I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the regulation of online providers of fertility and certain ancillary services by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority; and for connected purposes.
Having a child is variously viewed as one of the most life-changing, exhausting, expensive, thankless, frustrating and ultimately magical and rewarding things we ever do in our lives. My two sons sometimes drive me round the bend, but I quite literally love them more than anything in the world.
For many people, having a child requires a form of fertility treatment; in fact, one in six couples in Britain is affected by infertility problems. More than 52,000 people accessed fertility treatment in 2023—the most recent year for which statistics are available. For perspective, that is up from 6,000 in 1991. In the past 25 years, the proportion of children being born by in vitro fertilisation has doubled. The regulator for the fertility industry, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, reports that there are now enough children born by IVF for there to be one in every classroom around the UK. That is for a number of reasons.
It is worth celebrating that since 1991 social attitudes towards women getting into and staying in work have progressed even further; there are now 10% more women in employment. Sometimes, however, building a successful career can make it harder to build a family. One in 10 fertility treatments are undertaken by single women, and the average age of those women is slightly older, at 36. Although the proportion of young adults in the UK who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual has doubled in the last five years, the Government amended the law that regulated fertility access to remove the barriers for female same-sex couples for the first and only time in 2008, and that is what we are here today to discuss: apart from that one change, regulation has remained static while industry, attitudes and lifestyles have raced ahead.
The Human Fertility and Embryology Act 1990 regulates fertility clinics, and despite the fertility landscape constantly modernising and moving with the times, that piece of legislation has remained largely unchanged since it was passed 35 years ago. The failure of the regulatory regime to oversee adequately the uniquely high-stakes world of modern fertility treatment was thrown into sharp relief recently with the unexpected closure of Apricity Fertility. Acting as a hub that connected parents to the very complex web of fertility services, it was effectively a digital concierge service, linking women with partner clinics and offering advice and support, yet not providing any of the medical services itself.
Just days before Christmas, on 20 December, Apricity Fertility notified customers that it would cease all operations from 1 January. While families across the country were opening their Christmas presents, hundreds of Apricity customers, including women who were just about to start their IVF injections, were opening emails that would ruin their Christmas and leave them in limbo at a very crucial point in their fertility treatment. Patients scrambled to seek confirmation from clinics that they could continue with their treatment, because as we know, even a month’s delay can massively affect the chance of a successful cycle. In many cases, having already spent every single penny that they had in the world in the pursuit of having a baby, some were told by their insurers that they would have to pay thousands more up front to continue their treatment.