Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 22 November (HL3127), and in the light of the failure by the Secretary of State for Health to respond to the request by Lord Shinkwin of 8 March 2016 to meet with him, people with Down’s Syndrome and their representatives to discuss their concerns about the impact of the new non-invasive pregnancy test on abortion rates of unborn babies diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome, what is their response to that request.

Ministers plan to meet stakeholders in the coming months to discuss concerns about the introduction of new technologies such as non-invasive prenatal testing which have the potential to increase the safety of screening tests.