Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Statutory Storage Period for Embryos and Gametes) Regulations 2009

My Lords, I shall be very brief as I am conscious of the hour. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and I also express my gratitude to the Minister for her very full reply. I was encouraged by some of it and shall have to go away and read other parts of it. Like my noble friend Lady Knight, I was puzzled by one part of the noble Baroness’s answer in relation to premature infertility. Surely the question of whether someone is or is not prematurely infertile turns not only on an assessment of that individual but also on what is considered to be the biological limit of fertility in the average person—man or woman. I do not think that the Minister fully addressed that part of the issue; nor did she address the point that the regulations could technically permit a child to be born well beyond a woman’s natural limit for child-bearing, because the final extension of a full 10 years could be granted when a woman was aged 53. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said that these regulations do not in effect take us into new ethical territory. I beg to say to her that I believe they do because the extended storage of gametes and embryos for the purpose of donation or surrogacy was made expressly illegal under the 1991 and 1996 regulations. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, to whom I listened with great care and respect, suggested that elderly parenthood does not really raise any ethical issues at all. Again, I respectfully disagree with that if that was his view. My sole reason for wanting to call this debate was to say that there are ethical issues here and that they need to be talked about and thought about, especially from the point of view of the child. All too often people talk about these things solely or mainly from the point of view of the infertile person. It is not a question of a lack of compassion but of looking at these matters in the round, and I was very encouraged to hear that the HFEA is indeed doing that and is actively considering issuing further guidance. I welcome that assurance. I suppose that I could not reasonably have hoped for a revised set of regulations to substitute for these but, at the very least, it will be good and positive if this debate sends a strong signal to the HFEA that the question of the child’s welfare in the context of the issues raised this evening should be given a lot more careful thought. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion. Motion withdrawn.