Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Baroness Harris of Richmond

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 15th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

What would the noble Lord say to the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives, which all agree that this legislation should go through?

[Lord Deben]

I would say that we live in a democracy in which we have devolved these decisions, and they must prove that to the politicians elected for the north of Ireland. If there are no such politicians, the least we can do is to have full consultation in order that they will feel that they have been properly involved. The noble Baroness is saying that we can say to the people of Northern Ireland, “You cannot even be consulted. We are going to take the view of these royal colleges—great though they are—and enforce them on you”. That is not the way to win battles. What happened in the south when people voted, surprisingly many thought, on both these issues is that they had the argument. They had the discussion locally and made the decision locally, and it will therefore stick. It changed people’s attitudes in a way that I was enthusiastic about on one side and on the other side not.

We cannot go around saying on the one hand that we believe in devolution and then when it is convenient, because people take a different view from us, we take the opportunity to enforce something. We have to win the argument—not in London, nor even in Edinburgh and Cardiff, but in Belfast. We have to win it in Derry and in the north of Ireland. I hope that the noble Baroness will go and seek to win it. I may try to persuade people to take the opposite view on one of the issues, but at least we would be talking to the people for whom we are legislating and to whom we gave devolved power. Of all parties who should be on this side, the Liberal Democrats, who have been prime movers on devolution, should think to themselves that devolution means taking the good with the bad. They should recognise that it means that people make up their own minds, whether we like it or not.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

The noble Lord questioned me about statistics, more or less, and the number of people in Northern Ireland. It is some time since 2016 when the Government decided that they did not want to change the law. But statistics from the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey in 2018, just last year, found that 82% of the population polled agreed that abortion should be a matter for medical regulation and not criminal law, and 89% agreed that a woman should never go to prison for having an abortion. Those are significant statistics.

[Lord Deben]

Of all the parties in the country quoting public opinion polls, I should have thought that the Liberal Democrats should be particularly careful. I am not prepared to take public opinion polls—although I would point out to her that nearly 70% of the women of Northern Ireland and more than 65% of all people in Northern Ireland say that this should not be something that the United Kingdom Parliament decides.

So we can all bandy polls, but 2016 is a much more recent democratic decision than the democratic decisions that we have made. We are simply suggesting that, in order for the people of Northern Ireland not to feel that we are dictating to them in areas that are specifically their own, we should have proper discussion and proper concern for their views—and if that is not a Liberal view, I cannot think what is.