Relationships and Sexuality Education (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Grand Committee

It is regrettable that such a controversial regulation is not to be afforded proper scrutiny, as we have heard. Why has the Northern Ireland Office chosen to breach the convention that at least 21 days should be allowed between laying an instrument and bringing it into effect? One trusts that these regulations are not being used as a political football. Like all Members from Northern Ireland here today, I oppose these regulations.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to support the Minister today—I do not very often, but I do on this matter. I begin my remarks by declaring that I am the chair of the All-Party Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health and a co-chair of the All-Party Group on HIV/AIDS.

One of the reasons why I am proud to be chair of the former is because of a woman who I never met. When I was young, I listened to my mum and my beloved Auntie Betty talking about a girl who they were at school with in the 1940s in Scotland and who got pregnant. They sat there and said, “She didnae know”. That is what happened: lots of young women got pregnant and their lives were transformed, sometimes much against their will, because they just did not know.

As a young woman in my 20s, I began to watch friends and people I knew become sick. Then, some of them went on to die. In some cases, they died because of ignorance. They died because they became HIV positive and, at that point, there was no cure. Fortunately, in the intervening period, HIV has gone on to be a condition with which people live happy, well and fulfilling lives. But I have always believed that everybody in this world has the right to information to make the right choices, and safe choices, about their body and their life. I believe that wherever they are in the world, not just the United Kingdom, but I particularly believe that it should be a right across the four nations of the UK for every young person to have access to accurate information.

Let us go back to why these regulations are in front of us. The noble Lord, Lord McCrea, read this out in his speech, which I disagreed with in many ways. But let us be absolutely clear. The CEDAW report found that, in schools in Northern Ireland, where

“relationship and sexuality education is delivered, it is frequently provided by third parties and based on anti-abortion and abstinence ethos”.

Then there is the bit that the noble Lord did not read out:

“Those factors point to State negligence in pregnancy prevention through a failure to implement its recommended curriculum on relationship and sexuality education”.


Nobody has talked about the sexuality part of it today, but we are talking about young people and HIV as well. Let us bear that in mind.

Members talked about what the Government have come up with in response as being cavalier. It is not: it is careful and considered. It is an obligation on schools to provide information on sexual and reproductive health that is age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate.

I happen to think that, should a parent wish to withdraw their child and prevent them accessing age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate SRH education, they would be a bad parent. Children should have the right to access that information, which keeps them safe. I understand entirely that that view is not shared by everybody else. Therefore, we have to make sure that there is a right to withdraw. That right is quite clear. Members of the Committee have made a great deal about the procedural cases put forward by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in particular, but that committee does not say—nor has anybody said so far—that there is any intention on the Government’s part to frustrate the rights of parents to withdraw their children. That is not the case at all. It is absolutely the case that the Government are upholding their rights.

When we analyse the regulations and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report, it is important to see who was lobbying the committee so hard to point out flaws and faults in the process. It was the Catholic Church, the Christian Institute and Right to Life—organisations that, at every turn, have sought to prevent women, young girls and young people accessing comprehensive sexuality and relationship education, information about abortion and abortion services. The people bringing about that influence on the committee are some of those who have been guilty of providing information that CEDAW found to be wildly inaccurate and misleading. It is not just that young people run into trouble because of ignorance these days; a lot of organisations, which sometimes present themselves as crisis pregnancy advisers, now make a business out of providing information that is inaccurate and harmful.

There is much that I can and do disagree with—

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

I have sat through hour after hour of debate recently—in fact, sometimes until the early hours of the morning—in which the noble Baroness’s party in particular has demanded that legislation be stopped until the Minister comes to the House with an impact assessment. Because he had not done so, they berated him over and over again. We sat for hours going over that same thing. When was the impact assessment delivered on this legislation?

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

I listened to noble Lords talk about the impact assessment, in particular to what they said about it in relation to providers. I think that there will be an impact. The Government have actually been quite clear, because the people who will be impacted are those who have been providing inaccurate information that has harmed children.

I listened to the noble Lord’s speech. He talked about this legislation applying to primary schools. It does not; it applies to key stages 3 and 4. We are talking about supplying age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate information to people aged 11 to 16.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

The noble Baroness will get the report; I have the speech here. In fact, I did not say that about primary schools. I said that, as far as England is concerned, it was for primary and secondary, but not in Northern Ireland.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

I will go back and read Hansard. I am sorry; I did not hear that distinction. I thought the noble Lord said something different.

