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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, as we are at Report, I will not repeat some of the things that I have said previously in this House. I am one of those who have always found it difficult when people are so morally rigorous that you can end up with an injustice. More rigour does not help. Nor have I always been persuaded, as I am seeing happen more and more often in this great country, when competing rights are set up and then some rights can trump other rights. I am one of those who are totally committed to equality, fairness and justice, but I cannot be persuaded that phrases such as ““supporting parenting”” equals a mother and father. It is such a vague phrase. We need to define it to know what we mean. I come from a family where I am one of 13 children. I was raised largely by my grandmother, but I wanted to know who my parents were. I knew who my mum was, I knew who my dad was, but I was raised by what I call ““supporting parenting””. It worked. I come from a very large extended family, including uncles and aunties, but we knew who our dad was. As for the phrase ““supporting parenting””, supposing that a child wants to know, ““Who is my dad?””, and is told, ““Don’t ask such questions. It is discriminatory. We are your supporting parents””. A child will not be satisfied. A child wants to know. I have friends who are in same-sex relationships who, through treatment, have children. The children know who their dad is, who is responsible for the sperm. I think that it is important to extend that element of family help and support. The 1990 Act considered the need for a child’s concerns to be taken care of and the need for a father. That phrase has not prevented my friends from having treatment and having children when they are in a same-sex couple. There is this fear that it looks discriminatory. Removing from the statute the words ““father and mother”” is trying to discriminate against another group of people. Again, here are competing rights. The current provision is that that is where it is still possible; the arguments were made at the time. The think-tank report from the Fatherhood Institute, The Difference a Dad Makes, makes salutary reading about how, in this great nation, fathers are sometimes not in the forefront of the raising of their own children. It is almost being suggested now that it does not matter much whether fatherhood is an important thing or a good thing. The person whom I know who donated the sperm to my friends for them to have a child could not be in a relationship with that person. None the less, on the birth register, his name is there and he has every intention, although from a long distance, still to take responsibility as a father. That has not prevented the family arrangements as they are at the moment. May we not be in that moral liberalism, that is so strong, that we may be unjust, that we set up competing rights where some trump other rights? This country has been very great at finding a middle way. So I support, instead of the phrase ““supporting parenting””, the phrase ““support by a father and mother””. That does not prevent other arrangements, other families, being involved. I fostered children because their mother died of cancer. We reached the stage where we wanted to adopt them. It became quite clear that, if we went down that road, they should still have their father’s name, instead of taking on our name. We could not do that legally because of a number of complications, so we continued to foster them. They call us ““auntie”” and ““uncle””. Their parents are now both dead. We have raised them up and they are thriving. Friends, we were ““supportive parents”” in that respect, but that did not prevent them knowing who their dad and their mum were. Ask yourself: what is it that we are trying to ask and trying to do? I say to your Lordships that, for me, Amendment No. 108A is a much better phraseology. As we are seeing this afternoon, very loose phrases, such as supportive parenting, are being used without any clear definition. Lawyers out there want to know: what is supportive parenting? What does it look like? How do we know? Do we compare this house with that house or that place? I go for the words, ““supported by a father and a mother””, which does not leave out other arrangements in our society.