Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the merits of integrating proposals on sexual and reproductive health in the forthcoming Ending Preventable Deaths Action Plan.

The UK Government supports the Guttmacher-Lancet definition of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and SHRH services are a core pillar of our action to end preventable deaths of mothers, newborns and children by 2030. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the importance of SRHR to this goal. Recent estimates suggest that, over one year, a 10-19% decline in reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health services, alongside increasing child malnutrition, will result in 24,400 additional maternal deaths and ?506,900 additional child deaths.