Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential impact of the national rollout of Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing on the prevalence of sex-selective abortion; and what plans they have to suspend the rollout of that scheme until they have carried out a review of that potential impact.

The United Kingdom National Screening Committee’s (UK NSC) recommendation on the use of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), is as a contingent test in the National Health Service Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme for Down’s syndrome, Edward’s syndrome and Patau’s syndrome only.

NIPT has not been recommended for the use of any other genetic marker, including sex.

There are no plans to suspend the rollout of the NIPT screening programme. NIPT will be introduced as an ‘evaluative roll out’. This means the programme will be able to monitor how the introduction of NIPT is working at each stage of the roll out and make any changes to the pathway and screening processes quickly and effectively. The UK NSC will be kept informed about progress with the evaluation.