Freedom of Religion or Belief: 40th Anniversary of UN Declaration

Debate between Lisa Cameron and Fiona Bruce

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech and I thank her for her great endeavours in her role, which are making such a difference. Could the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association work with UK parliamentarians in the near future to reach out to other parliamentarians on freedom of religious belief internationally?

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the hon. Lady for her engagement on this issue. She makes an excellent point; indeed, the reception that I hosted just yesterday, on Red Wednesday, was held in the rooms of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. I am sure there will be other ways in which we can work collaboratively together.

Let me turn to the third aspect of my mandate on the FCDO website, which is the importance of my working

“with the members of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance to raise awareness of cases of particular concern”

and to advocate

“for the rights of people worldwide who are discriminated against or persecuted for their faith or belief”.

I cannot overestimate the importance and the strengthening of the 33-country International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance over the past year. It was founded only in February 2020, with a handful of countries—one of the founders being the UK—but has now grown to 33 countries. As a founding member, the UK is a member of the steering group, at which I seek opportunities to raise instances of the suppression or threatening of FORB. I have been able to take information from my deep dives there.

Within the past year it has been my privilege to initiate an alliance statement on standing in solidarity with people of all faiths and beliefs in Myanmar who played prominent roles in the anti-coup movement. It has been of great encouragement to people suffering in Myanmar to know that they are not forgotten by the world in their fight for freedom. Following that statement, I was particularly moved by a letter I received from Cardinal Bo, the leader of the Catholic Church in Myanmar, in which he said that the statement

“was a very important message of support for religious leaders in Myanmar”.

It was also my privilege to help to draft the alliance statement on the importance of protection of religious minorities in Afghanistan and, more recently, one to highlight the ongoing plight of Yazidi women, more than 2,700 of whom are still missing.

We need to make sure that such statements lead to action. Encouragingly, that was the case with the alliance statement on Afghanistan. Not only was it well received by the White House, which commended it for “plugging a gap”—at that point, no other international statement had highlighted the risks to religious minorities in Afghanistan—but work on the statement led to action. It helped to trigger the alliance country representatives from Brazil and the US to talk to one another and recognise that one could provide the visas and the other an aircraft to provide refuge to 193 members of religious minority groups fleeing Afghanistan.

I take an active role on the alliance’s advisory council of experts, and on its education working group, along with Robert Rehak, the Czech envoy representative. The working group aims to promote an understanding of FORB among young people, including through school textbooks, university programmes and more informal settings, so that they in turn can inspire the next generation to respect other people’s beliefs in communities around the world. The alliance wants to help to reverse the increase in the abuses of FORB around the world, so the education working group is helping to share ways, tools and best practice, not least from the UK, through the excellent work of the British Council—yet another way in which the UK is showing FORB leadership—on how to teach the next generation on FORB.

Going forward, it will be my continued privilege to work with an increasingly effective and growing alliance. I recently met with our Commonwealth envoy Jo Lomas to discuss how we can work together to encourage more Commonwealth countries to join. To coincide with this week’s anniversary of the statement, we held our virtual 2021 ministerial forum.

Speaking of the ministerial, I am delighted to have played perhaps some small part in helping to secure the UK’s hosting of the next in-person ministerial conference in July. The Prime Minister announced the principal of the conference in the integrated review earlier this year and will draw on all the UK’s FORB work to build stronger global partnerships and agree common goals on FORB for all. It will be a major international gathering and an opportunity for us as a nation to support FORB as a right for all and to agree concrete action with partners internationally. The conference will be supplemented in June and July by an active FORB fringe of no less than 100 events in and around Parliament and beyond, both in-person and virtual, to be organised by my parliamentary office and the FORB APPG, with the already enthusiastic support of many from civil society. Members should contact my office or the APPG to get involved.

I am also working closely with our US counterparts, who intend to bring international grassroots FORB champions for a follow-up conference on 7 July. It is critical that the alliance membership is fully engaged in and integrated into the official thinking as we plan the UK-hosted 2022 ministerial conference, because the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance and the international FORB conferences, which now go back some four years—next year’s will be the fifth—have the same inspirational roots.

In my role, I am aware that no single individual can possibly address the problem of the scale that FORB entails. We have to work together: faith leaders, academics, grassroots organisations, parliamentarians, officials and, of course, Ministers and the Prime Ministers all have a role to play. Next year, 2022, looks to be an exciting year for the UK to play our part and demonstrate our global leadership on FORB.

