Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the oral evidence of Dr Olwen Williams, the President of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, to the Health and Social Care Committee on Sexual Health on 5 February 2019, what steps his Department plans to take to tackle the matter of neonatal deaths as a result of syphilis.

No neonatal deaths due to syphilis have been reported to Public Health England (PHE) from 2010 to 2018 inclusive.

PHE is developing a Syphilis Action Plan which includes a maternity strand with recommendations to strengthen efforts to control congenital syphilis (babies infected by syphilis while still in the womb) through improved detection, surveillance and clinical management.