Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information his Department holds on the number of women expecting a baby with a disability who (a) did and (b) did not have an abortion in each of the last three years; and if he will make a statement.

The Department collects and publishes statistics for the number of abortions that are carried out under the statutory ground E (risk that the child would be born ‘seriously handicapped’). This data is published in tables 9a-c of the 2016 abortion statistics in England and Wales at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/652083/Abortion_stats_England_Wales_2016.pdf

Public Health England collects data on congenital anomalies as part of the National congenital anomaly and rare disease registration service. Information on the timing of diagnosis and outcome is published in chapter 2 of the Congenital anomaly statistics 2015 which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/630736/Congenital_anomaly_statistics_2015.pdf