My Lords, my purpose in moving this amendment is to obtain a statement from the Government of their assessment of the impact of same-sex parenting on child development. I would appreciate a careful and thorough assessment from the Government, perhaps with the aid of an appropriate mental health professional and a statistician, to look across the research that we have currently on this issue and produce a report. In the first place, a letter to me and placed in the Library would be very welcome. Perhaps that might be the basis of further work that could also help with the support for schools that the Minister was just talking about in helping them manage this new piece of legislation.
I will try to be brief, given the hour. I thank the Minister for meeting with me at Committee stage to discuss my concerns. That was very generous of her. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, who I see in her place, for her kind words on my work in the course of Monday’s business.
A twofold challenge makes me ask these questions. First—I know that this is debatable—the Bill might give a significant, inadvertent nudge to same-sex couples and to teachers, doctors and child and family social workers. Many of us agree that marriage has traditionally been seen as the last and very important step before one starts a family. For many professionals, the Bill might seem to encourage them to think that same-sex parenting is just as good as or even better than heterosexual parenting and nudge them towards, for example, giving IVF, making placements with same-sex foster carers or adoptive parents, or teaching children that same-sex parenting is no longer problematic or debatable. For context in this, your Lordships might recall debates on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act a few years back, where the duty was removed for clinicians to ensure that those taking part kept in mind the interests of the child of having contact with the father. I fear a gradual erosion of that traditional norm that the best situation for every child is to have a mother and a father.
The second difficulty concerns research. The phenomenon of same-sex parenting is relatively new, and research only stretches back about 30 years. Typical problems are that the samples are of small numbers and too narrow, and that the duration of study was
too short. Another problem is that the science is undertaken under pressure of polemic from both sides. There are people here who desperately want this to be proven to be absolutely unproblematic, and others who desperately want this to be shown to be the wrong thing to do entirely. The truth lies somewhere in between and is sometimes hard to find.
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The noble Baroness has in the past alluded to research from Melbourne, Australia, the largest cohort study so far, of about 400 families with perhaps 750 children, which is now considering them at the age of 17. It is encouraging that such large cohort studies are taking place. Again, however, we need to look at these very critically, and look at the samples that they are taking. I will come to the details of what might be considered as we examine that research critically.
On Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Winston, pointed to the research of Professor Susan Golombok at the University of Oxford, pointing to positive outcomes for children in same-sex parenting arrangements. That is interesting research, and I am sure that we are all grateful to the professor for perhaps the most important piece of research in this country. However, from memory —I have not looked at it for a couple of years—it is of a small sample, about 60 families, and, again, only to the age of 18. We do not know what happens to the adult children of same-sex families. The point that I am trying to stress is that it is still early days and the evidence needs to be looked at critically. I notice that people seem to jumping to a conclusion about what that research points to too soon.
Looking at the evidence matters because we are dealing with a phenomenon which our past experience suggests may be problematic for children. We know from experience that boys growing up without fathers are at greater risk of poorer outcomes than those with fathers. We know that male same-sex relationships can be of brief duration, and that unstable parental relationships are harmful to a child’s development.
Of course, there is the “common sense” argument. Many of us would think that it is just common sense to expect that children will do best if they have a mother and father. I listened with great interest to the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, quoting a child in the earlier debate. I met some foster carers yesterday who gave me an example of a five year-old who was offered two fathers by his social worker, and his comment was, “that would be just silly”.
I will quote an academic, Loren Marks of Louisiana State University, who has written a very interesting paper assessing the evidence so far, Same-Sex Parenting and Children’s Outcomes: A Closer Examination of the American Psychological Association’s Brief on Lesbian and Gay Parenting, published in the journal of Social Science Research in July 2012. In her conclusion, she writes: “We now turn to the overarching question of the paper. Are we witnessing the emergence of a new family form that, unlike cohabiting, divorced or single-parent families, provides a context for children that is equivalent to the intact family? Even after an extensive reading of the same-sex parenting literature, the author cannot offer a high-confidence data-based ‘yes or no’ response to this question. The data are insufficient to
support a strong claim either way, and thus insufficient to produce a definitive, binary statement. Such a statement would not be grounded in science. Representative, large-sample studies are needed—many of them, including high-quality longitudinal studies. Although some same-sex opponents have made some egregious overstatements and, conversely, some same-sex parenting researchers seem to have implicitly contended for an exceptionally clear verdict of no difference at all between same-sex and heterosexual parents since 1992, a closer examination leads to the conclusion that strong assertions, including those made by the American Psychological Association were not empirically warranted”.
I apologise for quoting at such length, but I hope that that may have been helpful. She goes on a bit further about specifics—the Minister has a copy of the report.
In conclusion, I repeat that same-sex parenting is a new phenomenon with potentially important consequences for children. I recognise that the Minister disagrees with my concern that the Bill is perhaps a cue for people to promote or encourage the notion that same-sex parenting is no longer a matter which people feel has some issues around it. I understand that. However, I would be grateful if the Minister could write to me with an analysis of the current evidence, perhaps with the aid of a statistician and a relevant mental health professional. My noble friend Lady Hollins is a former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and is currently the president of the British Medical Association, so she might be able to advise on who could help the Minister to reflect on that research. I would be most grateful if the Minister could help with this assessment on the effect of same-sex parenting on child development, and I look forward to her response. I beg to move.