A CONTROVERSIAL bid to strip abortion providers of their role in advising pregnant women by Frank Field and Nadine Dorries was decisively defeated yesterday, after a bitter Commons row.

A backbench attempt to require local councils to direct women to “independent” advisers – who do not receive a fee for arranging terminations – was thrown out by 368 votes to 118.

Pro-choice campaigners immediately hailed the result as the “biggest ever majority” in favour of abortion rights ever recorded in a Commons vote.

But Frank Field, the Labour MP for Birkenhead, who had pushed hard for the change, insisted ministers had already “conceded everything we wanted”.

An investigation will be launched to discover whether counselling by abortion providers was responsible for the high number of terminations in Britain, because of what Mr Field called their “clear conflict of interest”.

The Labour MP predicted the inquiry would take only a few months and that changes could yet be proposed in a public health White Paper, expected before the end of the year.

Mr Field said: “Over 30 years, I have always voted against any attempt to wreck the Abortion Act, but we do need to get further information about the high number of abortions.

“In meetings, ministers conceded everything we wanted, which means there will now be an inquiry to establish what really happens, because we simply don't know.”