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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, I have pointed out in the past that confidentiality is a really difficult issue. Numerous Members of your Lordships’ House have made pleas for us doctors to take account of patients’ abilities as parents and the need for a father, or whatever phrase we have discussed, when assessing a patient’s suitability for in vitro fertilisation. With confidentiality as it is now it is inevitable that, if alarms are raised about some aspect of the past childcare of a person seeking in vitro fertilisation, we could not go to another individual without the permission of that person, who would clearly not give that permission. That is a very good example of why the confidentiality clause is, right from the beginning, a total nonsense. It goes against accepted medical practice in every other form of medicine. If your Lordships really want doctors to assess patients for their suitability to be good parents in the future, there has to be an acceptance that a patient’s confidentiality is at stake. That has not been grasped during the discussion of this Bill, and it seems a very important principle indeed.