My Lords, when we were legislating earlier in the year to allow the eldest female child of the Crown to succeed to the Crown, I raised a case which I have followed over a good many years now; it was a constituency case when I was a Member of the other House. I raised the case of a child born of a surrogate mother but with the gametes of the Monarch and the Queen—if that is where the succession passed—and I asked whether, over the succession to the Crown issue, that child could succeed. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who was speaking for the Government, was not able to answer the question there and then, but he kindly wrote to me again back in March of this year. I wish to quote part of his letter. He said that,
“the child of a surrogate mother cannot succeed to a peerage and the Government is of the view that if succession to the peerage is
excluded then a fortiori succession to the Crown must be excluded as well, even though the Crown is not expressly mentioned”.
He went on to say:
“We believe that the law is currently sufficiently clear in this area, but should the issue arise in the future, and the Government of the day disagree, it could, of course, amend the legislation in line with the medical practice of the time. Given the pace of medical advancement in this area this seems eminently sensible”.
My Amendment 14 seeks to allow the children of a Peer and his wife, or rather the eldest child, to succeed to the parent’s title when it is born of a surrogate mother, and where it can be clearly shown that the child is the product of the gametes of that Peer and his wife. Until recently, of course, this would have been a very dangerous amendment to the law and would not have been sensible. It would have been open to what I would describe as “monkey business” and one could have trod on very dangerous ground. However, we now have DNA testing and it can be established with virtual certainty that a child is really the offspring of those who assert that it is. Obviously, a situation of this sort is much more likely to crop up in the peerage than over succession to the Crown because far more people are involved in the peerage. I see no reason whatever why a child who has exactly the same genetic make-up as his or her parents, albeit having been born of a surrogate mother, should not have exactly the same rights as a child born to the genetic mother. I believe that this is fair. It is obviously a novel concept. I wish that we could have introduced this in the Crown Bill, but I am afraid that I thought of it only at the very last moment when I spoke on that Bill—I think on Report. However, in this Bill, when we are talking about succession to the peerage, I think it would be appropriate to introduce this element which science has made possible within the past few years. I hope that your Lordships’ House will accept this amendment. I beg to move.
2.45 pm