A Backbench Business Debate on the provision of IVF was held on 24 October in Westminster Hall.
The debate was led by Kate Osborne, Labour MP for Jarrow.
Kate shared her own experiences of going through their own fertility treatment and clearly laid out the problems same-sex female couples have accessing state-funded fertility treatment in England.
There were helpful contributions from Alex Davies-Jones MP, who shared her personal story and spoke about the risks that many female same-sex couples face in their search for donor sperm. Nickie Aiken MP and Jim Shannon MP spoke about the wider inequalities surrounding IVF access in both England and Northern Ireland.
Kate Osborne, Alex Davies Jones and Hannah Bardell all mentioned PET and our policy work in this area in their speeches.
Hannah Bardell the SNP MP for Livingston went a step further quoting the director of PET.
'So, under the SNP-led Scottish Government, we have become a "gold standard" for IVF treatment. Those are not my words but those of Sarah Norcross, the director of Progress Educational Trust, which is an independent, London-based charity that advocates for people affected by fertility issues.'
Shadow Minister for Women's Health and Mental Health, Labour MP Abena Oppong-Asare, called for the Government to fully implement the aims of the Women's Health Strategy. She demanded an end to the postcode lottery and a timeline for when this would be done.
While the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Maria Caulfield, expressed some sympathy for the frustrating delays, she did not give definitive answers to any of the questions that were put to her.
She avoided explaining what she was doing to make integrated care boards (ICBs)change their policies in relation to same-sex female couples but simply spoke of holding ICBs' 'feet to the fire'. Despite her earlier pledge to implement change in the first year of the Women's Health Strategy she would not commit to a timeline and instead said 'it will not take 10 years'.
