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Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill [HL]

I, too, rise to support my noble friend Lady Finlay. I passionately believe that this area should be regulated inside the National Health Service. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Winston, made a very compelling case to us today and at Second Reading when he spoke about those who operate outside the NHS. He described some of their suspect practices and gave the impression that charlatans were operating, with some very bogus therapies being produced that were not helping patients who presented themselves. For those reasons, regulation within the National Health Service is a far better way for us to proceed than that which unravelled after the 1990 legislation. I was struck when listening to my noble friend Lord Patel talk about the issues around twins. I hope that the Minister will accept his plea for more research to be done into those unknown causes. I know from our private conversations that my noble friend knows a huge amount about the subject. I hope that the House will listen carefully to him. My noble friend Lady Finlay quoted Dr Charles Kingsland earlier but she does not know, although my noble friend Lord Patel does, that 17 years ago, when the 1990 legislation was going through both Houses, my own wife miscarried a twin and Dr Kingsland was the doctor on duty that night. I have followed this issue carefully and it is one that we should spend more time trying to understand and diagnose. We should also look more closely at the issue of prematurity. I recently chaired a meeting that was addressed by one of the leading authorities in the field, Professor Brind, who produced evidence that where people have had a pregnancy end prematurely, there is subsequently a higher risk of prematurity leading to the very issues that the noble Lord, Lord Winston, described and the additional costs that arise from dealing with very early birth, some of which can bring disabilities with them. There are long-term issues there that we need to discuss. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, that there is no difference between us about people having the right to decide about the number of children they have, but it is worth pointing out that in OECD countries the population has been falling. If it were not for the very welcome arrival of Polish people and others in our country, our population would have been falling too. The issue, surely, is one of poverty. My late mother came from the west of Ireland and, as everyone knows, in the 19th century before the Irish famine the population was 8 million but it fell to 4 million, and the reason was acute poverty: 3 million emigrated and 1 million died. It is my passionate belief that, throughout the developing world, if we attack poverty we will see a normal reduction in family size. I agree with many of the noble Baroness’s other remarks and I hope that the Government will take these issues seriously.