I want to come back to the purpose of these regulations, which is to prevent unplanned pregnancies and promote sexual health and well-being. The only question I want to ask is about the evaluation of this. It is to be evaluated and a report will be presented to the Northern Ireland Assembly, which we all hope will be back up and running by then.

This is an education matter but it is also a health matter. Why was the Department of Health not included in the evaluation? If this legislation has the effect that we hope it will, there should be an increase in health outcomes for young people in Northern Ireland. The Minister may have a technical reason why that was not the case, but will he write to me at some stage about what the process of evaluation will be?

This is far from cavalier: it is a careful and considered piece of legislation and I am happy to support it.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My Lords, as ever, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I particularly thank the two main opposition parties for supporting the Government on regulations which earlier today passed the House of Commons by 373 votes to 28. I am also pleased to welcome to our proceedings my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, chair of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.

There is no doubt that the issues before us have generated a good deal of passion and conviction on all sides of the Committee, which I respect completely. I will endeavour to address as briefly as I can some of the points raised. The first question is about why we are doing this and bringing forward the regulations. To some extent, I addressed this in my opening comments regarding the statutory duty under which the Secretary of State is placed by—I gently remind some noble Lords who questioned the legitimacy of the legislation—an Act of the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom: in this case Section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019.

For clarity, this is not an amendment or a change to the legislation that was sought or brought forward by the Government at the time. Noble Lords will remember that it was a Back-Bench amendment from a Labour Party Member of the other place, but I remind them that it was passed by resounding majorities in both your Lordships’ House and the other place. We really must respect that.

As noble Lords will recall, that legislation passed almost four years ago, yet little or no progress had been made so far in implementing it, despite extensive discussions between my department and the Department of Education in Northern Ireland, including correspondence last July from the former Secretary of State to the then Education Minister in Stormont. When officials began engaging with the Department of Education in 2019 following the passing of the Executive formation Act, they were assured that the CEDAW recommendations would be implemented—assurances that continued until around February last year. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, is not in his place because I understand that it was while he was Education Minister in Northern Ireland that his department established a working group to amend the curriculum minimum content order.

In February 2022, the department shifted its position in a briefing paper it provided to the Northern Ireland Office, effectively arguing that the curriculum on RSE should be a matter for schools and teachers to determine —how it should be delivered, which resources to use and what specific topics should be covered. That was in conflict with the Secretary of State’s legal duties, which require that certain elements of RSE, as set out in the CEDAW report, must be compulsory components of the curriculum. Noble Lords will understand that, for a Secretary of State to fail in fulfilling his or her statutory duties is a serious breach of the Ministerial Code, and therefore it was imperative that action had to be taken. That is why these regulations have been introduced now. I contend that, given that it is four years since the legislation was passed in Parliament, we can hardly be accused of rushing.

That, of course, leads to one of the major themes of the debate this afternoon—

Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2022

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Lords Chamber

I have no doubt that, if the public were permitted to see the reality of what happens, there would be a public outcry. These regulations care not about the infants’ cries, nor will we ever hear their plea: “Why must I die like this?” To me, every life is precious. We must not bear the shame of letting these regulations pass. I trust that we can have the courage to reject this statutory instrument.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very wide-ranging debate, and I think it is important that we focus on the decisions that we are being asked to make today. I begin by commending the Minister for the clear, factual exposition of how we came to be in the position that we are in today. We are here debating these regulations because of a catalogue of failure of elected politicians in Northern Ireland and of officials to do something very basic: to ensure that any woman who needs or wishes to have an abortion can access it in Northern Ireland—for the avoidance of doubt, to coerce anybody to have an abortion in any part of the United Kingdom is against the law—and there has been a failure to do that.

I recommend that people read in Hansard the clear and factual way in which the Minister put forward the history of where we are and contrast that with some of the allegations made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. In her wide-ranging speech she made some very serious allegations. She said that in Northern Ireland there is abortion to term. She did not give any evidence that that has happened. She said that there is abortion on the grounds of sex. She knows that any healthcare worker who did so would be in contravention of their professional ethics. Again, she did not give us any examples. Noble Lords can contrast the evidence behind the two cases that have been made.

