Surrogate Motherhood

(asked on 19th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help prevent children from being born stateless and parentless in international surrogacy cases because their British parents are not currently recognised as their legal parents by UK law.


Answered by
Maria Caulfield Portrait
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This question was answered on 24th January 2022

Sections 54 and 54A of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 provide for the transfer of legal parenthood from the surrogate to the intended parents by means of a parental order. This route for acquiring legal parenthood is available to residents of the United Kingdom who have undertaken an international surrogacy arrangement. The Law Commissions of England and Wales and Scotland are considering whether the current arrangements require amending as part of their review of surrogacy. Where a child does not acquire British citizenship automatically, because the intended parent is not their legal parent in UK law, there are registration options once the relationship has been formalised.

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