---

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

Briefly, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for having made such a fantastically good attempt at coming up with a solution. I doubt whether there is any way that we can get the wording right tonight. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, has also attempted a solution. However, listening to the debate, it strikes me that we have two separate things going on. One is about deceiving the infant, child or adolescent—at whatever stage they are—because they are carrying a piece of paper which is not reasonably truthful. I say ““reasonably truthful”” because we know that between 10 and 40 per cent—I have heard 25 per cent—of children believe that somebody is their dad, and genetically he is not. There is a difference between the state colluding in a deception and a deception which has arisen either because the woman was unaware of it or because she did not want to face the consequences of having been off with someone else, or whatever. The problems relate to a child who has been lied to. I completely concur with my noble friend Lady Warnock on the problems for children who are deliberately lied to, not only about parentage but about all kinds of aspects. When divorce was stigmatised, parents sometimes tried to protect their children from the knowledge that they had been divorced prior to the child coming along. It was devastating for the children to discover that there was a secret to which they had not been party. We see it with the diagnosis of parents with life-threatening conditions when they try to pretend that everything is all right. The child picks up that something is wrong. The problem is that once they have been lied to it is very difficult for them ever to trust that person to the same extent again. That is a fundamental principle, whether the state is complicit with the process of deliberately deceiving or whether the state believes that we should not attempt deliberately to deceive the next generation.