§ Mr. Kilroy-Silkasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many minors were sterilised on social grounds in the last year for which figures are available.
§ Mr. Copeasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she is aware of any operations to sterilise persons under 18 years which have been carried out in the last five years; and how many were on girls and on boys respectively, and of what ages.
§ Mr. Hooleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she will ask each regional health authority in England and Wales to make a report on the number of sterilisation operations known to them to have been carried out on children under 16 years of age during 1972, 1973 and 1974.
§ Dr. Owen, pursuant to his replies [Official Report, 11th June, 1st July and 23rd July 1975; Vol. 893, c. 213, Vol. 894, c. 381–2 and Vol. 896, c. 248–9], gave the following information:
We have obtained the figures from the Hospital Activity Analysis (in-patients), but there is the difficulty in establishing from that analysis the associated causes which led to sterilisation.
The total figures for England, which for the reasons I give below must be treated with a great deal of reserve, are as follows:
Under 16 years 16–18 years Male Female Male Female 1973 1 2 2 19 1974 4 2 Nil 15 The figures do not for the most part include those cases in which sterilisation resulted from the operation of hysterectomy, or was associated with delivery at a maternity hospital. A further reason for caution is that hospital activity analysis has been developed for hospital management to give guidance in planning; the system is not really geared for the identification of individual cases where very small numbers are involved, and may give a spurious impression of accuracy. While we can say that it seems likely that some cases of sterlisation of boys and girls under 16 have occurred in more than one region, from 618W current evidence we are unable to draw any firmer conclusion.