---

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

No. I have only 10 minutes. In particular, I support the retention of the requirement for medical practitioners to consider the welfare of the child before treatment is offered. There has been a great deal of debate about the replacement of the reference to the child's need for a father with one to the child's need for supportive parenting. My personal view is that a child benefits from having a mother and a father and that fathers are intrinsically valuable. However, I also believe that the most important aspect of the upbringing of any child is a loving and supportive environment where their welfare is paramount. Whether that is provided by a conventional family, a single-parent family or any other type of family should not be a matter for Parliament to decide by statute. Early research into the welfare of children born to single women or lesbian couples who choose to start a family by assisted conception shows that those children fare just as well as those born by assisted conception to heterosexual parents. The Bill also sets out the circumstances in which embryos can be tested in a lab. A wonderful procedure with a dreadful name, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, enables couples who know they are at significant risk of having a child with a specific genetic condition such as cystic fibrosis or Duchenne muscular dystrophy to avoid the transfer of embryos affected by that condition. What a wonderful gift that would be to such a family. I support the use of embryo testing for this purpose, but I agree with the Government that it should be available only in cases where there is a significant risk of serious disease. I also support pre-implantation tissue-typing, which is referred to as saviour sibling treatment and allows the selection of an embryo that is a tissue match with a sibling suffering a life-threatening or serious medical condition. In fact, the licensing authority has carried out a number of policy reviews on embryo testing, including on tissue-typing. Each application is considered on its own merits and a licence is granted only when the authority is convinced that the child will be a valued member of the family and that tissue from that child is the only means of treating the older sibling. In practice, tissue-typing is only carried out for life-threatening blood conditions and has happened in only a small number of cases. Six families have benefited from such a procedure, but the technology has resulted in children being cured of serious medical conditions. The courts have already confirmed the authority's power to license tissue-typing, and so one of the Bill's most important aims must be to make that power explicit in law. It has been widely reported—indeed, a number of hon. Members have already alluded to it—that some Members of the House will seek to amend the Bill in order to reduce the upper time limit for abortion. As I stated when I opposed a ten-minute Bill in 2006, I believe that any attempt to reduce the time limit, blatantly disregarding the views of the scientific and medical communities, would be irresponsible and ill-informed.