Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the comments made in the Government consultation on a new legal framework for abortion services in Northern Ireland from November 2019 that it could be possible that a fetus having reached a gestation of 22 weeks is viable and thus capable of being born alive depending on the individual circumstances of the woman and the fetus; and what steps his Department takes to ensure that other Government Departments are informed on developments in perinatal medicine.

The Government’s consultation response published in March 2020 ‘A new legal framework for abortion services in Northern Ireland. Implementation of the legal duty under section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019’ set out that the intention that the regulatory framework would allow access to abortion services up to 24 weeks gestation in cases where the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or girl, greater than the risk of terminating the pregnancy in line with the position in England and Wales. This followed consideration and assessment of all the consultation responses received. Parliament voted to enact this legislation in a free vote in June 2020.

The Department works with the devolved administrations and other Government departments, ensuring that information is shared amongst the relevant bodies as appropriate.