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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

I was moved to put my name to this amendment as treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Children and vice-chair of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Children and Young People In and Leaving Care. As I have 10 years’ experience working with boys and young men, albeit much of it part-time, I am very interested in this amendment, particularly how it might begin to answer the concern expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and my noble friend Lady Warnock, and how something like this might work. It may be helpful because it is more specific. The Second Reading debate highlighted three inconvenient truths: first, that boys need fathers or, failing that, a proxy for a father; secondly, as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, said, parents are driven to have children and over-prescription may drive prospective parents away from licensed provision into the arms of we know not who, which the noble Lord amplified in Committee; and, thirdly, the concern of my noble friend Lady Warnock that current legislation in respect of the importance of fathers is largely ignored by clinicians. Many of the boys without an interested father with whom I have worked have yearned for such a parent and I have found myself obliged on occasion to play that role. Lone mothers speak to me about the need of their sons for a father figure. A lone mother—a teacher, who supports the education of children in children’s homes with great success—told me how helpful it would be for her 12 year-old son if his school could find a male physical education teacher, because he is growing up without a father. The children referred to in the amendment have a very important advantage in that their parents very much want them to be born. Sadly, too many children in this country are not wanted and come about by chance. However, not having an interested male in one’s life is often a contributory factor to failure. Time and again I have heard prison officers in the criminal justice system describing themselves as the first father-figures for their young male inmates. Only last week a 22 year-old man described to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Penal Affairs his long involvement with crime as a drug dealer. He described the lack of a positive male role model when he was growing up on his estate and firmly identified that as the root of his criminal behaviour. Important to his rehabilitation was his relationship with a male drama teacher who inspired him to become an actor and an author. That was also true for François Truffaut, the French director, who made a semi-autobiographical film of his early days, ““The 400 Blows””, in which he described his lack of a father. Eventually, he ended up—in the film and in life—in a French reformatory. It is a very sad story. François Truffaut admired a male film director very much. He became Truffaut’s mentor, and Truffaut went on to be very successful making his own films. To ensure that a suitable male is engaged early in the lives of these children is very much to be desired. If the Bill can assist in doing that, it will serve these families extremely well. A constructive and effective framework needs to be set up by the Bill. On the basis that most parents consider the welfare of their children paramount, I hope that we can determine how these prospective parents will receive the right information and advice, which my next amendment will probe. Not to introduce this amendment, or to at least keep the wording of the 1990 Act, would be complicit in the popular fallacy that children do just as well without interested and responsible fathers. That boys need fathers may be an inconvenient truth, but it must not be ignored. I strongly support my noble friend’s helpful and explicit amendment.