Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My noble friend is quite right. There are tremendous opportunities to link up work on tackling foetal alcohol spectrum disorder with other parts of our work, not least the major principle of moving from treatment of sickness to prevention. I assure my noble friend that we are working across government. We will also continue to work with all local areas so that we can address unmet need, prioritise prevention and make sure that we have improvements to alcohol treatment services. All of these will make a difference.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, according to the association for FASD, every prevented case saves over £400,000 in lifetime costs, as well as the personal tragedy. Universal antenatal alcohol history taking is recommended by NICE guidelines, but implementation remains variable. Will the Government embed NICE guidelines everywhere, alongside a national public health campaign on alcohol in pregnancy, equivalent to the effective existing smoking in pregnancy campaign?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

In addition to the ring-fenced funding I spoke of, we are going further on alcohol labels to get across the important points. In 2022, NICE produced and published a quality standard, which the noble Baroness referred to, so that the system can help diagnose but also support those affected by FASD. I am not aware of there being widespread difficulties with its adoption, because it is so fundamental to pre-pregnancy and pregnancy care, but, if the noble Baroness has particular examples, I would of course be pleased to look into them.