Professor Susan Golombok:

I thank the Deputy for her kind comments about the research. The age of 21 represents the final phase of the study because we feel we followed the children from infancy right up to adulthood. As the Deputy said, the results were very positive. It would be interesting to follow up further but the most important questions have now been answered. Also, doing a study for 21 years took up a lot of my and my team’s time, and we are now focusing on other issues.

The research has not yet been replicated by another research group. It is more important for other research groups to carry out other studies than for us to continue to follow up on the children. In scientific research, replication is always wanted. It has not happened for some reason in respect of children born through surrogacy, partly because of the lack of funding and partly because it is quite difficult to do. It takes a lot of time, effort and funding. Were research funding to be made available, it would be useful to have another study to determine which of our findings stand up to retesting. We are now 21 years on and attitudes to surrogacy have changed. Many other things have changed too. If I were a funder, that is where I would put the funding.