Asked by: Tracy Gilbert (Labour - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his department has taken to ensure that the rights and lived experience of children born through surrogacy are reported to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not undertaken an assessment on the compliance of safeguarding procedures for surrogacy arrangements with the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children.
The Government has not taken any steps to ensure that the rights and lived experience of children born through surrogacy are reported to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office have published advice for those considering surrogacy overseas, which clearly sets out the possible risks and the processes for returning to the United Kingdom with a child born through an international surrogacy arrangement. This advice is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/surrogacy-overseas/surrogacy-overseas
Asked by: Tracy Gilbert (Labour - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his department has undertaken on the compliance of safeguarding procedures for surrogacy arrangements with the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not undertaken an assessment on the compliance of safeguarding procedures for surrogacy arrangements with the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children.
The Government has not taken any steps to ensure that the rights and lived experience of children born through surrogacy are reported to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office have published advice for those considering surrogacy overseas, which clearly sets out the possible risks and the processes for returning to the United Kingdom with a child born through an international surrogacy arrangement. This advice is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/surrogacy-overseas/surrogacy-overseas
Asked by: Tracy Gilbert (Labour - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her department has any plans to extend the restricted list of countries from which adoption is prohibited to also cover surrogacy arrangements.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Children and Adoption Act 2006 places a statutory duty on my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education to maintain and publish a list of countries in respect of which restrictions on intercountry adoption apply. This Restricted List relates solely to adoption and is intended to safeguard children where there are concerns about the integrity of adoption processes in particular countries.
Surrogacy arrangements do not fall within the remit of the Department for Education. Policy responsibility for surrogacy, including any consideration of regulatory frameworks, rests with the Department of Health and Social Care
Accordingly, the department has no plans to extend the Restricted List to cover surrogacy arrangements.