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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

I think we all agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, that we have been hugely privileged this afternoon to hear two such well informed and deeply moving speeches. On behalf of the HFEA, I shall add very briefly to what they said. The HFEA commissioned an expert report on multiple births. It revealed what clinicians in the field know: the risks, the sadness and the costs of multiple births. No less importantly, it also revealed that most women with good, skilled clinical help have just as good a chance of achieving a child through a single embryo transfer as they do through the transfer of two or more embryos. The HFEA, which is committed to the policy of single embryo transfer where appropriate—and it is appropriate for most women—have a huge task persuading women who want babies that this is so and a huge task persuading a lot of the private clinics in the field, for all sorts of obvious reasons. One of the greatest barriers is the reason for this amendment: the fact that it is so difficult to get fertility treatment on the NHS, which is so patchy in some parts of the country that it seems impossible. If the NICE guidelines of three cycles were available to every woman seeking fertility treatment across the country, this would do a huge amount to help women to see that it is in their best interest to have a single embryo transfer rather than to have two or more embryos transferred. We should support the amendment very strongly indeed.