Dawn
Primarolo: With respect, the quote that the hon. Gentleman
attributes to me, in which I used the word “symbolic” in
relation to birth certificates, was not a general statement. I was
speaking—following on from the 2003 Act—about specific
circumstances in which the father or parent is deceased. I was not
making a general point about the symbolism or otherwise of entries on
the birth certificate. The hon. Gentleman should not take the specific
for the general and assume that it reads across, because it does
not.
Dr.
Pugh: In no sense was I attempting to do that. However, we
have established in the case of a deceased parent who does not
contribute sperm to the IVF process that the entry on the birth
certificate would indicate neither a social role nor genetic origin. We
are in a very confused situation, although I am not sure whether we can
rectify it in this Committee.
The hon.
Member for Salisbury talked about whether donor conception should be
indicated on the birth certificate. I stand to be reasoned with for or
against on the issue and I have no fixed views, but donor-conceived
adults should know their genetic history. If there is no way for them
automatically to find that out—if nobody tells them and they
make no inquiries—they could be asked in the doctor’s
surgery whether they have a certain disease, and they would, in all
honesty and with complete integrity, make an inaccurate and false claim
because there was no such disease in what they thought was their
family. That is a concern.
Dawn
Primarolo: Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the
same could, regrettably, apply to people’s genetic make-up now?
We put absolute trust in our parents to ensure that we know such
things. With IVF, parents are put in exactly the same position of trust
in ensuring that their children know these things. The legislation
loops around.
Dr.
Pugh: Yes, we could be wrong about our genetic inheritance
and our parents could mislead us, but they would do us a disservice,
particularly as we are learning that disease profiles are related to
one’s genetic
disposition.
Robert
Key: I believe that what the Minister said needs
qualifying. Of course it is true that we trust our parents to tell us
whether they are in fact our parents, but unfortunately we know that in
one live birth in 10 the mother does not know who the father is. That
evidence was given to the Joint Committee. More important today is that
there is a difference between trusting our parents and trusting the
state. To be involved in state
deception, with the state preventing a child from knowing its genetic
antecedents, is quite another matter.
Dr.
Pugh: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The state is
knowingly putting people in a position less advantaged than they
ordinarily have. I believe that legal opinion ought to be sought on the
matter, because there is a human rights issue to be decided. The state
knows something that the individual does not. The individual may
consult the state medical service, which may ask a genuine question,
but that person cannot answer adequately because he has no means of
doing so.
Mark
Simmonds: The hon. Gentleman may not be aware that legal
advice has been sought, but counsel’s advice is that it may be
against the human rights of the child knowingly to remove potential
genetic knowledge—perhaps preventing the child from benefiting
from treatment to resolve a genetic inheritance problem because the
information had been removed from the birth
certificate.
Dr.
Pugh: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that
intervention. It supplements the point that I was
making.
The more
fundamental point is explicit. It is that people have almost a moral
right to know of what they are made. That is over and above what human
rights legislation provides. The state should not be seen to frustrate
that. We have opened up a wide debate, possibly going beyond schedule
6, but those concerns will re-emerge on
Report. Dr.
Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon) (LD): Before the
Committee goes down the human rights path, it is probably worth
considering the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the
issue. As the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness said, at best it is a
potential right—in other words, the right to know is
engaged—but no case law in Europe or here has established any
sort of actionable right, not even against the
state.
Dr.
Pugh: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am
reluctant to get into esoteric debates about human rights. My hon.
Friend is a fundamentalist on human rights in a way that possibly I am
not. The point is that I know discrimination when I stare at it; in
this case, we appear to be staring at discrimination facilitated by the
state.
Dr.
Harris: Fundamentalist or otherwise, I am grateful for the
opportunity to speak again. I am conscious of the fact that we might
debate the subject further when we come to one of the new clauses, but
it is important to clarify a number of things.
I support the
Government’s position on this part of the Bill and their
approach to birth certificates. I know that that view is not shared
across my party; for us, it is a free vote issue, and Baroness Barker
took a different view in the House of Lords. She was entitled to do
that, and she did so effectively. I respect her sincere views on the
matter, but birth certificates are a statement of legal parenthood, and
it does not necessarily relate to genetic parenthood.
