§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner)My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health (Miss Johnson) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
I am pleased to announce that, after a two-year period of consultation and consideration, we propose to seek Parliament's approval for regulations, under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, to enable people conceived by donated sperm, eggs or embryos in future to know the identity of their donor.
We propose that donors who donate from 1 April 2005 will do so on the understanding that any child born as a result of their donation will be able to obtain from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority identifying details about them when the child reaches the age of 18. This will not apply to people who have donated before that time. It means that the first donor-conceived people to receive identifying information about their donors would do so in 2023.
I must stress that removal of anonymity will not lead to the donor having any responsibility, parental, financial or otherwise, for the child.
In addition, as we announced on 28 January 2003, the regulations will provide for non-identifying information about donors to be given, on request, to donor-conceived people who were born after the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's register came into effect in 1991. This will be available to 18 year-olds in 2010. The non-identifying information will be standardised so that, from 2022, all donor-conceived people who request it will be able to receive the same categories of information.
The decision that it is right to remove donor anonymity has been informed by a public consultation on the provision of information to donor-conceived people; a programme of work with clinics and donors; consideration of the position in other countries; and a comparison with the information available to adopted people. We have also listened to the voices of donor-conceived people. Our conclusion is that the interests of the child are paramount, and that the position of donor-conceived people should be aligned more closely with that of adopted people, with access to identifying information about their donor when they reach age 18.
We intend to use the opportunity of the removal of anonymity to encourage a change in the culture of sperm, egg and embryo donation. By bringing more openness to it, we want to see wider recognition of the value and importance of such donations, and greater public appreciation of the dramatic difference that the donors can make to lives and families. To support the transition to identifiable donors, we will raise consciousness of the need for donors and the contribution they make to our society through a campaign for public awareness.
The regulations will be laid before Parliament as soon as possible.
We have also considered developments that are taking place more widely in the assisted reproduction area. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act has been in 46WS force since 1991. It was landmark legislation at the time, setting up the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and introducing the first regulatory regime in the world specifically for the newly developing field of assisted reproduction. Since then, over 73, 000 babies have been born in the UK as a result of treatment procedures regulated under the Act.
Bearing in mind the speed at which new technologies in the fertility field develop, and the complex ethical issues often associated with them, the Act has stood the test of time remarkably well.
However, any cutting-edge legislation, no matter how successful, at some stage needs to be reconsidered and any necessary readjustments made to ensure that it continues to be effective. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act is no exception. Developments in new technologies, changes in public perception of ethical issues, and the effect of international developments ail have an impact and need to be considered.
I have concluded, therefore, that it is time to review the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The review will begin in 2004 and will include a full public consultation exercise in 2005. The review will be carried out by the department, and will include taking account of the work of the Science and Technology Committee, which is considering human reproductive technologies and the law and plans to report later this year. We welcome the work of the committee.
The review will be wide-ranging, but will exclude certain issues such as embryo research, stem cells and cloning which have been extensively and conclusively debated in Parliament in recent years. The issues that we envisage the review addressing include the range of procedures covered by the Act, checking the safety and efficacy of techniques, ethical considerations and effective regulation.
The Act has been very successful landmark legislation. We believe that it is right to review it to ensure that it continues to be effective in the 21st century.