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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for two reasons. Many of us who have worked in this field know that much of the drive for regulation and the fears about ethics come from the fact that 80 or 90 per cent of the work is private, with all the dangers that attach to it, in a field which has proved very lucrative. If much more of the work were carried out in the NHS we would have fewer fears about ethics, it would become mainstream and fears about breaking the law would be reduced, it would be less competitive and there would be less of a drive to use multiple embryos in order to produce a greater success rate. In other words, this treatment should be mainstreamed so that it ceases to need the kind of attention that this House has to give it over so many days. Nevertheless, there will be the problems which attach naturally to the NHS of speed and demand on resources. One can sympathise with a hospital that has to balance the need for cancer treatment against the need for infertility treatment. It would be wrong to believe that reproductive tourism would be reduced either way because one of the consequences of our membership of the European Union is that everyone has the same right to move around Europe freely in search of medical services and there is the right to freedom of movement of goods and services. In other words, British people will always be able to go abroad to seek a treatment that they cannot get here. Conversely, I imagine that people in Europe would be able to come here and seek our NHS treatment, were it to be widespread. This is perhaps a difficult solution, but nevertheless in the long term it would mean that one could have much greater confidence in this area of the law.