Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood]

I absolutely accept that of course that is right. I was putting it in that shorthand way simply to make the point. Of course, everything that I say in this respect plainly applies only to lawful abortion under the Act. It is in that context that we are debating the question. I suggest in parenthesis that it is intolerable that, for example, certain abortion clinics are from time to time surrounded by protestors who harass and intimidate those who are attending for—let me insert the word—lawful treatment by termination.

I return briefly to the judgment in Doogan, which explains, at paragraph 11, that participation means actually taking part in the process. Following a lengthy section of the judgment, which I will not weary the House with but which closely analyses the competing arguments on the case, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, returns to the all-important question at paragraph 38, the paragraph that the noble Lord, Lord Steel, quoted. I will just give a slightly fuller quotation, because he left out one or two bits that I think are worth reading into the record. He read this bit but I will read on. Paragraph 38 says:

“It is unlikely that, in enacting the conscience clause, Parliament had in mind the host of ancillary, administrative and managerial tasks that might be associated with those acts. Parliament will not have had in mind the hospital managers who decide to offer an abortion service, the administrators who decide how best that service can be organised within the hospital (for example, by assigning some terminations to the Labour Ward, some to the Fetal Medicine Unit and some to the Gynaecology Ward), the caterers who provide the patients with food, and the cleaners who provide them with a safe and hygienic environment. Yet all may be said in some way to be facilitating the carrying out of the treatment involved. The managerial and supervisory tasks carried out by the Labour Ward Co-ordinators are closer to these roles than they are to the role of providing the treatment which brings about the termination of the pregnancy. ‘Participate’ in my view means taking part in a ‘hands-on’ capacity”.


That is the theme taken up by the shorthand encapsulation of this judgment in Amendment 1 and a certain amendment which will follow.

In the very next paragraph of the judgment, there then follows an enormously helpful and detailed exegesis of that approach—a test of the principle against what was in that decision. It is an agreed list of 13 tasks included in the role of the two petitioners in that case, as labour ward co-ordinators. Some of those tasks were held to be covered by the conscience clause and others were held not to be. Some were specifically held to be covered but to an explicitly defined extent.

It is tempting to read out the entire paragraph and to invite a clear indication from those who resist these amendments as to where they are suggested to be too restrictive of the exemption provision. But in the interests of brevity I will simply quote three of the shorter sub-paragraphs, which set out certain of the agreed tasks. The first task referred to,

“management of resources within the Labour Ward, including taking telephone calls from the Fetal Medicine Unit to arrange medical terminations of pregnancy; this is not covered by the conscience clause as interpreted above”.

The sixth task referred to is,

“responding to requests for assistance, including responding to the nurse call system and the emergency pull; responding by itself is not covered; it would depend upon the assistance requested whether it was part of the treatment for a termination”.

Finally, there is sub-paragraph 11—no, perhaps sub-paragraph 10, as it is shorter. It refers to:

“communicating with other professionals, eg paging anaesthetists; this is a managerial task which is not covered by the conscience clause as interpreted above”.

If it is unamended, the Bill would provide exemption from all these tasks by those in the position of the two Doogan petitioners.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

I wonder whether I may press the noble and learned Lord on the specific question of exemption. While I share some of his concerns that a list that included hospital porters and so on would be exhaustive, was never envisaged and is not what I think the sponsor of the Bill would wish to see, where does the noble and learned Lord stand on the question of Mary Doogan and whether she should have the right to opt out of participating, even through facilitation through lists rather than in a hands-on way as the amendment states? Where would he stand on something as specific as that case? Notwithstanding whether it was lawful or not, does he think that the law should be changed to provide reasonable accommodation for someone such as Mary Doogan?

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak only to Motion C, which I support, along with Amendment 85A. On Report, when I abstained on the vote, I suggested that there was a problem with the existing scheme in that detainees have to take the initiative and prove their case for release. I suggested that it would be more proper that,

“the burden should shift to the Home Secretary to prove good reason to extend a period”.—[Official Report, 15/3/16; col. 1792.]

However, I could not support 28 days and suggested an initial period of nine months.

I am satisfied, for my part, that that problem is now properly addressed. As the Minister has explained, the proposed automatic referral at six months operates as a safeguard, because the detainee can of course himself apply for bail at any point. I recognise the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that some detainees, because of their mental condition, may well not be in a position to do so, but this safeguard has now been introduced. I further recognise that the tribunals to which application for bail is made apply a presumption in favour of liberty, and that of course the well-known common law principles initially established in the Hardial Singh case continue to apply.

Apropos of that, I will just refer to the decision of the Supreme Court as recently as last week, 20 April, in a case called Nouazli v Secretary of State. The court, giving a single judgment, says at paragraph 67:

“The courts have recognised that there are sound policy reasons for a flexible and fact-sensitive approach. I find nothing in the judgments of the ECtHR which undermines the Hardial Singh approach to the duration of detention”.

It then points that out an earlier Supreme Court decision, in another case referred to the court, observed that the Hardial Singh principles are,

“more favourable to detainees than Strasbourg requires”.

With those various safeguards in place, I support this Motion. I could not support the original amendment, Amendment 84, and I cannot, with respect, support the 56 days now proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. As I said, I initially suggested nine months. The Government have done better at six months, and even that will now be the subject of further review in case it can in future be shortened.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, although I support my noble friend’s amendment, others have spoken to it and I do not wish to be repetitious. I supported the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on Report: I was a signatory to her amendment then and I am very happy to support her again today, as I hope the House will.

I simply ask whether the noble and learned Lord, when he replies to the points the noble Baroness has set out, will say what his response is to the call by the Royal College of Midwives today for a review of the whole process, as the noble Baroness said. I remind the House of what Stephen Shaw found in his Review into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons. He said that,

“detention has an incontrovertibly deleterious effect on the health of pregnant women and their unborn children”.

The Royal College of Midwives states:

“Even if a pregnancy is completely healthy and uncomplicated; the dignity and care that should be afforded all pregnant women is compromised by detention”.

I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said. My noble friend Lord Hylton and I visited Yarl’s Wood during the Bill’s passage. We raised the question of pregnant women and, although I personally believe that conditions at Yarl’s Wood have been very significantly improved, it cannot be right to keep pregnant women in any detention centre, and there must be alternatives to that. That is why it is so important to support the noble Baroness’s amendment today.