Illegal abortion on the grounds of sex may be taking place in the UK within immigrant communities, Government 
ministers have admitted.
They made the admission after an official analysis was made of birth statistics.
The Government was urged to open an inquiry after officials found signs that birth rates for girls and boys vary noticeably according to the countries where their mothers were born, the Daily Telegraph reports.
A health minister said that the different rates of male and female births among mothers of certain nationalities may “fall outside the range considered possible without intervention”.
It forms the first official statistical evidence potentially backing up concerns that sex-selection abortions are being carried out in Britain.
Andrew Lansley, the former health secretary, last year criticised the “illegal and morally wrong” practice following a Daily Telegraph investigation into the issue.
After The Daily Telegraph received information that the procedures were becoming increasingly common for cultural and social reasons, undercover reporters filmed doctors offering women terminations based on gender.
As a result of the investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service is considering criminal charges against doctors in three cases.
The practice of aborting unborn babies on the basis of sex has long been considered a problem India and China, where boys are sometimes considered preferable for cultural or economic reasons.
There has been little official research on whether the practice is carried out in some of Britain’s immigrant communities. The Government said its new analysis was undertaken after the Council of Europe demanded statistics on the issue of whether more boys than girls are born to mothers of certain nationalities.
Lord David Alton said the presence of sex-selective abortion in the UK could be a product of terminations becoming too “routine”.
“Abortion has become so routine in Britain with 600 taking place every day that people have accepted the mantra that it’s just a matter of choice but that’s not what the law says,” he said. “There is a fundamental debate to take place here.”
He said the practice may have been imported from areas of the world where it is more common, including India and China “where sex-selective abortions have taken place on an industrial scale”.