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Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and I shall not take long. Neither my noble friend Lady Noakes, nor anyone else, was suggesting—I certainly was not—that we are in a position of crisis. We were suggesting that unless something is done about the extent of debt, and done fairly soon, it will not be tolerable for the economy in the future.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. He will have recognised that under the promptings of the noble Baroness I withdrew that term. Nevertheless, the noble Lord contributed to certain elements of gloom about the present position, which I want to refute. I want to refute another area of significant concern which was mentioned today; that is, the housing market.
There are problems with certain aspects of the housing market. Borrowing against an asset which is being enhanced does not appear to me to be a major problem in the economy, but we must certainly have regard to first-time buyers. That is why we commissioned the Barker review and from that have developed a whole series of proposals which will be brought to fruition to meet the mismatch between the demand for and the supply of housing.
We all recognise why it is difficult to generate a rapid response in terms of supply with regard to housing, but we also recognise that with the increase in the number of households—an important factor in regard to housing demand—we need to think more seriously about extending house building and house building opportunities. That is the burden of the Barker review and it is the basis on which the Government intend to act in order to relieve some of the pressure upon the housing market.
Against the background of a strong economy, judicious action to look after the most vulnerable and our concern as regards fundamental issues such as the housing market, I emphasise my view that the Government should not be complacent about personal debt. That is why action has been taken today in the way I have described. There is a whole range of other fundamental actions being taken by government. We are in the position which was summed up so much more accurately than I can by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky; namely, that, because of changes in the structure of the economy and legitimate changes among our people regarding expectation, what 15 or 20 years ago might have been looked upon as potential for very serious problems as regards the economy will not manifest in those terms. Far from it; what we have are aspects.
Let me give one obvious illustration. The proportion of homes repossessed by lenders is at a historically low level. The current position does not represent a very stark contrast with the position which I think the Official Opposition this evening were prone to describe. That was the position of 15 or 20 years ago with the appalling consequences of the housing crash.
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I maintain that the strength of our economy is such that no such crash will be repeated this time. The Government are acting judiciously and are in control of the situation. We recognise that there is no room for complacency, and that action needs to be taken in certain crucial areas.
Nevertheless, we are also appreciative of the fact that alarm and gloom should not be spread against a background of a rising economy—one in which there has been considerable prosperity in recent years—where the majority of people take judicious decisions on the handling of their household incomes and wealth.
Lord Selsdon: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether he could help me—not necessarily today at this moment. I have been asked if I could produce a comparison between government borrowing and consumer borrowing on a like-for-like basis. Perhaps the Minister can send me a short letter stating, for example, that the level of consumer borrowing today is "this" and that the level of government borrowing is "that". It would be a sort of simple comparison, because both sides have a right to know.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am happy to give that assurance. I shall write to the noble Lord and make sure that all other contributors to the debate receive the same letter.
The Earl of Northesk: My Lords, I am hugely grateful to all my noble friends—I still prefer to include the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, among their number—for their contributions to the debate.
It has been a delight to listen to everyone's comments. In fact, in contrasting the speeches of the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and other contributions, albeit to varying degrees and from varying directions, I detected a degree of consensus. It strikes me that we are all agreed that of itself personal debt does not constitute an immediate threat to the economy. We are all much more concerned about its current impact in individual cases. Importantly, there are concerns as to what the potential outcomes of the current trends in the statistics, if sustained, might be.
To that extent the delineation of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, between the worriers and optimists was accurate. In so far as concerns gloom, it centres around anxieties as to whether the Government are properly focused on these trends.
Having articulated both sides of this coin to the benefit of the Government and the Treasury, tonight's proceedings have, I believe, been extremely useful. Of course, now is not the time to rehearse the debate in its entirety. Once again, I am hugely grateful to all noble friends who have spoken. It only remains for me to beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (Disclosure of Donor Information) Regulations 2004
Baroness Andrews rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 4 May be approved [18th Report from the Joint Committee and 8th Report from the Merits Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, we believe these regulations recognise changing times and changing expectations. They also deal with issues that are by definition sensitive and controversial and to which the Government have sought, after long and hard reflection, to do justice.
