[2nd Allocated Day]

I am not going to take any interventions for a few minutes. I would like to go back to the fact that only one hour of counselling is available in a busy London clinic. I ask Members, just for a moment, to put themselves in the shoes of a 16-year-old girl who turns up at that clinic and does not know what to do. She is pregnant and panicking. Some of her friends tell her to have an abortion and some tell her not to. She does not want to tell her parents because she is scared of doing so. Her boyfriend is saying to her, ““You've got to have an abortion and get rid of it.”” That is a mish-mash of the four or five stories a day that we hear in my office. The girl starts vomiting in the morning and carries on all day. She feels sick and ill and cannot think straight. She is not sleeping because she is scared stiff. She has not gone to school for more than a week because she thinks that people there will be able to tell that she is pregnant. She is out of her mind with worry. She turns up at a clinic and is told, ““Sorry, that one appointment's been taken. You'll have to go to Richmond.”” The girl does not even know where Richmond is, and she has never even been to hospital without having her mum with her. I would like hon. Members to think about what it is like for that 16-year-old girl, and what they have against a GP or somebody else offering that girl an hour's counselling so that she can talk through the issues and reach the right conclusion for her, non-advised.