Josh Newbury

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), for opening this debate so thoroughly and thoughtfully. When I read Adam’s petition, I was taken back to the moment that I became a dad. My husband and I fostered and then adopted our children. I remember holding my daughter and son for the first time like it was yesterday. In those moments, there was no question in my mind that I wanted to be their dad, and that is what I am. That is why I was struck by Adam’s description of the moment he and his partner first saw their baby. They became dads in that moment too. However, as my hon. Friend set out, the law does not recognise that reality. I understand why the current system came about. The rights and autonomy of surrogates and the need to safeguard children should never be brushed aside. Judicial oversight is also important, and reform should not mean removing protections for the surrogate or the child. However, I think we should ask whether the current system gets that balance right. We now have a situation where almost 1,000 children were born through surrogacy in 2025—roughly double the number a decade earlier. For families who choose surrogacy, the journey to having a child has often already been extraordinarily long. So once that child is born and is being cared for by their intended parents, it is reasonable to ask whether the law should leave their legal parenthood unresolved for months. That has practical implications, which I remember from my time fostering, such as not being able to give consent for something as simple as a vaccination or blood test. There is a practical point here about our courts. We rightly ask our family courts to deal with cases where there is a genuine dispute, where a child’s welfare needs judicial consideration or where someone’s rights need to be protected. But if a surrogacy arrangement has been properly assessed before the birth, the intended parents have undergone the appropriate checks, the surrogate has had any independent advice and counselling she may need and the necessary safeguards are in place, do we really need to go through a court process to establish legal parenthood?