Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made towards meeting the national maternity safety ambition in England to reduce stillbirth and neonatal mortality by 50 per cent of 2010 levels by 2025.

The Government’s National Maternity Safety Ambition is to halve the 2010 rates of stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths and brain injuries in babies occurring during or soon after birth by 2025. The ambition also includes reducing the rate of pre-term births from 8% to 6% by 2025.

Considerable progress has been made towards reducing the rates of stillbirths and neonatal deaths. According to the latest data, the stillbirth rate has reduced by 23%, and the neonatal mortality rate for babies born over the 24-week gestational age of viability has reduced by 30% since 2010.