My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Sugg for bringing forward the amendment. I know that many noble Lords on all sides of the House have strong feelings on this issue. Indeed, it is because any change to the law on abortion is traditionally a matter of conscience that the amendment will be subject to a free vote on the Government Benches if a vote is called.
Noble Lords will be aware that, as a temporary measure, in response to the Covid pandemic, an approval was issued in accordance with the Abortion Act 1967 that allowed women to take both pills for early medical abortion at home at gestations up to nine weeks and six days. We announced on 24 February that there will be a six-month extension to the approval and that the approval will end at midnight on 29 August 2022. From that point, the arrangements set out in the pre-Covid 2018 approval, which allows women to take the second pill for early medical abortion at home only, will be reinstated and face to face services will return.
The temporary measure was put in place at the start of a public health emergency to address a specific and acute medical need, reducing the risk of Covid-19 transmission and ensuring continued access to abortion services. At the time, a decision was made to time limit the approval for two years or until the pandemic was over, whichever was earliest.
The Secretary of State has decided that the provision of early medical abortion should return to pre-Covid arrangements from midnight on 29 August 2022. He has done so for three principal reasons: first, in the light of the success and impact of the national vaccination and booster programme; secondly, having carefully considered all the responses submitted to the Government’s public consultation on whether to make permanent the temporary measure; and thirdly, on the basis of wider evidence regarding the provision of the service since March 2020. Of course, we will continue to work closely with abortion providers and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists—alongside NHS England, NHS Improvement and the Care Quality Commission—to support a safe and reliable return in six months’ time.
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The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked about the protection afforded to the woman by the temporary approval. The change, as introduced by the temporary approval, was to enable a woman seeking an abortion to consult a clinician via a teleconsultation. If the clinician was satisfied that the conditions laid down in law for approving the request were met, she would be prescribed both stages of the requisite medication for use at home. The responsibility rests with the clinician to ensure that all the necessary conditions are satisfied. That is, essentially, the protection.
The intention of this amendment is to halt this process and overturn the Secretary of State’s decision. In our view, this is not the appropriate way to achieve the intended policy objectives. The legal approval framework already exists in statute, and primary legislation should not be used to circumvent that. Parliament decided to give the Secretary of State a power to issue approvals under the Abortion Act 1967. It did so for good reasons. It would be inappropriate to specify such details about how, and where, healthcare services
are carried out on the face of primary legislation. It would hinder the ability to account for external circumstances such as pandemics, or to account for changes in medicines used for such procedures. This is why the existing approvals power allows the Secretary of State flexibility to make decisions about how healthcare in this area is provided. This can be adapted quickly and easily to respond to changes in service provision or other external circumstances—just as was the case in 2020, when the temporary approval was made in response to concern about the risk to services caused by Covid; and, in 2018, to permit home use of the second medication. This framework works and a change to primary legislation does not need to be made.
Finally, although I do not want to labour this point, it is far from clear what my noble friend intends by wording the amendment as she has. The amendment as drafted would create legal uncertainty for both women and medical professionals, in a highly sensitive area of law, by including wording on the statute book that does not in fact change the law in the way in which it would appear. That is a real difficulty for noble Lords who might be inclined to support the amendment—but it is not the reason why I ask the House to withhold support for it. Ministers have made a decision on this issue and have done so responsibly on the basis of the powers given to them under law. I respectfully suggest to my noble friend that it is right for that decision to stand.