LORD STEEL, the architect of Britain’s abortion laws, is to recommend that powers over the issue should be transferred from Westminster to Holyrood.

The former Liberal party leader and presiding officer of the Scottish parliament believes that decisions about when a woman has the legal right to terminate a pregnancy should be devolved.

His proposal, contained in an internal review for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, could be one of the party’s conditions for forming a future coalition government with Labour.

It would raise the possibility of having different time limits in Scotland than in the rest of the UK. Critics fear that could see women crossing the border to have an abortion in the same way women in Ireland currently travel to Britain.

Steel’s 1967 Abortion Act set the current time limit for the legal termination of a normal pregnancy at 24 weeks.

He believes medical advances mean the limit is now outdated and that terminations for “social” reasons should not be permitted after 12 weeks. He has concluded that politicians in Edinburgh, rather than London, should make the decision.

“Since both health and the criminal law are fully devolved matters, it makes no logical sense for abortion to be left out,” he said. “Fear of a reactionary debate in Scotland is not a good basis for settling the matter.”

Steel said he accepts it would be undesirable to have different time limits north and south of the border, but he trusts MSPs to reach a sensible decision.

It was amid fears of cross- border traffic that the issue of abortion was left reserved to Westminster while ministers were drafting the Scotland Act, although Donald Dewar, the then Scottish secretary, favoured making the issue devolved.

Alistair Darling, the current Scottish secretary, said the government has no intention of changing its current position.

“I just don’t see that being changed at all,” he said. “We have no plans to reopen it.”

However, the the Catholic church in Scotland said it supported Steel’s proposal and urged the government to think again. “There is a strong argument that we should have the right to decide ourselves rather than Westminster. We can see the coherence in allowing Scotland to decide what we put into effect in Scottish hospitals,” said John Deighan, the church’s Scottish parliamentary officer.

“There seems to be a swing in the public mood that late-term abortions should not be happening. There is certainly a strong lobby for making abortions more available but I think there is also a consensus that the time limit should be reduced. If Scotland was to address the issue we would see a reduction in the time limit, which would be a good thing.”

A Scottish Lib Dem spokesman confirmed that an internal party review of Holyrood’s powers being chaired by Steel was examining the issue. “The second part of the commission’s work will be about what additional policy-making powers the parliament would benefit from,” he said.

The British Medical Association in Scotland said there would be “no practical benefits for patients” in handing Holyrood abortion powers. “The legislation as it stands is comprehensive and we don’t see a case for changing the legislation,” a spokeswoman said.

Times Recommends

• Time-worn Freddie gives up Test matches
• Brighton company 'involved in cyber attack'
• The art of survival: it’s all in the mind