---

Women, Justice and Gender Equality

I have written to the Department of Health on numerous occasions on behalf of constituents of mine who have had problems accessing IVF treatment in the way that the hon. Lady has described. A postcode lottery does exist: women in Hampshire cannot get IVF treatment until they are over 35, and even then they get only one cycle. Does she share the concern of our colleague my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), who undertook a nationwide survey on this matter? His findings show that women throughout the country suffer from the problems that she has set out. The Government should long ago have begun to address that inequity, in what is a sensitive and important matter.