The hon.
Member for Salisbury spoke of one in 10. Some research studies show
that as many as 10 per cent. of children believe their social father to
be their genetic father when he is not; whether the mother knows who is
the father is a separate issue. The child does not know in
non-paternity cases far more frequently than in assisted reproduction.
There is clearly a difference if the state has the information, but in
respect of allowing children to know who their genetic parents are, the
Government have chosen not to tell the children directly, and not to
force parents but merely to encourage them to do
so. That
is best practice, and it is right that the Government’s funding
approach promotes it. That is right and proper. Maybe I am being a
fundamentalist about not being statist on the matter, but I do not
think that it is the state’s role to wade into families, disrupt
the family dynamic and tell them what to do. It would be going over the
heads of parents, who are entitled to some privacy about non-paternity
and, if they choose not to tell their children—regrettably, in
my view—about assisted
reproduction. The
point has been made that that puts such children at a disadvantage in
terms of family history if they see a doctor, but non-paternity is far
more frequent than assisted reproduction. As we know, even where one
cannot access identifying information about a donor, it is always open
to a child who knows to get that information as an adult. Parents have
their children’s best interests at heart and will be aware if
there is an issue of familial disease that will bear strongly on their
children. There
is no perfect solution. There are significant drawbacks in seeking to
specify over the heads of parents that children should be notified or
birth certificates marked. Birth certificates are public
documents—well, they are not public documents, but they must be
produced on certain occasions—and people have a right to
privacy.
To finish
with the human rights issue, it is often stated—it was stated,
incorrectly, in the House of Lords—that there is some human
right to know one’s genetic parents. If that is the case, one
would have a right to perform paternity tests on one’s father or
lie detector tests on one’s mother, overriding their right to
privacy. That is not the case. Fathers and mothers have a right to
privacy. If we go down that path and follow that idea to its full
conclusion—I do not suggest that hon. Members are saying that we
should—there will be implications. I shall not read it out, but
I draw the Committee’s attention to pages 56 and 57 of the Joint
Committee’s report, which clarifies that the Rose case showed
that article 8 was engaged on private life, but that that case was
never decided in respect of what balance must be found between the
person’s and the parents’
rights.
Dr.
Pugh: My hon. Friend spoke about maternity. The sort of
case that most acutely affects me is one in which, for example, the
child of a donor egg was female and a strong history of breast cancer,
which has a virulent genetic component, was attached to the donor
family. Would that not be putting somebody at a serious and possibly
even fatal
disadvantage?
Dr.
Harris: Yes. Clearly, people who have inherited a genetic
disease are at a disadvantage. That is also the case where a male
transmits a disease unbeknown to the person who inherits it. Believe
me, I know about the
tragedy of serious inherited genetic disease, but the fact that such
things happen does not mean that we need to override parents’
rights.
The issues
are difficult, but I think that the Government have taken the right
approach. They have said that they will review the matter, and we must
remember that when the Government removed donor anonymity—I
thought that that was wrong and that there should be a
choice—they chose not to force parents to tell their children of
the fact of donor conception. When donors are identifiable, there is an
increased risk that parents will not tell their children, so the result
is more secrecy, not less, because parents believe—wrongly, but
quite naturally—that children will try to find their genetic
parent. The issues are complex, but in this Bill, the Government have
got it right. Although the schedule is complex, I support its overall
approach. Dr.
Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East) (Lab): Before the
Minister responds—I expected this discussion to take place under
new clause 1, but it has been generated now—has she given any
thought to the suggestion floated by one organisation that we should
have a short and a long birth certificate? The short one would be
essentially the one that we use now to obtain various services and
produce to show what parents brought us up in a social way. At the same
time, if it is a donor-conceived birth, a long birth certificate would
be presented to the parents, which could be kept confidential, wherever
those parents wish to keep it. When they think that the time is right
to tell the child who is conceived in this way about its genetic
background, they could present the long birth certificate to the child.
