at the moment who have no intention of doing anything at all with their children. I accept that that is not really the issue with this amendment, but it is a huge problem and one that, some day, I would like Parliament to apply its mind to. There is a limit to what can be done but, for all the furore about fathers being denied rights of contact, hundreds of thousands of fathers have no wish to have contact at all and are depriving their children of that second, massive right. Going back to the first right, if I am correct about the right to know, then the question that should be asked of the mother—as very properly posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis—is whether she appreciates that it is an inalienable right of the child to know who his father is. If I am correct about that—there may be the utterly exceptional case, where the welfare of the child might reasonably demand that that should not be known, but that would not be so in 99.9 per cent of cases—then it has some relevance to the amendment.