Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what recent discussions ministers have had with countries outside the European Union regarding policies and actions to reduce the number of neural tube defect-affected pregnancies.

The prevalence of neural tube defects in live births, fetal deaths (over 20 weeks’ gestation) and terminations of pregnancy for fetal anomaly between 2007 and 2011 in the British Isles Network of Congenital Anomaly Registers, registers (covering 36% of the births in England and Wales) was 11.9 per 10,000 births.

In European Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies registries the prevalence rates range from 4.4 per 10,000 births to 21.6 per 10,000. Differences in total prevalence rates over time or between regions may reflect a number of factors including genetic and environmental differences.

We are not aware that any Ministers have attended any formal meetings with countries outside the European union member states where policies on reducing the number of neural tube affected pregnancies have been discussed.