In Vitro Fertilisation: 40th Anniversary

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, every day, my school bus used to go past a building which, in those days, looked very reminiscent of the Victorian workhouse that it had once been. It was a little general hospital that nobody paid much attention to, until that day in 1978 when Louise Brown was born—within kicking distance of Boundary Park—in that hospital. It is a source of ongoing pleasure to the people of Oldham that she was born not in New York, not in London and, best of all, not in Manchester. The story of why she came to be born in an obscure district general hospital and how the world-beating team came to be there is a very interesting story, which can be read in the books by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and I suggest that noble Lords do so.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for the opportunity today to right a wrong. Everybody knows about Steptoe and Edwards; very few people, me included, knew about Jean Purdy, who was a central member of that team. She ran the lab, but she did a lot more than that. She was co-author with Robert Edwards of 26 academic publications between 1970 and 1985 and she has been credited with being the first person ever to recognise and describe the formation of an early human blastocyst. But, like many a woman in science, she has been overlooked and forgotten. Sadly, she is no longer with us—she died in 1985—but let us give her memory its rightful recognition today.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, set out in helpful detail the history of legislation on this issue and the part played by this House, which it is important to recognise. Back in 1984, Baroness Warnock and her committee set out the ethical framework under which all subsequent consideration has taken place. In 1990, as the noble and learned Lord set out, the legislation came to the fore. It stands as a robust framework within which all the developments in science and societal changes have been assessed ever since.

It is on that note that I wish to proceed. Those who have followed my work in this House, particularly in a debate that we had in December 2016, will know that I have an ongoing interest in surrogacy, and I will talk principally about that today. This week has seen the #Scream4IVF campaign, led by the charity Fertility Network, which demands fair access to IVF fertility treatment. Be warned: it will be having a rally outside Parliament on 10 October, when it will be possible to witness the longest scream. I leave that to your Lordships’ imaginations.

Surrogacy UK and some of the other charities carried out some work throughout 2016. Principally, they went back to talk to Baroness Warnock about why she took the position on surrogacy that she did when the legislation was introduced. At that time, there was a very strong feeling, shared across the board, that we did not want commercial surrogacy ever to take hold in this country. On reflection, Baroness Warnock has said, we made the laws on surrogacy so tight that they have turned out over the longer term to be rather too restrictive.

Surrogacy was available prior to IVF, but the development of IVF opened the door to what is called gestational or host surrogacy. That made three significant changes: couples where both people could provide genetic material but where the woman was unable to carry a pregnancy to term could have a child who was biologically connected to both of them; if an embryo was created using a donor egg and the male partner’s sperm and the female could not carry, the traditional route of surrogacy could be avoided for those who wanted to use the help of a surrogate who was not biologically related; and others who had been unable to have children could now do so—that meant, for example, that gay male couples were now able to have children using surrogacy.

However, there have been some recent developments. In particular, back in 2017 a single person had a child by a surrogate abroad and brought that child back to live here in the United Kingdom. Under our present laws, a parental order could not be given for that child. As a result of that case, the Government found themselves forced to consider a change, and they issued a remedial order. The Joint Committee on Human Rights looked at the Government’s proposal and said that it thought that it set up other forms of discrimination against single people. That order was therefore withdrawn and a second one issued. That is the subject of a consultation that closes tomorrow. I sincerely hope that, when that consultation has finished, the Government will come forward, with some speed, with a new order that will allow single applicants with the genetic link to a child to apply for parental orders.

We had a fuller debate on the many issues of surrogacy back in 2016. At that time, the Government responded somewhat favourably. They have asked the Law Commission to carry out a review and to come forward with proposals for changes to the law. The Law Commission is doing its initial work. I met it over the summer and I think that the consultation will formally start in spring. I hope that when the Law Commission does its work and comes forward with a proposal, the Government will work with charities and the newly established All-Party Parliamentary Group on Surrogacy to come forward with legislative proposals, because there are people for whom time is running out. Their desperation shows in the letters they send to me.

I congratulate the Government on the guidance they produced in 2018 for those going through the surrogacy process—surrogates and intended parents—and the professionals involved in it. That was very supportive of surrogacy as a means of family creation. I reiterate the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, when we had a debate on surrogacy. He said that there are now many more ways in which to have children and there are many more different forms of families than there were when this legislation was put in place. It is time to update it.

