Hansard

As I listened to Mary Scanlon's speech, I was watching the reactions of members around the chamber. That is one of the reasons why I have chosen to speak in the debate, although I was going to stay and listen anyway. In case anybody thinks that I am the token male in the debate, I should say that I have done my bit for family raising. I had five children—with my wife, I might add—and I still have some responsibility there. I was interested to hear Mary Scanlon talk about the importation of sperm from Scandinavian countries. A recent DNA check found that Stonehaven, where I live, has the highest Scandinavian DNA profile in Scotland. There is nothing new in that; it is the motive that is different now.

Members have raised issues about age. I agree that the age at which people qualify for treatment should be raised, especially as nowadays people who have careers often marry or settle down much later in life. However, I have a slight reservation. I do not condemn my parents in any way, but my mother was 37 and my father was 42 when I arrived. That was fine: I had caring, loving parents. However, when it came to asking, "Are you going to come and play football, dad?" that was a wee bit beyond his level. We must bear the needs of the child in mind.

There is a lot of male angst because of the stigma that is attached to infertility. As is often the case in Scotland, we are not good at talking about mental health, infertility and similar issues. My late brother-in-law was desperate to have a family and could not believe it when he was told that the fact that he could not have children was his problem. That hurt him for years, to the point at which he might as well have become a father to my children—I would have liked that contribution financially—because he treated them as his own. When he died last year, the last thing that he said to a younger member of our family was that he very much regretted not having his own children, although he had enjoyed participating in my children's lives.

Taking all those personal experiences together, we ask what is causing the problem. I agree with Eleanor Scott—I made a note of this—that general health is important. There is, undoubtedly, evidence of environmental pollution in western society. I do not agree with everything that the European Union says or does and I think that we should scrutinise it in Parliament, but I believe that this country has to pay some attention to the effect of toxic materials on health in general, not just on the fertility aspect of it.

We have a diminishing population and family life is under stress. There are many pressures on family units and couples. When people can prove that they can bring up a child—and that has nothing to do with wealth; it is about people's ability as parents—that should give them some qualification for treatment. Parenting education should be given at school and that should include education in fertility and the things that can damage people's future ability to have a family.

Part of that is diet and lifestyle. People are binge drinking and there is dreadful misuse of alcohol, tobacco and drugs. The sexual health of the nation is poor and, as Susan Deacon said, we do not know how many infections there are. I would back her idea of a chlamydia testing scheme. For many people, the problem is a matter of lifestyle. They get into drink and drugs; they end up having sex and getting infections. That damages their lives.

Many contraceptive preparations damage women's fertility. They can limit a woman's physical capability to have children. Moreover, the sheer angst caused by fertility problems can cause mental health difficulties and those, again, can postpone children. There should be some form of counselling for people who have such difficulties. We need to get them into the system and speaking to people.

The community health partnerships have a public health role and I hope that the minister will respond on where she thinks fertility issues should fit in in that respect. On affordability, the health service in Scotland belongs to us and it is for us to decide how we spend the money. I am not being xenophobic when I say that I would not like people to come from other parts of the United Kingdom and Europe because we have something on the health service that they do not have. We have to consider the numbers carefully.

Few people are experts in the field, which is small and specialised—we cannot have a brain surgeon on every block. However, why can we not set up a peripatetic consultancy system that would operate out of Edinburgh, for example, and go to the regional centres? The problem is not a life-and-death one and nothing is going to happen overnight, so people can make appointments. If that happened, the experts could go out to where they belong—in the community.