On what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said about picking and choosing, we do not, as a united kingdom, pick and choose the parts of international agreements that we uphold. It is important that having signed up to an international agreement to protect women and girls we throughout the United Kingdom stick to that.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, characterised providers of abortion services as people seeking to profit from other people’s misery. That is a world away from the work being done by organisations on a charitable basis to make sure that the current, wholly inadequate provision is, so far as they can possibly make it, accessible to all women in Northern Ireland. They know, because they meet them on a daily basis, that women who do not have money cannot get themselves to Great Britain, as 161 did last year, to get the care that they need; and 40 of those women were of under ten weeks’ gestation. It is quite clear that the provision of service is utterly inadequate. That is why it is important that the commissioning of services happens—the commissioning that we have been told the Northern Ireland Health Minister wishes to wash his hands of.

I say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn—who I do not think has been involved in our discussions before—that I would take greater notice of the great constitutional outrage were it not for the fact that people such as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, have opposed every attempt to ensure that women anywhere have access to safe abortion. The views of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, are extremely well known. I can now almost write his speeches for him. I know that they will always include a reference to some poll that somebody has paid somebody to do to come up with the answer that he hopes they will find.

The important thing that nobody has said in all this is that the political failure in Northern Ireland has been particularly hard on women and girls, perhaps because of the non-sectarian consensus that the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, alluded to. It is right that today we take this measure, which the Government have drafted in as narrow a way as they can, to make sure that the women and young people who have always been weighed down by the politics of the past in Northern Ireland have some hope for the future.

I hope that we will reject the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and that we will put this measure on the statute book as it deserves to be.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, a lot has been said in this debate already and I do not intend to prolong proceedings unnecessarily, but I want to add a few comments about this set of regulations, because the most important aspect of it is the constitutional implications. This is a highly sensitive and emotive issue, and we have seen that on display in your Lordships’ House this afternoon. People have very strong feelings on both sides—I certainly know which side I am on. I believe that both lives matter.

That being said, I think that the issues that have come to the fore in relation to the breach of the devolution settlement of Northern Ireland—the precedent that that sets, the breach of the Belfast agreement—raise very serious issues. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, was absolutely right. On whatever side you come down on any particular issue, if it is a matter that has been devolved, then the devolution settlement should be respected.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke, referenced that it was perhaps not foreseen that this type of situation could arise, but I have to say that these matters were foreseen at the time of the Belfast agreement in 1998 and indeed at the time of the restoration of devolution in 2007, because on those occasions the issue of abortion was deliberately referenced and discussed and made a devolved matter. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to leading a delegation to a previous Prime Minister in which there was a cross-party, cross-community consensus that it should be a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly. Therefore, it was entirely foreseen and foreseeable that Northern Ireland could legitimately have a different position from the rest of the United Kingdom. The argument that this needs to be a position which is the same across all four countries of the United Kingdom does not stand up to scrutiny or to the history of this matter and the very delicate balance of the Belfast agreement.

There is an alarming tendency—without discussing the merits of particular issues—to be very selective about the Belfast agreement as amended by the St Andrews agreement in 2007 whereby it now appears to be the view that majoritarianism is a good idea in Northern Ireland, but somehow for 99 years majority rule in Northern Ireland was unacceptable. We have not had majority rule in Northern Ireland since 1972 with the collapse of the old Stormont Parliament. For half of Northern Ireland’s existence, it has not been there.

Report Pursuant to Sections 3(1), 3(6), 3(7), 3(8), 3(9) and 3(10) the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to be taking part in this debate in the absence of my noble friend Lord Bruce of Bennachie, who cannot be with us this evening. Although I did not know that I was going to be speaking in this debate until a few days ago, I am glad that I spent a large part of the summer watching the series of BBC programmes about the history of the Troubles. It is important that those of us who wish to see a brighter future for Northern Ireland never forget its past. It has been salutary to be reminded of the situation in Northern Ireland. It is the wish never to return to those days that has lain behind much of this work.

I thank the Minister for producing these reports. I took part in the passing of the legislation, and it is good to be back here now debating not whether the Government are going to implement that legislation but how they are going to implement it. That is the thrust of these detailed reports. I also commend the Minister for the openness with which he has made them available to people from all sides of the House. Like others, we on these Benches remain committed to restoring the devolved Government as soon as possible, but we understand—not least because of the points made so impressively by the noble Lord, Lord Empey—that life in Northern Ireland goes on, and that the governance of Northern Ireland is under severe strain.