It is quite right that I have been overwhelmingly positive about the UK’s work on FORB this year, but before I finish, may I leave the deputy Foreign Secretary—the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly)—whom I thank for kindly attending this debate, along with the Leader of the House, with the following thoughts? Further work is needed to achieve the ambition of embedding FORB in the FCDO. One way that will be illustrated is through clearer advocacy and protection for religious minorities facing persecution in places such as Nigeria and Pakistan.

As the Bishop of Truro’s review says, we still need to see FORB as more

“central to FCO operation and culture”—

of course, it was still the FCO when the review was published in 2019. The review also said that a commitment to it should be enshrined

“in strategic and operational guidelines.”

We also need to demonstrate that with sanctions tailored specifically to target FORB violators. We need to more effectively construct and impact FCDO work upstream to prevent mass atrocities with effective early-warning mechanisms. We need to see the vulnerabilities of religious minorities more clearly applied as a criterion for the distribution of humanitarian aid and relief.

We need to see quicker responses to individual cases of injustice and inhumane treatment raised by MPs and NGOs. In too many cases of individual abuses across the world, including many that I have raised, there has been only a general response, such as that for freedom of religion and belief, which is

“a key human rights priority for our Government”.

Where we provide more tailored responses, we can see real results. I was so encouraged by what happened after I highlighted concerns about four Christians in Somaliland, one of whom was a young woman imprisoned with her tiny baby. I heard that our diplomatic officials attended the court hearing, after which they were released. One will never know for sure what impact our engagement had, but we should not underestimate the UK’s soft power in influencing freedom of religion or belief.

Where we cannot take action on individual cases or in particular countries, it would be helpful to have clearer reasoning as to why. Going forward to 2022, I would welcome a meeting with each FCDO Minister on their individual country responsibilities to help to promote mutual understanding and joint working on FORB. I thank Lord Ahmad, our Minister for Human Rights, for his strong commitment to collaborative working with me and I look forward to that being increasingly effective going forward.

More effective working will see my role as envoy given the support required to fulfil my mandate, which, until recent changes, was limited and in some cases lacking. Too much energy was wasted on internal issues rather than addressing the needs of the vulnerable. Indeed, there needs to be a fundamental discussion about the role of special envoys—indeed, all envoys. We need to examine how this relatively recently enhanced role, certainly in terms of numbers, fits into the mechanisms of Government, and how we can work most effectively alongside Minsters. That would help officials to work more effectively too.

There is a substantial piece of work to be done here, and I would welcome meetings with the Minister to develop thinking on this further. I end as I started—indeed, as I have highlighted throughout almost all of this speech—by thanking my parliamentary colleagues and indeed all I have worked with. So much progress has been made on FORB this year, and there is so much more we can look forward to in 2022, as we continue to exhibit global leadership, championing FORB for the UK, helping to promote countries to become more stable, less prone to insecurity threats and more able to trade freely and to facilitate and release the potential of all their citizens. I close with some words from the Bishop of Truro:

“We cannot just see FoRB as a side-bar or special interest issue. It bears upon some deeply serious issues in today’s world: issues with which governments…should be hugely concerned, issues such as trade, poverty, security, racism, women’s rights and the very right to life itself.”

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019

Debate between Lisa Cameron and Fiona Bruce

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Pages 9 and 10 of the report we are considering address the Northern Ireland Office’s consultation on new abortion regulations for Northern Ireland. In addressing this subject, it is important to remember that abortion is a devolved policy competence in Northern Ireland and has been for almost 100 years. In 2016, the democratically-elected Northern Ireland Assembly voted by a straightforward, cross-community majority not to change its abortion law in any way. In this context, the Government were absolutely right—as the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), stated on a number of occasions in this place when abortion in Northern Ireland was raised—that this is a devolved matter for a restored Northern Ireland Assembly to consider. However, that was—sadly, in my view, as I stated at the time—ignored by the 2017-19 Parliament, which went ahead and passed the provision that the Government are now required to introduce by 31 March this year: a new legal framework for abortion law for Northern Ireland, under section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019.

To that end, the Government very promptly launched a consultation in November. Having looked at the consultation and the questions that it asked, I was deeply concerned by its width and breadth. It was much wider than section 9 strictly requires, raising concerns in my mind about possible changes to abortion law in Northern Ireland going much further than section 9 anticipated. I urge Ministers not to take this course of action when the final regulations are published, and I will now go into some detail on the matter.

