Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Earl Howe on 31 December 2014 (HL3793), to what factors they attribute the rising trend in terminated pregnancies due to neural tube defects; and why the figures for the first three years in the answer differ substantially from the information provided by the Minister in the letter of 18 November 2013 following the debate on 6 November 2013 (HL Deb, cols 284–297).

The proportion of terminations for neural tube defects per live births has been between 0.04% and 0.05% for the last 10 years.

Data from the letter of 18 November 2013 are sourced from the British Isles Network of Congenital Anomaly Registers and are estimates for England and Wales; whereas data from the written answer I gave on 31 December 2014, HL3794, are sourced from the Department’s official abortion statistics collected from Abortion Notification form HSA4 for all abortions in England and Wales. The different data sources used explain why the data given in the answer and the letter are different.