I want to talk first about the issues in the “Report pursuant to sections 3(1), 3(6), 3(7), 3(8), 3(9) and 3(10)”—a deadly bureaucratic title for something very important. The report mentions the progress of the working groups. It states that the Secretary of State used these groups to inform “subsequent weeks of negotiation”. It would be very helpful if the Minister could give the House a flavour of the intensity and productiveness of those negotiations. We have been concerned to hear from our colleagues in the Alliance that,

“the process has been treading water for the past few weeks at least”.

The report also states that:

“It should prove possible with intensive engagement to resolve the strands of talks on the Programme for Government, Transparency and Sustainability relatively swiftly”,


and that,

“the UK Government, working closely with the Irish Government, will now intensify its efforts to put forward compromise solutions to the parties”.

Can the Minister give us a little more detail of this “intensive engagement” and when this intensification of efforts will begin?

I particularly thank the Government for the section of the report relating to the transparency of political donations. That amendment was moved by my noble friend Lord Bruce of Bennachie. However, I am disappointed by what the report says. Clearly, there has been no progress made on backdating transparency of political donations to January 2014, as provided for by the 2014 Act. The report places much emphasis on the “broad consensus” among Northern Ireland political parties, but it does not make changes from the July 2017 date. Well, there was no consensus. The Alliance’s position remains that returns should be published from January 2014 onwards. Political parties may want secrecy, but that does not make it right or fair to the public.

Thirdly, the point made in the report about retrospectivity is not an issue. Parties were told by the Electoral Commission to inform every large donor after January 2014 that their details would eventually be published. Donors would have known that when they made their donations. I hope that the Minister can talk more about progress on that.

Turning to the section on higher education in Northern Ireland, the question of HE sector funding is urgent. Again, we place on record our support in principle for the proposed medical school in Derry/Londonderry, but we need to know that the funding will be in place.

The report pursuant to Section 3(13) deals with the payment for victims. My noble friend Lord Bruce of Bennachie has echoed many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and I will not repeat them at this late hour.

On the report on Section 3(14) about the key recommendations of the Inquiry into Historical Institutional Abuse, we echo the concerns expressed on Thursday by the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, Sir Declan Morgan, that the recommendations have still not been implemented, in particular his comments that this,

“epitomises how the lack of an Assembly impacts negatively on … Northern Ireland’s citizens”.

Given that we are expecting Parliament to prorogue today and not return until October for a Queen’s Speech, presumably that will mean yet more delay for them. These people have been waiting far too long for redress.

I want to deal with two issues in particular, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, might be in his place for one minute longer. I listened to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, in the debate earlier this afternoon, in which I think he questioned the motivation of those of us who were responsible for ensuring that this legislation extends the rights of access to abortion care and to same-sex marriage to people in Northern Ireland. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, is not due to speak and therefore I reluctantly make the point—

[A noble Lord]

He will speak in the gap.

[Baroness Barker]

Is he speaking in the gap? Okay. However, I can say with confidence that in all the work I saw him do, and all the work that he would have seen me do on abortion, there was never any question at all that we were doing so in a partisan way. We were doing it so that people who are citizens of Northern Ireland could enjoy the same human rights and access to services as people in the rest of the United Kingdom. That was all.

I want to ask the Minister one question. Can he confirm that the decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland will take place on 21 October if no Assembly is formed, regardless of a general election or Prorogation? If that is so, what will happen to people who are currently facing prosecution under the existing law? I remind this House of a point that we made during the passage of the legislation. Decriminalisation does not mean that there will be no regulation of abortion in Northern Ireland. Since we passed the legislation, there have been wildly misleading statements made. Abortion in Northern Ireland, when the law changes, will be by medical professionals who will be under the same ethical constraints as their colleagues are in the rest of the United Kingdom. It is wrong to say that there will be a period in which there will be no regulation whatever.

Domestic Violence: Victims

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very important point about the particular situation where children witness domestic abuse. This is something that will be very much referenced in the consultation, and we will be looking at, for example, possibly having more stringent penalties when children are subjected to the sort of situation referred to by the noble Lord. I will take the specific situation he referred to back because it is a very valuable point.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, the domestic violence disclosure scheme was rolled out in 2014, and the first bit of evidence suggests that different police forces have been implementing it in very different ways. What are the Government doing to ensure that there is more consistency across all police forces in using that scheme?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

The noble Baroness raises an interesting point about consistency, and she is absolutely right: we need to see consistency, although perhaps not uniformity. There will be certain situations that demand a different response. Again, that is something that we will be looking at in the consultation being carried out this autumn on the principles of the legislation.