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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

I wonder whether we are running two separate issues together. One is about what may be in the public domain and what should remain private, to which both amendments refer and to which I will come back. The second, the point being raised particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is whether the right to know is the right to know which individual was your donor, or the right to know—in the phrase of my noble friend Lord Winston—the genetic inheritance you have acquired which may be crucial for your future medical history. Can we keep those two issues slightly apart for the moment? On the first, I sympathise with the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. My difficulty is that a coded symbol on the birth certificate will be read as ““donor conceived”” very quickly indeed, and it might just as well say the words. Equally, on the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, about abbreviated and long birth certificates, my understanding—but I could be wrong—is that, in some circumstances, the abbreviated birth certificates in the public domain are increasingly unacceptable. I therefore wonder whether there is any problem in having a pair of birth certificates, both ““long””, one with the information and one without, with the full information being sent to the young person at the age of 18 and parents then being notified that it will be coming. That young person can then choose which of the two birth certificates to deploy in what situation. They would have the information in reserve on a full certificate if they wished and needed to use it. We obviously need to find some way through this dilemma; whether that is the right way, I do not know. Secondly, on the genetic inheritance—and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, will support me on this—we heard at the scrutiny committee of the increasing worry that sperm donors were now limiting themselves in number and not coming forward precisely because of the tracking problem. Without going so far as to be worried about potentially incestuous relationships, this none the less did not seem a wise or prudent path to follow. Equally, people need to know their medical history. Some of the evidence we got was very emotional and passionate. People wanted a slim hope of tracking back an individual parent in time to come. For the most part, however, the sense from the evidence was that people needed to know the genetic inheritance rather than the named individual so that they would be aware of future medical possibilities, problems and so on, and have that evidence. Surely we could also make that distinction. I hope that the Minister can help us on both these issues.