Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, I regret to say that as a parliamentarian I am not proud to participate in these proceedings. Since this started last year, the parliamentary process has been outrageous. The legislation should never have been allowed on to the statute book in the first place and our proceedings tonight, with one-minute speeches, are an insult to all the people of Northern Ireland. We were told repeatedly throughout last year that we could not raise health issues, despite the fact that people were dying, or the RHI because it was a devolved matter. Now that we have devolution, it has been set aside.

Can the Minister confirm whether any party in Northern Ireland asked the Government to take on this responsibility because it does not have the guts to do it? If he does not have an answer for me tonight, can he write a letter to me and put it in the Library so that the rest of us can see what really happened?

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. Let us try again; I call the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. No? If we have time, we will come back to him. I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Eaton (Con) [V]]

My Lords, Regulation 3 allows abortion for any reason up to 12 weeks’ gestation with no exclusions. New tests are available that determine the child’s sex before 12 weeks; thus sex-selective abortion is now lawful in Northern Ireland. Last Monday, the Minister said:

“I make it clear … that the abortion regulations do not allow abortions on the grounds of sex selection.”—[Official Report, 8/6/20; col. 1626.]


Brett Lockhart QC has responded:

“I confess to being entirely unclear as to how one could legally have come to that opinion”.


Writing in ConservativeHome today, leading human rights activist Jasvinder Sanghera responded:

“Unless … there is a provision in the regulations currently held from sight by invisible ink, this assertion seems plainly wrong”.


She continued:

“The last thing we need now is for the Government to send the message that its resolve to address sex selective abortion is weakening and indeed, as far as Northern Ireland is concerned, evaporating.”


I will vote “Content” in favour of the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and against the regulations.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, is not in the Chamber. I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Deech (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the Northern Ireland Act does not limit Parliament to the recommendations of CEDAW; it is broader. This is an exercise of parliamentary sovereignty.

Secondly, it has been held in law that the unborn do not have rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. However, most of all, I draw attention to something shameful. There is respect for the foetus, I hear from our Northern Ireland colleagues. Why, then, until very recently, when the mother had her perhaps unwanted baby out of wedlock, were they put in mother and baby homes and Magdalene laundries, subject to arbitrary detention and forced adoption? There is a four-year, ongoing interdepartmental working group looking into the shameful treatment of mothers and babies in Northern Ireland, which the UN Committee Against Torture recommended. I do not understand this respect for the foetus if it does not carry over to the born baby and the mother, so I support the regulations.

[The Deputy Speaker]

We are now able to bring in the noble Lord, Lord Dubs.