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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]

I know that people have asked why on earth we are debating this issue, but I am very glad that we are debating it. I was a member of the Joint Committee that considered the Human Tissue and Embryos (Draft) Bill, as it then was, last year. We recommended"““that the proposal to remove the 'need for a father'…should be put to a free vote of both Houses of Parliament. To inform that vote, the balance of view of this Committee is that it would be detrimental to remove entirely the requirement to take into account the 'need for a father'.””" I was one of the Committee members who changed their minds during the submission of evidence. A number of peers, of both sexes, also changed their minds. The reason was very straightforward. I was always concerned about the broader principle of our approach to this proposed legislation. The first point was that both Houses of Parliament should set the legal framework and be the de facto bioethics commission for this country, and then once we have set the legal framework it should be for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to regulate—not the regulatory authority for tissue and embryos, which was going to be the body but which the Government then abandoned, but another body, and in terms laid down by Parliament. We also made it clear that the final decision on an individual case of in vitro fertilisation treatment should be taken between the mother, the clinician and the husband or partner—that the decision should be taken at the lowest possible level. Our Committee also made it clear that we would take into account the situation regarding civil partnerships and how that had changed attitudes and how adoption and fostering authorities would not discriminate against same-sex couples—the current law does not prevent single-sex couples from adopting or fostering, or, indeed, from having IVF treatment. In the evidence we took, it was made clear to us that single-sex couples could provide a warm background that was stable and loving, and that could be a lot better than that provided by an unhappy heterosexual family where the father abused the mother, or came home late and drunk, or hit the children. There was no question in our minds that a single-sex couple could be very good foster parents or adoptive parents. That was not the issue. What was particularly interesting was the question of why on earth this ever came near the Bill in the first place: why was there a need to take it out? We discovered the answer to that, too. We did so on 6 June 2007, when the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) was interrogating Mr. Ted Webb, the deputy director of scientific development and bioethics at the Department of Health. The hon. Gentleman asked that erudite official why it had been decided to remove the need for a father. Mr. Webb told the Committee:"““From a legal point of view the legislation at the moment””—" the new clause that takes out the need for a father—"““does not actually seem to achieve anything. So we have looked at it from a legalistic point of view more than anything else. It does not prevent treatment being provided to single women or same-sex couples, and also does not seem to fit too comfortably with the Government's wider civil partnerships policy. So I think that is really our starting point for recommending that the need for a father reference is taken out of the legislation””."