---

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). I certainly share his perspective on the Christian faith, but I do not think I shall reach the same conclusions about how the Bill should be treated. Despite the temptation, after some six hours, to give the House my opinions on all the complex and controversial issues in the Bill, I shall not do so. I think my constituents are more interested in my views than the House is, and if they want to know about them, I send them letters accordingly. I simply want to bring to the House's attention one highly relevant set of circumstances involving a family in my constituency. It is a sensitive issue for them, and they want to preserve their anonymity. Therefore, I shall quote from a letter of 5 March that I wrote to the interim chief executive of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority:"““I am writing on behalf of a constituent of mine who…has recently donated eggs intended to be available for the fertilisation of her own daughter at a later stage in her daughter's life. Her daughter suffers from Turner's syndrome””" and is infertile."““The issue that faces her is that her daughter is currently ten and she has been told by your agency that the maximum time limit for the storage of eggs permitted by you is ten years. As my constituent will shortly cross the thirty-six year age threshold””" for the donation of eggs,"““it is clear that those eggs could only be used by her daughter up to the age of eighteen which, as she quite properly remarks, is unlikely to be an appropriate cut-off point.””" I wrote to the agency to ask whether the 10-year limit was set by statute or was the product of the agency, and for an explanation of the logic involved in setting such a limit. It was interesting to hear the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) talk earlier in the debate about his part in setting the regulations in 1991 as a follow-up to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. To paraphrase him, he said that the issue was too hot to handle in that Bill, and it was dealt with by subsequent regulations. In fact, it is hard to see what the difficulty was. The HFEA replied to me, with admirable promptness, just two days later, on 7 March:"““The ten year maximum storage period that you mentioned is set by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Statutory Storage Period) Regulations 1991. These regulations were drafted by the Department of Health. The storage limit was originally set so that clinics would not be over-burdened by the number of samples in storage and because the potential risks of long term storage were unknown at the time.””" The letter goes on to say that the regulations"““allow for eggs to be stored beyond ten years providing certain conditions are met. These include that the woman who provided the eggs herself has significantly impaired fertility and that she was under the age of 45 when the eggs were first put into storage””," and that the eggs had been stored for her own later use."““Unfortunately the regulations only allow the storage period to be extended if the eggs are intended for use in the woman's own treatment…Therefore, regrettably, your constituent will not be able to extend the storage of her eggs and there is no flexibility for exceptional circumstances.””" I hope that it is clear from these extracts that my constituent and her family are in a Catch-22. She is coming up to the latest date at which she can store eggs, and she faces a 10-year maximum storage period, by which time her daughter, who would be the beneficiary of that donation, will not be at an appropriate age or stage in her life. I simply want to make sure that Members and Ministers take note of the need to widen the circumstances in which the storage period for donated eggs can exceed 10 years—for instance, in cases such as that of my constituent, where the donated eggs are intended for another family member who is infertile. I think that an extension would be sensible and highly desirable, and I must say that that does not seem to raise any of the difficult and troubling ethical issues that have so perplexed speakers in the debate so far. I would therefore take this case as an example of the fact that we need a Bill that updates the current rules and regulations that apply to this fast-moving situation—although the term ““fast-moving”” is applicable only in parliamentary terms, as it has taken 18 years to get from step one to what is now step two. I hope that if I can draft a suitable amendment to cover this issue, it will receive favourable consideration in due course. Equally, I would very much welcome a signal from the Minister and the Bill's proposers that they would assist in ensuring that such a change is properly drafted and effective in its scope. Even a nod from the Minister would be very welcome at this point. I shall not go into any of the significant issues that have been debated so far, except to comment on the role of the father and the rights of the child. I have heard it said tonight by two different speakers that the child has a right to know its father. I should like to remind the House that many children do not know who their father is. For children of single parents, the father may never be put on the birth certificate, or the details may be put on wrongly. The proportion of cases, even involving those in stable relationships, where, for perfectly understandable reasons, the wrong father is entered on the birth certificate is higher than Members of this House might like to think. An absolute right for the child to know its father would commit this House to a wide-ranging extension of settling of the paternity of every child born in this country. Let us not extend that right solely to those who are conceived as a result of the processes outlined in the Bill.