Fertility Treatment Regulation

Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston. We live in an increasingly digital world. We entrust apps with our fitness data and menstrual cycle, and healthcare providers frequently offer virtual consultations. It is no surprise, therefore, that many people entrust fertility treatment to the number of concierge-style online providers that have emerged in recent years. Yet our law has not kept pace. These online providers operate entirely outside the remit of the HFEA. The authority regulates licensed fertility clinics and the treatments that take place in them, but the digital-first fertility businesses that sit alongside those physical clinics and play a central role in patients’ treatment journeys face no equivalent oversight. This major gap in our fertility law became painfully clear with the closure of Apricity Fertility, which had called itself

“the UK’s top virtual IVF clinic”.

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for tabling this debate to highlight where the law desperately needs to be updated. Apricity provided patients with online access to qualified medical professionals and a network of clinical services across the country, scheduling appointments, providing expert advice to couples at a vulnerable and emotionally taxing time and offering flexibility for those unable to consistently access the same location. This can be particularly helpful for patients managing treatment around work, caring responsibilities or long journeys to clinics.

Two of its clients, Rosie and her husband Andy, had been undergoing IVF treatment through Apricity when, just a few days before Christmas 2024, they received a mass email informing them that the company would be closing on 1 January. By that point, they had already invested months in treatment and were waiting for their embryo transfer. Instead of looking forward to the next stage of their journey, they spent the Christmas period uncertain whether the treatment would continue and what would happen to their embryo. Rosie told me, “If you’re having trouble conceiving, every single month is important”. She said: “It was stunning to learn that the HFEA had no remit to step in and help us. We were effectively abandoned. When digital-first services close, there are no guarantees for patients, and couples like us are left fighting to protect our embryo, our money and our chance of having a much-wanted child”.

Rosie’s experience is not an isolated one. Many people who had entrusted Apricity with their hopes of having a family were left in fear that they might not receive their money back or be able to afford continuing treatment with another provider. They are unlikely to know that the law as it stands means that the HFEA can regulate only UK-licensed fertility clinics, which are the physical premises where the treatments take place. Patients assume that, when a company is central to the delivery of their fertility treatment, there will be regulatory oversight and protections if that company fails. At present, that assumption is not always correct.

The HFEA itself has recognised this. One of its recommendations in the 2023 report on modernising fertility regulation was that:

“The Act should be revised to accommodate developments in the way fertility services are provided”.


Following Apricity’s closure, the HFEA’s chief executive, Peter Thompson, warned that fertility legislation was more than 30 years old and had failed to keep pace with the way that modern life is organised.

Around the time of Apricity Fertility’s closure in early 2025, I asked the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, whether the Government would review the HFEA’s power, to ensure that it was appropriate for a digital age. The Government responded that they would meet the HFEA’s chair and CEO to discuss the regulatory challenges they face, and that they were considering the HFEA’s priorities, should the opportunity for legislative reform arise. In June 2025, I was told in a subsequent Written Answer that the Government were

“considering the HFEA’s priorities … and will decide how to take this forward at the earliest opportunity”.

Seven months later, in January 2026, the Government’s position had moved no further, and they answered that they

“will decide how we might move forward”.

That is not good enough. The gap is clear. The HFEA has set out its recommendations. Patients have been left without protection. The only thing missing is government action. I ask the Minister why, given the clear gap exposed by Apricity’s closure and the HFEA’s own recommendation for reform, the Government have still not set out a timetable for the legislation. Can she now tell the House when the Government intend to bring forward proposals to ensure that digital and concierge-style fertility providers are brought within an appropriate regulatory framework? Our fertility laws are not fit for the digital age, and women and couples hoping for a family deserve so much better.