Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what (a) information his Department holds on and (b) what estimate his Department has made of the number of abortions in other countries that are funded by development spending in each of the last five years.

DFID has a range of bilateral and multi-country programmes supporting a package of women’s reproductive and maternal health information and family planning services. Because of the integrated nature of this work, it is not possible to provide a break-down of funding on safe abortion services alone. By helping the world’s poorest women access modern contraception, the UK government will prevent an estimated 6 million unintended pregnancies and 3 million abortions on average each year.