---

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

My Lords, noble Lords will remember that in Committee I put forward an amendment which suggested that it might be possible to register the fact that someone was born as the result of donor conception by annotating their birth certificate rather than putting the words ““donor-conceived””. I did so having listened to many of the people with whom the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has been engaged in deep conversation. I commend the noble Lord for putting the views of those organisations and representing them thoroughly and well. It is important again to state that those two organisations do not represent all shades of opinion on the matter. There are people who have been adopted and people who have been born as the result of donor conception who are utterly and completely opposed to any move such as this. They feel strongly that singling out one group of children in a public manner—having it registered on a birth certificate is a public manner—is utterly wrong. That is not to say that they are opposed to a course of honesty, in the words of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. Some of those same people are anxious that children know of their donors. They are the most keen that those children know they are donor-conceived but they believe passionately that that is a matter for them to handle within their families and that they have a duty to handle it within their families. It should not be imposed on them by means of a public document. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, talked about the article by Libby Purves in the Times which I also read. It was a very good article. But there have been other reactions in the press and that is one of the things that worries me about the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. I have a number of concerns about it. It states: "““The Authority shall from time to time carry out a review””." What would trigger that review? Is it inconceivable that public opinion could be swayed dramatically, as it was by the case of the twins that was quoted extensively by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in Committee, and reported extensively in the press? That might sway public opinion in one direction. Having raised this matter in Committee, I can tell the noble Lord that the Daily Mail—without interviewing me, I have to say—saw fit to run a huge one-page article by heterosexual donor parents, who vociferously made the case in the opposite direction. I am rather concerned that we could have a very unspecific measure. I loved the reference of the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, to a slightly ginger amendment. I ask again what would trigger the review. There is a danger that this matter could be swayed by changes in public opinion based on one or two cases. I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, a few weeks ago that we had been through a process whereby all of us had arrived at exactly the same position that she and her committee arrived at back in the 1980s. We have realised that this is an intractably difficult problem to which there is no answer that satisfies both the desire of donor-conceived people to have a right to know and those who say that the matter should be handled within the privacy of the family. But at least we have all been through the arguments this time and we all know why we have arrived at the same position, so perhaps our time has not been misspent. However, a difficult matter now arises that did not apply in 1990. In 1990 people had long birth certificates and short birth certificates. One of the problems we have now—here I take issue with some of the recent articles of the noble Lord, Lord Alton—is that because of the changes going on in the world, terrorism and people’s need to prove their identity to a greater degree than ever before, long birth certificates are increasingly being demanded by all sorts of authorities so short birth certificates may no longer be appropriate. Therefore, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, which I accept was drawn up with much thought, may cause problems. We are told that there will be an identity card scheme. Will this information go on ID cards? I do not know but I rather suspect that if it did it would be controversial. While I sympathise enormously with what the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, is trying to do, I consider that the amendment does not, as he said, take us a stage further. It simply acknowledges that there is a problem and makes the situation even less clear than it is at present. Finally, given the deep concerns on this matter, and given its potential impact, particularly on the lives of children, I am not happy about it being left to regulation. It should appear in primary legislation. So while I have a great deal of sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, I cannot support the amendment for the reasons I have given.