Clause 24
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]
3:45 pm
Dawn Primarolo (Minister of State (Public Health), Department of Health; Bristol South, Labour)
I agree with the points that the hon. Gentleman has just made. I will answer specifically the questions I was asked by the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness regarding the Government’s position. The Bill allows for donor-conceived people, on reaching the age of 16, to contact the HFEA to find out non-identifying information about their donor. This information is, rightly, accessible to donor-conceived people, and has a direct impact on them.
The purpose of allowing donor-conceived people access to information about their donor is to fill a gap in the knowledge that they have about themselves. Many donor-conceived people feel they are missing important information about who they are and where they came from, because one set of genetic information is missing. Information, including identifying information about the donor, is intended to help to address that, and it is for those reasons that provisions are made to allow such people to find out about their donor. Donors sign up to donate on the understanding that such information will be available.
The intention behind the amendment is to shift down a further generation, to allow children of donor-conceived people to contact the HFEA to obtain information from the register regarding their parent’s donor, in a situation where the parent has died and did not make contact with the HFEA. The amendment would allow the child of a donor-conceived person to find out whether they are related to someone with whom they are having, or intend to have, an intimate relationship. In effect, it means giving a child access to details of their parent’s donor conception that the parent had chosen not to access. We can envisage that a parent may well have decided quite intentionally not to access that information, and may have regarded it as personal and highly sensitive. It also raises the question of situations in which the donor-conceived person is not dead but is incapacitated. What do we do then? Should their children be able to go to the HFEA?
The Government said that they would give the issue very careful consideration since it was raised in another place. We remain of the view, having looked again and considered the issues, that access to the HFEA’s register should continue to focus on those directly affected, and that it should be up to the donor-conceived person to decide whether to access the information available to them and who they subsequently choose to pass that information to—including their own offspring.
While we realise that there may be compelling circumstances, it would be difficult to limit access to that specific situation, and wider access to the register would raise broader issues around access to sensitive and personal information. I am also of the view that, on donating, a donor is able to prepare for possible contact from a donor-conceived child, and to envisage the time span in which that may occur. I do not think that it is reasonable for the donor to be much older and unable to expect at what point in time a possible contact might be made.
Although I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness, we must allow a donor-conceived individual to decide to whom they pass on information if they have accessed it. No one else should have the right to access that information. I hope that that clarifies the Government’s view for the hon. Gentleman. We consider this to be fundamental in terms of the rights of the individuals concerned and I hope that he will not press the amendment.