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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, I do not think we have heard from the Labour Benches. I am prepared to give way to my noble friend Lord Winston. We are now presented on Report with a veritable banquet of options in terms of amendments to the 1990 Act for safeguarding the welfare of children to be born as a result of IVF. It is worth bearing in mind that none of these amendments changes the idea that the welfare of the child is a significant factor in whether to proceed to IVF treatment. That is still an integral part of this Bill. We are arguing about the extent to which we nuance the term ““welfare of children””. We have heard some very powerful speeches. I found the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, particularly moving. Before settling down to the exam paper, let me first congratulate the Government on listening to the concern that I and others expressed in Committee about the proposed amendments to the 1990 Act for a father. I am particularly pleased that they have moved away from what I can only describe as the positively Guardian-esque wording for a social network which they were toying with. I congratulate the Minister on his success in moving away from that wording. I have listened to the arguments and for the reasons I gave at Second Reading I still prefer Amendment No. 109, which leaves matters as they were in the 1990 Act. I shall not detain your Lordships by going through all those reasons again. I have not heard an overwhelmingly telling set of arguments for changing the wording. I have heard some arguments and those who put forward those arguments clearly felt passionate about them. I listened very carefully to what the Minister said about possible challenges under the Human Rights Act. He did not say that the Government’s advice was that there would be challenges; he said, ““There may be challenges””. There may be challenges under a lot of legislation. Some of us who have signed quite a lot of certificates on Bills coming to this House recognise that this is not a 100 per cent foolproof certificate. We are giving our opinion, based on the evidence and legal advice presented, that the Bill conforms to the requirements of that Act, but there is no 100 per cent guarantee that there will not be challenges. I would like to see the legal advice which says. ““There will be challenges. We are not confident that if you kept to the 1990 Act those challenges would be successful””. However, I am a realist and I recognise—and some of us have been here before—that the Government will want to have their way, particularly after they have moved a good way to respond to some of the concerns expressed. I am not holding my breath about whether we will get through Amendment No. 109 so I have scanned the other amendments to see which take my fancy. The most effective alternative was that tabled by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, which is Amendment No. 110. I always defer to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, on the European Convention on Human Rights—although it seems but yesterday, it was 10 years ago that I was writing policy papers on this for the Labour Party—but the main thing is that it balances rights and some rights are in conflict with each other. It does not give absolute rights to one person over another, but balances them. I would say—and I am not a lawyer, but I would like to hear the arguments against this—that Amendment No. 110 achieves that kind of balance. It is difficult for me to see, on the evidence so far, that that amendment in particular does not do a rather good job, and indeed does not in some ways improve the wording in the 1990 Act. I thought the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, made a powerful speech on that. There are some options for the Government. I ask my noble friend to pay serious attention to some of these issues, as I am sure he will. I do not want him to think I am churlish in not rushing to accept the Government’s amendment—which, after all, is better than where we were before. At the very least, I ask that wording like that in Amendment No. 110 is reflected in the code of practice. The reason I say that is that the distinguishing feature of that amendment is that it provides a clear and elegant test that clinicians have to pay attention to in deciding on the welfare of the child. It has clarity about what clinicians have to consider in terms of the welfare of the child at the point of determining whether they go ahead with IVF. That is the great attraction of Amendment No. 110. I ask my noble friend at the very least to give us some assurances that that is the kind of clarity we would look for in the code of practice. However, if he really wanted to satisfy me, I would ask him to take away Amendment No. 110 and consider it further for Third Reading.