Women’s Health Strategy

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:33 pm on 8 March 2021.

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Photo of Nadine Dorries Nadine Dorries Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care) 4:33, 8 March 2021

The Government are committed to developing a sexual and reproductive health strategy, which we plan to publish in 2021. Development of the sexual and reproductive health strategy will be separate from the women’s health strategy. However, officials are working closely together to ensure coherence between the sexual and reproductive health strategy and the women’s health strategy. We hope that they will not contradict each other; we want them to work closely together. The sexual and reproductive health strategy is an incredibly important piece of work in its own right.

Abortion is not a part of the women’s health strategy because, as everyone in the House knows, abortion is a free vote issue—it is a conscience issue; it is something that Members decide as individuals, not as parties—and therefore it is more appropriate that that goes into a strategy on sexual and reproductive health and contraception than the women’s health strategy. That does not mean that those subjects are off limits when women respond to the call for evidence on the women’s health strategy. Nothing is off limits; women can talk about anything. We have not yet decided what will go into the women’s health strategy, because we want to hear what women have to say and what issues we are contacted about that we can develop in terms of policy. We will be working closely, and officials will be working side by side.

The right hon. Lady also mentioned LARC. Access to SRH services is being maintained during covid-19, with a scaling up of online services. In response to covid, Public Health England launched a national framework for e-sexual and reproductive healthcare, which allows local authorities and service providers to purchase an expanded range of online services, including emergency contraception and the contraceptive pill. Those services have continued during the pandemic.

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on the work that she does in her APPG. I hope that she will inform its members and those she knows who have an interest in women’s health issues to click on the link and provide their evidence to us.