In 1990 this House agreed the current provisions for the information which the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority can give to donor-conceived adults. The provisions were right for their time. The 1990 Act enabled the HFEA to construct a register and provide the following limited information, if asked by a donor-conceived adult: whether the person might be related to someone they intend to marry; and, at age 18 or over, whether the HFEA's register showed them to be donor conceived.
Those were entirely sensible provisions in their day. But over the past 13 years it has become apparent that in adulthood some donor-conceived people find those provisions inadequate and insufficient. Some have said, for example, very poignantly that not being able to find out about their origins has left them with a gap in the way they see themselves, a gap in their identity, in their ability to tell their own story—and we are, after all, story-telling animals—and an inability to make complete sense of their lives.
By 2010, about 40,000 donor-conceived children will have been born—and by 2023, about 60,000 such children. This is an issue for the House today because in agreeing the provisions in 1990, Parliament anticipated the possibility that, as time passed, more information might be sought and might need to be given. The Act had a regulation-making power in Section 31 to enable us to do this, and for the past three years we have been considering and consulting how best to do so. We feel it is now time to end the uncertainty, to make good that anticipation and, in particular, to reflect the paramount rights of the child in these provisions as we are seeking to do consistently in many other aspects of law and practice.
There are two aspects to the regulations—non-identifying and identifying. Under the regulations before us today, a donor-conceived person aged 18 or older will be able to obtain a list of non-identifying information about their donor from the HFEA if they ask for that information and if that information is on the HFEA's register—which began in 1991. Given the lapse of time, the first 18 year-olds will be eligible to ask for this information in 2010. By that time, the information on the register might be slightly limiting, depending on what the donor was asked to provide at the time of donation. In respect of donors who register with a clinic on or after 1 July of this year, a comprehensive set of non-identifying information will be collected from fertility
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clinics by the HFEA. This is listed at Regulation 2(2)(a) to (h), and for example includes physical features, ethnic group, religion, occupational interest, and a pen portrait of the donor.
The second element in the regulations enables donor-conceived people born from gametes or embryos donated on or after 1 April 2005 to obtain identifying information about their donor from the HFEA when they reach age 18 or later. That is set out in paragraph 3, and includes the name, date of birth and last known postal address. We fully recognise that this is a highly sensitive issue. There is an ethical as well as a practical need to balance the rights of the child with the rights of the donors who make such an invaluable gift of life. We have concluded after an extensive public exercise and consultation that it is right that in the future donor-assisted young people should have these new rights. We have every expectation that they will grow up in loving and happy families. However, just as some other countries have concluded, we also feel that they should have the right to access information about their origins which will help them, if they so choose, to complete their life history.
Among the bodies which support the decision are the Ethical Committee of the BMA and many children's organisations. This means that the first 18 year-olds to benefit from that information will do so from late 2023. Let me emphasise that the commitment to past donors has been that they will not be identified retrospectively. We respect and will uphold that commitment.
What has changed since 1990 to make this provision seem so necessary? One thing is that there are some 25,000 donor-conceived children—2,000 are born a year—and we welcome that. Another important cultural change—partly because of the 1990 Act—is that the secrecy and even stigma surrounding assisted conception has faded. Many more people talk much more openly about assisted conception, including donor conception. We celebrate that, and recognise and share the distress that infertility causes. Assisted conception and infertility is no longer so much of a matter to keep hidden, though of course it remains a painful matter, very deeply felt. I also believe that public attitudes towards information and rights to information have changed dramatically. Information now is much more readily accessible than it was in 1991. Information about donors is held on a national database, the register of the HFEA. It is largely collected and stored by the HFEA, but donor-conceived people have no access to it. In a century where access to information is regarded as a personal and political right, this does not seem any longer to be appropriate. It has already proved to be a bone of contention—the Government are very likely to be challenged about the provision of information to donor-conceived people, as the Department of Health has already been in an application brought by Liberty. That application related to the provision of non-identifying information.