The consultation made references to clinicians not being involved in abortion procedures on the grounds of conscience—something that has been respected, certainly here, for over 50 years. I know that a number of clinicians in Northern Ireland are deeply concerned that their right to conscientiously object to engagement in abortion treatment procedures may not be given the same respect that it has here. There were also references in the consultation questionnaires to “exclusion zones”—the subject of a consultation here not long ago, in response to which, after consideration, the then Home Secretary decided to take no action.

Section 9(4) of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act says:

“The Secretary of State must by regulations make whatever other changes to the law of Northern Ireland appear to”

him

“to be necessary or appropriate for the purpose of”

implementing paragraphs 85 and 86 of the CEDAW—convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women—report. The CEDAW report—I will not go into the debate that we had on more than one occasion in this place about the authority of that report—requires abortion to be legalised on three grounds. It says that Northern Ireland law should be amended to provide abortion on expanded grounds in “at least” these three circumstances: “rape and incest”;

“severe fetal impairment, including fatal fetal abnormality”;

and

“threat to the pregnant woman’s physical or mental health.”

However, having read the consultation and, as I say, considered the very wide questions that have been raised within it, I am deeply concerned that the abortion framework that may be proposed by the Northern Ireland Office might go far beyond those three circumstances. For example, it may allow for access to abortion on request for any reason up to 12 weeks’ gestation, and then up to 24 weeks, on the basis of the standard in the rest of Great Britain under section 1(1)(a) of the Abortion Act 1967. That standard, which goes wider than the CEDAW report proposes, is

“that the pregnancy has not exceeded its twenty-fourth week and that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family”.

Speaking as someone who has for a number of years engaged on this subject as chair of the all-party pro-life group—although I realise that we are currently in a situation where all the all-party groups have to be reinstated—I know that that standard has effectively led to abortion on request. I am not aware of a single case in the past 10 years where a woman who has requested abortion in England and Wales has been denied one for failing to reach that standard. The CEDAW report does not require it to be introduced in Northern Ireland; nor, as I say, does it make reference to the conscience clause or exclusion zones.

May I urge the Minister to consider that it is possible for the Northern Ireland Office to adopt a much more restrictive standard than the one proposed in the consultation document, while fulfilling the requirements of section 9? If the Government are to act consistently with their many-times-stated commitment to respect devolution, I would have thought it made sense for them to introduce a new regulatory framework that departs from previous Northern Ireland abortion regulations only to the degree that the 2017-19 Parliament insisted on, but no further.

Of course, I recognise that the use of the words “at least” in the CEDAW report does not prevent the Government from going further, but I suggest to the Minister that the words “necessary or appropriate” in the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 do so. I urge him to consider that as well as, obviously, the spirit of devolution and the fact that when that Act was voted on just a few months ago, every single member of the 2017-19 Parliament who represented a Northern Ireland constituency in Westminster voted against it. Law change has been imposed on Northern Ireland by a coalition of MPs representing seats in England, Scotland and Wales. I think that is inappropriate and wrong, and I said so at the time. Indeed, I said that I felt that the whole clause was out of scope—but I appreciate that you were not in the Chair at the time, Mr Speaker.

In closing, I want to ask one or two specific questions of the Minister. The Government have reported, as he mentioned in his opening remarks, that the consultation document has been produced after discussion with a range of stakeholders. Yesterday, in the other place, Lord Duncan of Springbank said:

“Discussions with interested parties will continue as the regulations are taken forward”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 January 2020; Vol. 801, c. 152.]

I would be grateful if the Minister wrote to me to let me know which stakeholders were involved prior to publication of the consultation document, whether there were any others apart from those he mentioned in his opening remarks and who the interested parties will be in discussions with the Government on the regulations.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; she is making a very good speech. I have been chair of the disability all-party parliamentary group for the last two parliamentary terms, and I have been contacted by the Don’t Screen Us Out community, who are particularly concerned about the scope of the regulations and the impact on families with Down’s syndrome children. I hope that the Minister will comment on whether there has been consultation with that group, because, as I am sure the hon. Lady would agree, that would be very helpful.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that really important point. It is because I am so concerned about a number of issues relating to these proposals, and I appreciate that the Minister may not be able to respond to our specific points today, I wonder whether he would be willing to meet me, the hon. Lady and other concerned colleagues about the potential extent of these changes. I also hope that he will reflect on the appropriateness of bringing forward proposals that do not undermine devolution any more than section 9 requires.