To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimates she has made of the cost of (a) increasing medical research into preventing premature birth and (b) caring for babies who are born prematurely. (132259)

None. The National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford, set up and supported by the Department, is however undertaking a study on the long-term economic costs of pre-term birth financed by an award from the charity Tommy’s.