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2.6 pm
Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham): I have not been involved in the Bill before. I simply want to put on record my colleagues' support for it and to congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) on promoting it. My hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) supported the original Bill when it went through the House.
A key point, which has partly been covered, is that it is limited in both scope and scale. The scope is limited because it is confined to the one issue of a name appearing on a birth certificate. The scale is small because we are talking about 30 individuals. The estimate is that the measure could cover 10 additional babies a year. Presumably that could increase as technology develops. None the less, the Bill will have a limited scale of operation.
It is fair to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) shared many of the concerns of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) about the retrospective element, but he, too, is reassured that the problem is largely resolved. We therefore support the Bill and wish it well.
2.7 pm
Dr. Andrew Murrison (Westbury): I also congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) on promoting the Bill. It is overdue and I wish it well. There are one or two mildly controversial aspects, in particular to do with the retrospective elements and written consent, which is a complex matter, especially if the man is incapable of giving it for one reason or another. However, I hope that the Bill has a speedy passage.
Mr. Tony Clarke (Northampton, South): I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) on his sterling job in stewarding the Bill through to this stage. It will have a significant impact on the lives of the individuals whom it is meant to support and help, both retrospectively and in the future. I can think of nothing worse than going through life without being able to right the wrong of not having one's father's name recorded on one's birth certificate. I wish the Bill a good and speedy passage, even at this late stage.
2.8 pm
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): In some ways, this is a model private Member's Bill. As has been mentioned, it is limited in scope and is, to use that ghastly modern term, focused. However, it does have complexities. I was gratified, not least given the earlier debate on the Fireworks Bill, that the Committee considered this Bill responsibly and saw fit to amend it. That is what Committees are for. Too often Bills, not least private Members' Bills, are ushered through Committee without proper scrutiny and run into difficulty on Report, which is what happened to the Fireworks Bill.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) on the Bill. It has been carefully considered and has drawn on the experience of previous attempts to deal with the problem, and rightly so. I wish it well, and I think that we can be confident that it will go through to another place.
It is worth noting that the Bill has been brought about partly by the advance of technology. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a moment ago that technology often obliges us to react within the legislative framework, and that is certainly the case here. However, this is also a very human Bill; technology has had a bearing on people in the most difficult of circumstances, and the law has been unable to catch up until now, courtesy of the hon. Gentleman and his Bill.
Although I have always been very unhappy about retrospective legislation, we have now to accept that, as with almost everything in life and in legislation, there will occasionally, of necessity, be exceptions to the principle. The principle of retrospectivity, or rather the lack of it, in our legislation has been built up over many centuries as a proper protection for the citizen. However, in this day, when so many things advance so quickly, we have to be prepared to make allowances, particularly when, as in this case, the number of people involved is necessarily small. It may increase, but only slightly, so we are not opening a floodgate or risking abuse. Almost by definition, there will only ever be a few people, in their very human family circumstances, affected by these advances, and in that case we can take a more relaxed view of retrospectivity. The hon. Gentleman had that in mind when he was framing the legislation, and we have all been prepared to take a positive attitude to that.
All in all, the Bill is an intriguing mixture of the narrow, the focused, the technical and the retrospective. I am reassured on this occasion by the fact that the Standing Committee took its work seriously. I am, funnily enough, more reassured by a Bill returning to the House on Report that has been amended in Committee than by one that has not, because that tells me that the members of the Committee took their responsibilities seriously. They persuaded the promoter, and indeed the Government, that amendments were proper and appropriate. In that case we can take a more relaxed view of the Bill on Report. There is a message there for all concerned, not least future promoters of private members' Bills.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on how he has managed to steer his Bill through the House thus far. I am confident that it will succeed on this occasion, and I wish it well in the future.
2.12 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Hazel Blears): I am absolutely delighted to add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) on his excellent job in promoting a complex Bill involving many technicalities, both in technology and in the legal framework. I congratulate also my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Clarke), who promoted an earlier Bill on the issue, which did not get to this stage. I know that he has long been a doughty campaigner on these issues.
We all appreciate the need to be compassionate and to recognise that there are children and their families who find themselves in incredibly distressing circumstances. It is right for the House to try and respond while maintaining the integrity of our legal process. The Bill treads a fine line in balancing the needs of the children and their families with those of the legal process, the considerations of technology and some of our long-held principles, particularly those concerning retrospectivity. All of us, whether as lawyers or legislators, are always very nervous about the effect of retrospectivity.
The Bill is an opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of those children and their families. In considering the Bill my concern is the rights of those children, their future and, I hope, their opportunity to have their father's name registered on their birth certificate. They find themselves in tragic circumstances. Not only do they no longer have a father, but they face the added distress of lacking legal recognition of their situation. That is why the families have campaigned long and hard on the issue. They have had excellent parliamentary representation, but we should not take away from them the fact that they have had the determination, tenacity and will to see the process through, despite the personal problems that they have faced. I therefore pay tribute to the families who have championed this cause.
Hon. Members have said that the Bill is a symbolic recognition, and we have made it clear that it will not have an effect on inheritance and the rest of the legal framework. Although it is symbolic, it is important for the people involved, and I hope that it will be of great emotional value to the children as they grow up. I am also delighted that there is an opportunity in the parliamentary timetable to implement one of the recommendations in Professor McLean's review. When that review was completed, we said that we would legislate when parliamentary time allowed. Clearly, there is a tight legislative schedule, but I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green has managed to find parliamentary time to proceed with his Bill. There is one recommendation in the McLean review that remains to be dealt with, on the use of gametes that have been taken and put into storage. Again, that involves fairly technical circumstances. For example, a child may be unable to consent to having their gametes taken because they are in a coma, but they may well want to use them in the future. We still have legislative work to do in that narrow area, but I hope that we can make progress there too.
I shared some of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) when I first saw the legislation, which attempts to think about
all possible eventualities. I am nervous of legislation that looks at hypothetical situations, because it can lead to unintended consequences that we may not have contemplated when we initially looked at the system. However, I am reassured that the provisions in the Bill do not simply mirror existing legislation. That is one good reason for doing something, but it is not always the whole story. If legislation mirrors existing provisions, it sometimes replicates problems as well as good measures. The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell outlined a specific instance in which a couple, not married, undertook fertility treatment together but not using the man's sperm. There are a lot of "nots" in that equation, but such a procedure may have practical benefits.Amendments agreed in Committee dealt with similar matters. For example, a woman would have 42 days to register a birth. If there were circumstances in which she was unable to do so immediately, her children would not lose the benefit of having their father's name on their birth certificate. Those amendments had a narrow focus and dealt with something that might possibly happen in tragic circumstances. It was right that they were considered in Committee, as the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) said. They were properly formulated scrutinised and debated, and have improved the Bill.
There has been complex discussion of the interaction of the Bill and human rights legislation. Hon. Members will know that there was a declaration of incompatibility between section 28 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 and article 8 of the European convention on human rights. That declaration was made some time ago in the courts, and was subject to the progress of this private Member's Bill. The judge who made it said that there was an incompatibility, but that he would stay proceedings pending the outcome of the Bill, which we consider remedies the incompatibility. We would only need to return to the possibility of introducing a remedial order under human rights legislation if the Bill did not make progress. That is another good reason why I am delighted that we have reached this stage in our proceedings.
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