A CONTROVERSIAL bid to strip abortion providers of their role in advising pregnant women was decisively defeated today, 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 veteran former Labour minister 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 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: "Ministers conceded everything we wanted, which means there will now be an inquiry to establish information about the high number of abortions - because we simply don't know."

As a result, Mr Field - during yesterday's stormy Commons debate - pleaded, unsuccessfully, with Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP leading the bid to change the law, to drop her amendment.

The 118 MPs backing the curb on abortion providers included three from the North-East and North Yorkshire; Sir Alan Beith (Lib Dem; Berwick-upon-Tweed), Mary Glindon (Lab; Tyneside North) and Robert Goodwill (Con; Scarborough and Whitby).

The amendment would have prevented counselling by the likes of Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which have "any financial interest in providing for the termination of pregnancies".

But there are fears that so-called "independent" organisations would include religious groups, who would attempt to influence women not to have an abortion.

In the Commons, health minister Anne Milton said the government supported "the spirit of these amendments", adding: "We intend to bring forward proposals for regulations accordingly, but after consultation."

Ms Dorries, a former nurse, denied her proposal aimed to "drive women into the arms of religious fundamentalists", adding: "I am pro-choice. Abortion is here to stay."

But Diane Abbott, Labour's health spokeswoman, described Ms Dorries'

amendment as a "shoddy, ill-conceived attempt to promote non-facts to make a non-case".

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg voted against the change. David Cameron was absent, but had made clear he opposed the amendment.