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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

I see that the noble and learned Lord is trying to find a way through this, but I wonder whether that would be a wise way to proceed. The noble Baroness, in a thoughtful speech, was trying to point to another way by suggesting that something should appear on the birth certificate as a code of some kind that could be interpreted later. Inevitably, as others have pointed out, people would know what that code represented, so one might as well be straightforward about it. The noble Earl’s solution of having the words, ““donor conceived”” on the longer form of the birth certificate, with the parents then in a position to have a discussion with the child at the moment of their choice, represents for me the most crystal clear way of dealing with this. I certainly agree with what my noble friend Lady Warnock said earlier about the importance of truth being observed. As the noble Earl said, fake identities are not something that we should be promoting. Earlier in our proceedings I mentioned a new book by Lisa Mundy called, Everything Conceivable. She points to the American experience. Inevitably a website has been created in the United States for children who have been donor-conceived to try to find out their true identities. An example of children searching for their unknown genetic parents involves a group of half siblings who have a donor in common. Some donors have more than 30 offspring. When the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, made his point earlier about the possibility of relationships being entered into unknowingly, this was not far-fetched, and we must take that into account as we decide on the information that we will make available to children who have been donor conceived. I was recently in conversation with a High Court judge who was telling me of a case he had dealt with. This did not involve in vitro fertilisation; it involved the normal birth of twins who were separated at birth and adopted by separate parents. They were never told that they were twins. They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation. I suspect that it will be a matter of litigation in the future if we do not make information of this kind available to children who have been donor conceived. The noble Earl said that the right to know was a human right. I agree, and it is the most straightforward way of dealing with an extraordinarily complex question. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, is right of course. There are implications for everybody involved, but the needs of the child will always be paramount, and it is right that we should therefore make the process as transparent as possible.