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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding. It is a thoughtful and constructive attempt to resolve an issue, which many of us have grappled with, in Committee and outside it, with the Minister. My noble friend Lady Warnock put it well—she did so in Committee as well—when she said that we should never try to conceal from someone the truth of their identity. Indeed, it is a less loving thing to conceal identity. If eventually, through DNA testing or in other ways, someone discovers that they have been lied to, that stores many more problems further up the track. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, quite rightly raised the danger of issues such as consanguinity and incest. I shared with the House the true story of twins who were separated and adopted at birth, only to meet later in life and marry. This took place some years ago, and I know that some dismissed it as a one-in-a-million coincidence, unlikely ever to be repeated. There may be truth in that, but it would be a mistake not to look at some of the issues that a case of that kind raises. The noble Lord knows, because I have shared some of the correspondence with him, that, inevitably, others have written to tell me of other cases as well. Alastair Bissett-Johnson, Emeritus Professor of Law at Dundee University, has given me permission to use his name and has had 43 years of teaching family law. He told me how a young person came into local authority care, with parental rights being vested in the local authority. One such parental right was that of consent to the marriage of a person in their care between 16 and 18 years of age. The social worker involved saw that one of the young people was adopted, noticed a striking similarity and discovered that the proposed spouse had also been adopted. Further investigation revealed that they were siblings. No consent to the marriage took place and the couple were informed of the circumstances. How much better it would have been if all concerned had known of their biological relationship from the outset. I have also received several heart-breaking letters from people who were denied knowledge of their antecedents with shocking consequences for their health. One lady who is being treated for ovarian cancer and who knows nothing of her genetic history told me that she feels it scandalous that she has no family medical records. She pleads for the medical records of biological parents to be kept on a central database. Someone else wrote to say: "““Approximately five years ago, I was diagnosed with ADPKD—autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. This disease is genetically inherited. By having knowledge of my family history and perhaps interacting with my relatives, we may be able to help each other out and increase our lifespans. Additionally, this information may help my children and future generations””." I have also received a letter about a case from a member of another place, Mr John Hemming MP. He says: "““I am fearful that in this individual case, and many others besides, proper medical treatment is not possible, and preventative care is being overlooked””." Clearly, this leaves many children at significant risk. With many children now conceived by in vitro fertilisation, those issues have been magnified. Every child, whether born naturally or by IVF, should have a true record of their identity. One only needs to look at websites such as the donor sibling registry to see why this matters. That database enables parents to make contact with the anonymous donors who supplied half of the genes of their offspring. Children can search for their unknown genetic parents, and families can make contact with genetic half-siblings with a donor in common. Thousands of people have registered on that site looking for sperm donors, parents and for the children they helped to conceive. That is done by batch numbers, and the site states that the largest match so far has been between 26 half-siblings to a single donor, who is also listed. One man, a Californian artist, identified by batch 401, is father to 25 babies by 18 different women. In the United States, one donor, who had been providing sperm for over 15 years, estimated that he could have fathered 432 children.