---

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

I can certainly conceive that not everyone who wishes to benefit will do so. If my hon. Friend is encouraging me—I am not sure whether this was the gravamen of his intervention—in the direction of saying that more and more people should so benefit, my answer is in the affirmative. I thought that I had made it clear that this is essentially a good thing, which we should welcome and which the Bill should allow to be introduced and extended. The whole question of the so-called need for a father is writ large in our considerations. My view, for what it is worth, is that the Government's proposal is perfectly reasonable. I am not convinced that the insertion of the phrase ““supportive parenting”” was necessary. It was a compromise that was reached in the other place, but the earlier formulation seemed perfectly satisfactory. However, I shall not castigate the Government for attempting to meet reasoned—if, in my view, incorrect —criticism. They have come up with a form of words that is unobjectionable. My view is that we should not discriminate. We should not have class actions. We should not have the dogmatic exclusion of whole categories of people. We have equality legislation with which these provisions should be compatible. My anxiety is that the call to reinsert the need for a father is not grounded in evidence but driven by preconceptions and, in some—although not all—cases, by rank prejudice. That is wrong. Judgments should be made on the basis of the individual case, not on the strength of a theory.