New Clause 1
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [Lords]
1:45 pm
Robert Key (Salisbury, Conservative)
I endorse entirely what my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness has said. I would like to press him a little and to concentrate on the second paragraph (b) in the new clause, on the provision of a detailed birth certificate.
I am grateful to a number of organisations and individuals who have been in touch with me—the partnership focus group, the British Association of Social Workers Project Group on Assisted Reproduction, and the Donor Conception Network, to name but three. I am particularly grateful to Professor Eric Blyth, professor of social work at the university of Huddersfield, with whom I have had some correspondence on this matter. It seems to me that, in view of the discussion in the other place and what my hon. Friend has said, there is a problem that we must crack with the short birth certificate and the so-called long birth certificate. In the other place no proposal has been made that does not involve extra bureaucracy, which would risk compromising the privacy of parents or donor-conceived people, or other members of their family. The principle risk to privacy is the fact that birth certificates are public documents. Not only is the long birth certificate, which provides details of the individual’s parents, increasingly required for a range of legal and other purposes, but anyone who is armed with minimal information and prepared to pay a modest fee can obtain a copy of the long birth certificate of any other person in the country. I shall not repeat what I said earlier about the discussion in the other place, but I wonder if my hon. Friend would agree that all certificates of birth—in other words, the short birth certificate—could include this text:
“Further information relating to the individual whose birth is recorded on the certificate may be held on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority register of information, the parental order register or the adopted children register.”
All certified copies of an entry pursuant to the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953—in other words, the long birth certificate—could have this text:
“Further information relating to the individual whose birth is recorded on this certificate may be held on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority register of information.”
Adopted people and people subject to a parental order as a result of a surrogacy arrangement already have an adoption certificate or a parental order certificate, respectively, in lieu of a long birth certificate, clearly indicating their status. The proposal I am making would mean that all individuals had access to a birth certificate that alerted them to the existence of other registers. It would not single out any one individual or, by implication, their parents or family members; everybody would have this. Thus, the information could act as a trigger for the individual to make their own inquiries of the registers, subject to the legally mandated age limits for accessing such information. Both in advance of undergoing a donor procedure and as part of the new provisions for parent education, adults who are contemplating building their family through donor conception would in the future receive a clear message about the merits of early disclosure and would be advised about the new text on birth certificates. That would provide parents with an added incentive for early disclosure, rather than risking later and possibly traumatic disclosure. That seems to be something that both Houses have thought is the best way forward.