I have not given the idea much thought, but it is worthy of
consideration by the Committee—and by the review, when it takes
place. 10.15
am
Mark
Simmonds: I would like to join other hon. Members who have
spoken in the debate and again express my concern about schedule 6. As
my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury rightly pointed out, the
schedule is extremely lengthy, detailed and complex. I do not wish to
repeat what others have said, but I want to support the points made by
my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Southport on the seeming
conflict that exists in Government policy direction. The Bill says, on
page 73, in paragraph
4(3)(1B): “the
registrar shall not enter in the register the name of any woman as a
parent of the child by virtue of that
section”. It
goes on to make some exceptions. That throws up the question of the
necessity and importance of a mother, as well as the importance and
necessity of a father, which we debated on the Floor of the House a
little while ago. That seems to be the policy direction in the Bill,
but let us look at the White Paper just released by the Department for
Work and Pensions. A press release from the Secretary of State for
Children, Schools and Families quotes from the foreword by the two
Ministers, which says that the White
Paper “sets
out...measures to promote and support joint birth registration and
changes to give mothers a right to insist that the father acknowledges
his responsibilities to his child by registering on the birth
certificate. Equally, it gives a father a new right to insist that he
is
registered.” I
accept that that is not yet legislative change. Those are
non-legislative measures. However, the press release
goes on to say that the two Departments will jointly develop further
legislation within the Government, which throws out the question of how
the interactions will occur and whether they will fit comfortably
alongside each other. That seems to be, at the very least, a conflict
of direction. I do not wish
to get into the detail of the debate on new clause 1, which will occur
later in Committee. We need to raise specific issues in some detail
when we come to discuss that new clause. However, there appears to be
an inconsistency. We have to acknowledge that there have been
inconsistencies for some time on the contents of birth certificates.
They have not always been an exact genetic record of the child, but
that does not mean that the state should be complicit in making them
less of an accurate record. I am sure that later we will have the
genetic versus social debate, but the birth certificate is an important
document. I am nervous about the state colluding in what is,
ultimately, a deception on behalf of the as yet unborn
child. We
can get into the legal wrangling later on, but I am nervous—the
hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon made the point, although he
seemed to dismiss it rather quickly—that we could disadvantage a
child who may well have a familial disease by not having an accurate
record on the birth certificate. We should discuss the suggestion made
by the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East, because it is a potential
solution to the problem. I have wrestled with the issue for a
considerable time and I think that I have come to a
conclusion—although there are circumstances in which it would
not be possible—that wherever and as much as possible the birth
certificate should be a biological record of the
child.
Dawn
Primarolo: The hon. Member for Salisbury put the matter
clearly. We have gone into other discussions that buttress that, but I
want to answer his three points specifically, without drifting into new
clause 1, which we will debate later. The Bill, set within the specific
parameters of IVF, continually cross-references and refers to the need
for the parents to be responsible for the child, except where the
parent, including the father, is deceased. In that context, all hon.
Members agree that, as I have said in our proceedings, the decision to
have a child should not be taken lightly and carries with it
responsibilities. That is continually reinforced in the Bill. It is
about caring, nurturing, supporting and providing for that
child. Schedule
6 cross-references, for same-sex couples, the responsibilities that we
are updating in the Bill in respect of the 1990 Act with every other
piece of legislation on registration and responsibilities for a
child. The
second point made by the hon. Member for Salisbury, which was also
considered in the debate in another place, was about whether the fact
that a child was donor-conceived should appear on their birth
certificate. The point about transmission of genetic predispositions to
certain diseases for donor-conceived children is already dealt with, as
all donors are screened. We know a huge amount about such things now,
so unless a condition is not known about, it is less likely that a
donor-conceived child will be at a disadvantage, as the hon. Member for
Southport mentioned, than that anyone else will, because their genetic
parent will have been actively screened before conception. It is a
long, difficult process and the donor enters into that
consideration.
On the point
about whether a child’s being donor-conceived should appear on
their birth
certificate—
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