Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, whether an Equality Impact Assessment has been carried out on the Department of Health's decision not to commission abortion services in Northern Ireland.

I recognise the Hon Lady’s work on this important issue, and appreciate the engagement we have had to date. The Hon Lady will be aware that my department carried out an Equality Impact Assessment before the framework for abortion in Northern Ireland was set out in Parliament last year. As a designated public authority for the purposes of Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, if a further Equality Impact Assessment is required on the Department of Health’s decision not to commission services, then this would be a matter for that department to take forward.

Service provision should be delivered and overseen locally by the Department of Health and relevant health bodies with the relevant legal powers, policy and operational expertise to do so. We are disappointed with the subsequent and continuing failure of the Department and Health and the Northern Ireland Executive to commission abortion services that are consistent with those Regulations - despite having extensively engaged with the Minister for Health, his Department and wider members of the Executive on this issue for over a year now.

We laid further Regulations on 23 March 2021, which provide the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland with a power to direct a Northern Ireland Minister, a Northern Ireland department, the Health and Social Care Board of the Public Health Agency to take action necessary to implement all of the recommendations in paragraphs 85 and 86 of the CEDAW Report. We took this action because we understood the impact the delays have had on women and girls in Northern Ireland, who cannot access safe and local healthcare,

I recognise that this delay continues to affect women and girls in Northern Ireland and we will not let progress be drawn out indefinitely. We are clear that we want to see concrete progress towards the commissioning of abortion services before summer recess. If this is not achieved, we will not hesitate in issuing a direction immediately so that the rights of women and girls can be properly upheld and they can have safe and lawful access to abortion services locally.