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I say again, we have not taken this step without long and serious public consideration. We held a consultation exercise on non-identifying information between December 2001 and July 2002. That process revealed that there needed to be a wider debate on identifying information. These regulations reflect the outcome of this whole process. The responses to the public consultation showed that there was significant support for the non-identifying regulations. There is also considerable, but not universal, support for a move to identifiable donors.
Let me focus on identifying information since that is what I know noble Lords will want to address. Of the 237 responses received to the public consultation in 2002, 132 were in favour of removing donor anonymity; 70 were against; and 23 were undecided. However, we found that there were relatively few responses from clinics or donors. So, we carried out further work to assess the response of clinics. Forty-five clinics and 140 donors replied. Most, not all, of the clinics did not favour removing donor anonymity. I will come to the reasons for that in a while. However, a third of them made positive suggestions for recruiting identifiable donors in the future—more advertising, with a higher profile, and more and better information. One or two clinics were extremely positive.
In the light of that, I shall address some of the dilemmas that, I am sure, noble Lords will want to raise. First, will the change to identifying donors lead to a loss of donors, longer waiting lists and more pain for potential families? We recognise the importance of donor sperm or eggs for 7,000 or 8,000 patients each year. We know that clinics will need to recruit at least 200 identifiable sperm donors each year, perhaps double that. They will also have to recruit 1,100 identifiable egg donors. Of the 140 donors who responded, half said that they would be willing to donate again as identifiable donors, if they were able to. We know, of course, that many of them will not be able to, for a range of reasons, but it is a significant and encouraging response, as they were recruited on the firm understanding that they would be anonymous.
Secondly, although we recognise that there is likely to be a dip in donor numbers—certainly in the short term—evidence from other countries suggests that donor levels will rise again. After Sweden removed donor anonymity in 1985, there was a decline, but research indicates that the decline was later reversed. In Victoria, Australia, identifying information for all donors was required from 1998. A decline was reported, but now donor recruitment is at a level that meets the need. In New Zealand, there has been a voluntary system for identifying donors for some time, and new legislation has recently been introduced to remove anonymity. We are told that the consensus is that the legislation is highly likely to succeed.
The third reason why we believe that the recruitment of identifiable donors is achievable is that we are doing things differently. We are not aware of any other country that has removed donor anonymity alongside a campaign to raise public awareness and improve the
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service. That step forward will put the recruitment and support of donors on a more systematic and reliable basis, which the clinics have wanted.
Since 1990, the National Gamete Donation Trust has become a central point of contact for people wanting information about becoming a donor, and we have funded it for several years. Additional funding has recently been made available for the appointment of a donor recruitment manager. That is a big step forward. She will work with clinics, with the HFEA and with organisations representing patients to improve services for donors and encourage recruitment. The manager is now in post, and we shall make further funding available.
We will accompany the transition to donor identifiability with a positive, proactive campaign for public awareness of the value of donation, so that we can help clinics to recruit identifiable donors. We are working closely with the British Fertility Society and the National Gamete Donation Trust. We are already discussing ways of using the media to reach potential new donors. Ultimately, we want to see a change in the culture around donation. We want a better service, which not only emphasises the value of the gift made but encourages a different profile of donors and provides additional support and status for donors and donor families. I am reminded of the great book by Richard Titmuss, published some time ago, on the gift relationship. He was talking about blood donation, but this is a gift relationship of a different sort, and we should value it.
We are taking steps to support clinics and their work. We realise that clinics cannot change from using anonymous donors to identifiable donors overnight. We have given advance notice to clinics of a transitional period from 1 April 2005 to 31 March 2006, in which clinics will be able to use sperm or eggs donated anonymously before 1 April 2005. From 1 April 2006, when the transitional period will have ended, donations will have to be used on an identifiable basis. There will be exceptions for gametes reserved for the creation of siblings for children already born, which will not be destroyed until the end of their storage period, and embryos created before 1 April 2006 from sperm or eggs donated anonymously before 1 April 2005.