I will follow what the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said about emerging developments in genome editing. This is exactly the kind of scientific breakthrough and research and development foreseen by those who set up the original legislation. As she said, there have been developments. In 2012, a new genome editing process called CRISPR was developed. It has had a dramatic impact by enabling much more precise and practicable biomedical analysis. In 2015, Chinese academics published the first ever research in which genomes of human embryos were edited using that means. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, this potentially has an impact not just for identification of potential disease but for improvements to fertility techniques, because it will become increasingly possible to determine which embryos are most likely to succeed in delivering a pregnancy.

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, is right: at the moment, these are simply matters for research. No application has been made for this to be used in reproduction, but, as we know, we are not the only people in the world to be engaged in this work and there may be a breakthrough in another jurisdiction. If that were to be the case, I think that people in this country for whom infertility or mitochondrial disease are a significant factor would wish to see us do as we have done in the past, which is to take into account that which the scientists are saying and to arrive at a conclusion.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that it is important to be clear about the regulation of research and treatment. We have led the way in this country, and we should continue to do so. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, talked about the protagonists on behalf of research—those who were pro research—and those who were against. I am all in favour of there being research, but only when a strong regulatory framework is in action and when there is quite detailed and regular parliamentary scrutiny of legislation and the performance of regulators. The heavier we are in legal requirements and regulatory supervision, the more likely we are to enable progress to happen much more rapidly. The way in which we have dealt with these matters over the years has been infinitely better than in the United States, for example.

I share with others the belief that the upholding of the original ethical principles set out for us by Baroness Warnock remains important, but it is for us as Parliament, working with the scientists as we have done so often in the past, to be sure that we are ready and able to determine how those principles should be applied to emerging scientific knowledge and new treatments and techniques. Why? Fundamentally, it is because of women. All these laws apply first and foremost for the protection of women, not only so that they can have the families that they want but so that they have safe places to go in which to fulfil their dreams and from which they should never find themselves being forced into either unregulated or unethical practice.

This is the sort of work that we do best. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for reminding us of our responsibilities in this really important matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, many years ago, before I was in this House, I was summoned to give evidence to a Select Committee of the Commons about the HFEA. I had hardly sat down when the chairman looked at me and said, “Who do you think you are, playing God?” I did not miss a beat. I said, “I am playing God because that power was given to me by Parliament”. I mean, who else could give me such a power? It goes to show how important, and how efficient, our law-making has been in this area, largely because of the expertise that was evident in this House then and is still evident today. This topic shows just how valuable the membership of the House is—it is full of ethicists, doctors, obstetricians and gynaecologists, theologians, and other people who know how these things work.

I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, for his contribution; I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and many others who, over the years, have pushed forward the legislation or helped to improve it, or have served on the HFEA. When we have debates in the future, as we must do, about surrogacy and genome editing, I expect that same expertise to show itself. It is a very good example to the outside world of why we have a second House and why many of our Members are appointed on the grounds of their expertise.

Guiltily and belatedly, I pay tribute to Jean Purdy, to whom I should have given credit. There is a certain element, in science generally but also in this field, of rather overlooking the contribution of women. My experience when visiting clinics and seeing patients was that IVF was very much something that powerful and confident men did to grateful, subservient women. I heard one in vitro fertilisation doctor say, “I have made a thousand women pregnant”. I wondered quite what was going through his mind and how badly he took it when it did not work.

There is another unsung female hero, if that is the right word: Mrs Brown. We appreciate the birth of Louise Brown, but let us imagine and reflect on the courage and fear that must have gripped Mrs Brown as she waited to give birth to the first-ever IVF baby.

[Baroness Barker]

We have talked today about how Louise Brown was the first IVF baby, but we have not mentioned the most wonderful thing of all, which is that loads of people in Oldham, some of whom I know, were invited to take part in this world-leading research programme. They took part not because they had money but because they lived in a United Kingdom that had a National Health Service. So it is absolutely right to mention Mrs Brown, but a whole load of men and women in Oldham, whose names will never be known, played a really important part in all of this.

[Baroness Deech]

I am very glad to hear that intervention from the noble Baroness. I have often thought about Mrs Brown and it is very sobering to realise how many other people contributed to the eventual success.

I look forward to this House debating changes to surrogacy reform, which I hope will come soon. I hope also that we will debate genome editing and how to regulate it in the future with the expertise that we have.

There is just one issue that I remain unhappy with. I think that there must be a missing letter. The noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, referred to a letter to me from, I think, Maria Miller. I wrote to the noble Lord in mid-July but I have no recollection at all of receiving a response.