Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of immediate closure of abortion clinics that fail to ensure proper safety procedures are in place for under 16 year olds.

There are no plans to change the existing systems in place to ensure that under 16 year olds receive safe, age appropriate abortion care. All independent sector services wishing to perform termination of pregnancy must be approved by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) before they are able to provide abortion services. The CQC inspect independent sector abortion services. If a CQC inspection identifies instances of non-compliance, then appropriate regulatory action will be taken.

The Department expects all abortion providers to have due regard to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health national guidance on safeguarding under 18 year olds accessing early medical abortion services, which will ensure that robust safeguarding processes are embedded across all abortion services. This guidance is available at the following link:

https://childprotection.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/safeguarding-guidance-for-children-and-young-people-under-18-accessing-early-medical-abortion-services/