Coronavirus Bill

I completely recognise that the noble Baroness’s intentions are totally and 100% benign. She has the interests of the women concerned at heart. That intention is completely clear to me and I utterly endorse it. Where there is a difference of opinion and where we have taken a huge amount of advice—we have worked with the scientific advice in the department —is in the fact that the changes being offered are a fundamental change to the way abortions are regulated and administered in this country. Those regulations and administration arrangements have been worked on for years and are subject to an enormous amount of consensus. Her point on monitoring the situation is exactly the one that the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, made earlier. I commit the department to monitoring it. We will remain engaged with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and other stakeholders. She is absolutely right that we can return to the subject with two-monthly reporting back, and it can be discussed in Parliament in the debates planned on a six-monthly basis.