One of the fears that has been raised is that parents might be deterred from telling their children that they are donor-conceived, but I understand that research soon to be published by Susan Golombok, Director of the Family and Child Research Centre at City University, indicates that more parents are planning to tell their child about donor conception—about 50 per cent intend to do so. The research points out that if parents act on this intention, obviously it is likely that some children, when adults, will want to have information about their donor. Some may wish to have direct contact.
The fear is that such willingness to be open will be compromised if families are afraid of a much-loved child breaking away to initiate a new and possibly destructive relationship, leading to distress and trauma to the original family. The evidence from
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Susan Golombok's research is that there is greater emotional involvement between both parents and the child conceived by gamete donation than other children. It is a well researched piece of work and, I believe, extremely significant. That evidence seems to militate against such a general possibility.
At another level, I do not believe, at a time when there seems to be more openness towards relationships, that that trend will be reversed. We are living through a cultural change. We have seen such openness work successfully in recent years in relation to adoption. Research in Sweden, where donor anonymity was removed in 1985, showed that more parents told their children about their origins in the period 1992–97 than in the period 1986–92, and that about 50 per cent have told, or intend to do so.
A third source of reassurance comes from the fact that families will not be left to fend for themselves as they consider telling their child. There is a great deal more support available for families to assist them through the process, and there will be more in the future from organisations such as the Donor Conception Network who will put families in touch with each other and, I am sure, will be able to develop the services and support they offer, in terms of information, workshops and so on, in response to the challenge that will be placed upon them.
The fear that parents may be deterred from telling is related to another: whether donors will be deterred by what has been rather dramatically described as the threat of a knock on their door in 18 years' time. We are giving careful thought to what counselling services might be accessible to donors if a donor-conceived adult expressed an interest in contact. We would expect arrangements for being in contact to adopt the same values and principles as those we are developing through the adoption changes. Those changes were much more radical because they were retrospective, which the contact arrangements are not. There are many details to be worked out for the process to be put in place in 18 years' time. We have time to get it right, and I can pass on an invitation from my right honourable friend the Minister in another place to noble Lords to give their responses, experience and advice on these issues.
There are two points I want to make clear. First, donor-assisted children who want to seek out the donor will not be able to make any claims on them. The donor will have no legal, social or financial responsibilities. The second is a more intuitive comment. These children are, by definition, much-loved and much-wanted, and in those circumstances it is unlikely that they would seek wilfully to disrupt the donor's family life. There is some positive evidence: several donor-conceived children in the UK and abroad have traced genetic links through DNA testing. They have not acted, or been met, with hostility. In fact, I understand that much happiness has resulted. Over the past 12 to 15 years in New Zealand, donors have been accepted only if they were prepared to be identified to offspring in the future. In recent years the Sperm Bank of California has
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provided the identity of its first donors to donate under its identity release scheme. We are not aware of any negative consequences that have followed from that.
We will take stringent steps in the regulations to ensure that donors and donor-assisted people have the fullest possible information and support in whatever decision they take. A donor-conceived adult wishing to ask for information from the HFEA might, for example, be given an initial leaflet for consideration or be offered appropriate counselling. Another possibility is that they might be offered non-identifying information first, before taking the decision to ask for identifying information. They do not have to ask for all the information, but it would be accessible to them.
As I have said, donors will be offered extensive counselling before signing up with a clinic to being identifiable. If a donor decides to proceed, his or her information will be passed to the HFEA for storing on its register.
I believe that these regulations are timely. Given that the issues are so difficult, they are appropriate, right and consistent with other aspects of the policy for children. With a strong effort by fertility clinics, sperm banks and support organisations, and with a campaign for public awareness, a better service and a more positive, open culture, I believe that we can steadily attract donors to meet patients' needs and protect the rights of children growing up in a future world where questions of identity are likely to be even more urgent than they are today. I commend the regulations to the House.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 4 May be approved [18th Report from the Joint Committee and 8th Report from the Merits Committee].—(Baroness Andrews.)
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