Abortion: Northern Ireland

(asked on 1st June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, pursuant to the Answer of 18 May 2020 to Question 46639, on Abortion: Northern Ireland, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of exercising his powers under section 26 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to direct the Department of Health in Northern Ireland to commission services to comply with section 9 of the Northern Ireland Executive Formation Act 2019.


Answered by
Robin Walker Portrait
Robin Walker
This question was answered on 4th June 2020

In accordance with section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc.) Act 2019, regulations are now in place to make provision for accessing abortions in Northern Ireland.

The duty to implement the CEDAW recommendations under section 9 of the NIEF Act is a matter of domestic, not international, law.

Therefore we have not yet considered making an assessment of exercising powers under section 26 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

We hope that longer term services can be commissioned as soon as possible in Northern Ireland, consistent with the Regulations and we will continue to work with them to achieve this.

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