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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]

The hon. Gentleman has the advantage—I cannot remember that bit of the story. However, that does not detract from the case I am making. My final quote comes from the Second Reading of this Bill in the other place, on 19 November 2007. By this time, the Government had come to a number of conclusions and had rejected some of their earlier proposals. One of the arguments being proposed was that, if we did not do away with the need for a father, that would discriminate against all single mothers. That was attacked head-on by the Archbishop of York, who said:"““However, there is all the difference in the world between children who find themselves in a single-parent family through bereavement or breakdown of parental relationship, and those who find themselves in that situation by design…If discrimination is indeed the issue here, surely the greater discrimination is in ensuring that a child will never have any chance of knowing its natural father””." He concluded by saying:"““The child's right not to be deliberately deprived of a father is greater than any right to commission a child by IVF.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 19 November 2007; Vol. 696, c.705-6.]"