---

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

I am glad to be thought to be on the moral high ground; with me, that very rarely occurs in this world. I say to my noble friend that we spend our time in Parliament making legislation that may, on occasion, be difficult to administer. That is why we often have secondary legislation, guidance, advice and codes of practice: to help the people who must implement parliamentary legislation to do so. This is a similar provision; we take such an approach with adoption and in relation to children who are taken into care. These are difficult and complex issues; no one is denying that. We try to have sound principles underpinning those issues in primary legislation and carry the matter through in more detailed guidance, involving Parliament as necessary. That is what I am suggesting, as is the noble Earl in this amendment and his later amendment. If we care about the issue of fathers and want to put in legislation, at the point of deciding whether to give IVF, a provision to take account of the child’s welfare, it is clearly incumbent on us to ensure that practitioners are able to implement that. That is all I am saying. I have a sense that these practical issues are distorting our discussion about the important issue of the unconceived and the unborn child. We take that very seriously in most other legislation and we should be just as serious about it here. We should take very seriously the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and I am pretty supportive of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. That amendment is deep in the territory that we got to at the end of our previous debate; that is, whether doctors could be subject to disciplinary proceedings under the new Health and Social Care Bill if we retain the ““need for a father”” wording in the 1990 Act. That legal advice would clearly affect the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne.