Draft Adjacent Waters Boundaries (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2020
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The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Adjacent Waters Boundaries (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2020.
The order amends the boundary of the Northern Ireland zone for the purposes of section 98 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. It clarifies the boundary between the parts of the sea within sea fishery limits that are treated as being adjacent to Northern Ireland, and those parts that are not. The reason for doing this is that the co-ordinates in the Adjacent Waters Boundaries (Northern Ireland) Order 2002 were not amended when the UK Government legislated for its exclusive economic zone in 2013. The Exclusive Economic Zone Order 2013 designates the area of the UK’s EEZ.
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
Given the overwhelming opposition to this measure, I thought I would ask a constructive question. Is the order correcting an administrative error? Surely we could have tidied this all up in 2013. Is this just a tidying-up exercise?
Mr Walker
Broadly, yes; this is a tidying-up exercise. The Exclusive Economic Zone Order 2013 revoked and replaced orders relating to renewable energy and pollution, but did not revoke the Fishery Limits Act 1976, which sets out British fisheries limits for the UK. Instead, the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, under which the 2013 order was made, amended the 1976 Act in order to align British fisheries limits with those of the EEZ. The EEZ, as defined in the 2013 order, does not follow the adjacent waters boundaries line in the area outside Carlingford lough. This legislative defect has created a management issue for the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs and the Government, as there is now an area adjacent to Northern Ireland that lies inside the UK’s EEZ, but outside the Northern Ireland zone, and which DAERA cannot manage in relation to sea fishing. In addition, the area of sea that gives rise to the issue straddles the border with Irish waters. This does not affect any other areas of UK waters.
Rectifying this legislative defect before the end of the transition period will enable DAERA to avoid management and enforcement issues relating to sea fishing. As I have set out, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor observed, this is a purely technical correction and nothing controversial. As we are not seeking to amend the UK EEZ, there is no requirement to negotiate any changes with Ireland. However, I can confirm that we have notified it of what we are doing.
I reassure the Committee that the order has no impact on existing disputes between the UK and Ireland over the delimitation of maritime borders in cross-border Loughs Foyle and Carlingford. It also has no impact on the voisinage agreement between the two countries. We remain fully committed to those arrangements, and continue to work closely with the Irish Government over improvements to the management of the Loughs. British and Irish officials last met in October 2019, when a number of issues were discussed, including the loughs and the management of aquaculture in them. I commend the order to the Committee.
Oral Answers to Questions
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Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
The UK’s internal market has functioned seamlessly for centuries. As the transition period ends, we will ensure that the most successful Union of nations in the world continues to thrive, and we will do this while maintaining the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and the gains of the peace process. The Secretary of State and I regularly meet Cabinet and ministerial colleagues across Government on this point, including through the Cabinet Committee on Union policy implementation, which is driving forward the Government’s Union strategy.
Sarah Atherton
To continue a theme, Wrexham has one of the largest trading estates in the UK, and trading with Northern Ireland via Holyhead port is vital for Wrexham’s future growth. Will the Minister give us reassurances that from January, seamless trade around the UK will continue as it is essential to our Union’s growth and prosperity?
Mr Walker
Yes, I can. That is why the Government are very pleased that the Bill has completed its passage through the House this week. The provisions in the Bill ensure that there will be no new checks, controls or administrative processes on goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain and provide a power for Ministers to disapply or modify the requirement for export declarations or other export procedures on such movements.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
It is very welcome to hear that a slimmed-down Finance Bill is coming later in the year, but not a single clause in the internal market Bill changes the fact that new requirements on trade between Britain and Northern Ireland will be coming into force in 13 weeks’ time. Why is a coalition of business groups still waiting for answers on 60 of the 67 basic questions that it put to the Secretary of State in June on how the protocol will work? Why is there still no border operating model? Why has the necessary infrastructure been described by the permanent secretary for environment and agriculture as undeliverable? Is it not time for both the EU and the UK to act in Northern Ireland’s interests and deliver the certainty that businesses are crying out for?
Mr Walker
The hon. Lady rightly calls for certainty, but in making the criticism that she does, she appears to be criticising the protocol that her Front Benchers have been arguing that we cannot interfere with. It is essential that we deliver on the protocol and deliver certainty for businesses, and the steps that we have taken in the UK Internal Market Bill help us to do so. I am not going to take lectures on upholding the integrity of our Union from a party that refuses to rule out backing a divisive second independence referendum in Scotland.
Louise Haigh
Those are absolutely ridiculous comments from the Minister. We have been supporting the protocol and the implementation of it, and it is the divisive, law-breaking UK Internal Market Bill that has undermined the implementation of the protocol. While criticism from five former Prime Ministers, the leaders of three Northern Ireland parties, the Speaker of the US Congress and the resignation of the Government’s most senior law officer may not have concerned the Government, I wonder whether the comments of the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland have. Sir Declan Morgan said that the threat to break the law may have undermined public confidence in the legal system. I wonder whether the Minister now regrets the comments made by the Secretary of State and the actions of Governments over the past fortnight.
Mr Walker
We have been repeatedly clear through the passage of the Bill that we are respecting and delivering on the protocol. We remain absolutely committed to the peace process, the Good Friday agreement and to acting within the UK’s constitutional set-up, and that is what we will continue to do.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
In August, the Prime Minister visited Northern Ireland, announcing the establishment of a centenary forum and centenary historical advisory panel, ensuring that we listen to diverse perspectives as we create a bold and ambitious centenary programme. As well as being the centenary of Northern Ireland, it is also the centenary of the United Kingdom as we know it today. We are committed to delivering our programme that will allow the public to engage with the history of the centenary while supporting Northern Ireland businesses, its tourism industry and promoting Northern Ireland on the world stage.
Marco Longhi
Does my hon. Friend agree that next year’s important anniversary for the UK as we know it today is also a fantastic opportunity to mark Northern Ireland’s future, its diverse people, business and culture?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is an opportunity to look ahead towards a bright and prosperous future for Northern Ireland. It is a chance for people across the British Isles and abroad to celebrate the progress made while showcasing the people and places that I have so enjoyed getting to know since my appointment last year.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The Minister will be aware that I put a written proposal to the Treasury about a commemorative celebratory coin for Northern Ireland in its 100th anniversary year. Perhaps the Minister would take the opportunity to elaborate on what progress has been made on that celebratory coin for our nation, and will he elaborate on what the Treasury has told me, which is that the Government will use this opportunity to promote Northern Ireland on the world stage and celebrate its people, culture, traditions and enterprise because we have made such a vital contribution to this United Kingdom?
Mr Walker
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and I are in firm agreement that we should mark this historical centenary in a way that facilitates national recognition and international awareness. Specifically regarding a commemorative coin, this is a matter for the Treasury. It is a proposal that I have shared with ministerial colleagues previously, and I am very happy to explore it with them further. On the international dimension, he is absolutely right. We will be working with the Department for International Trade and our colleagues at the Foreign Office to ensure that promoting Northern Ireland around the world is an opportunity that is taken during this centenary.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
I continue to work closely with colleagues across the Government and the Executive to support the tourism industry in Northern Ireland. The industry has benefited from financial support provided by the UK Government, including through the job retention scheme and the extension of the 15% VAT cut for the hospitality and tourism sectors. I welcome the new UK- wide Escape the Everyday campaign, promoting domestic tourism and promoting Northern Ireland across the UK as a great place to visit.
Mr Robertson
I thank the Minister for that response. Indeed, the lower VAT is helpful, but will he discuss with Treasury colleagues the potential benefit to Northern Ireland of extending that lower rate even further?
Mr Walker
I absolutely recognise the point that my hon. Friend is making. The extension of the 15% VAT cut for hospitality and tourism to the end of March next year will provide vital support for the tourism industry through these challenging times. The approach taken by this Government is already one of the most generous and comprehensive globally, but we will continue to monitor the impact that the measures are having, to provide the necessary support for businesses and individuals. I know the Secretary of State will be meeting representatives of the hospitality industry later on today.
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)
Secretary of State, in relation to Northern Ireland tourism, may I say that it has to compete not only on a world stage, but with the market from the Republic of Ireland and its predatory actions? It has been fast and loose in terms of using the opportunity of state aid, but in relation to air passenger duty, it has sucked the life out of our international trade to our international airports. What can be done in relation to using APD as a tool to help our tourism industry?
Mr Walker
I absolutely recognise the competitive pressure that Northern Ireland faces, and it is something that I have discussed with hospitality and, indeed, the aviation industry in Northern Ireland. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Treasury is looking into what can be done on the APD front, and it is certainly something where we will take on board the views of Northern Ireland businesses.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
The Secretary of State and I have engaged extensively with Northern Ireland businesses and have been impressed by their resilience and adaptability. This Government will do everything they can to help people and businesses through this extraordinary time. Businesses in Northern Ireland will benefit from the job support scheme, VAT reductions being extended and the extension of bounce back loans.
Andrew Griffith
Will the Minister join me in welcoming the latest package of measures in the Government’s winter economy plan? Those measures will ensure that we continue to protect jobs and help businesses through the uncertain difficult months ahead to ensure that Northern Ireland not only recovers but has the opportunity to prosper as part of the United Kingdom.
Mr Walker
I absolutely will. I join my hon. Friend in welcoming the comprehensive winter economy plan. The Government are providing support for businesses and employees throughout the United Kingdom with an unprecedented series of grants, loans and support schemes. We are steadfast in our commitment to strengthening the Union and levelling up opportunities for Northern Ireland to prosper, and that includes for our investments in the city and growth deals programme, which covers the whole of Northern Ireland.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
In March this year, the Government made the Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020, which set out the new law on access to abortion services in Northern Ireland. Since then, we have been dealing with the response to covid-19. However, I am pleased that some service provision has commenced on the ground in Northern Ireland through existing sexual and reproductive health clinics across all the health and social care trusts. I hope that longer-term services can be commissioned as soon as possible so that access is available locally in all cases set out in the regulations. The Government stand ready to provide whatever support we can to Northern Ireland’s Minister of Health and his Department to assist them in this regard.
Ruth Jones
We all know that the time for debate about the need for abortion services for the women of Northern Ireland is long gone. These women deserve equality of access to these vital services without having to travel to the mainland. What discussions has the Minister had on the funding needed for the UK Government to commission and sustain new abortion services for the women of Northern Ireland?
Mr Walker
The regulations deliver equivalent outcomes, in practice, to the rest of the UK so that women and girls can enjoy similar rights in accessing abortion services in Northern Ireland going forward. We are in constant dialogue with the Executive about their overall funding settlement. As the hon. Lady will recognise, there have been substantial increases in their funding, thanks to the Barnett consequentials of funding across the UK, including in health.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
I listened very carefully to the Minister’s answer. In this pandemic, it is even more important that women do not make risky journeys. Despite the clear indication of this Parliament, women’s rights are still being denied in Northern Ireland because of the difficult local politics—which we understand. What discussions is he having about specific funding for wider abortion services, and is he considering a legal duty to provide?
Mr Walker
I think that we all recognise the importance of this issue. I understand that sexual and reproductive health clinics are providing some services consistent with the regulations. I am pleased that an interim solution has been reached on the ground in Northern Ireland so that the health and safety of women and girls can be protected by accessing services locally. We all want the Executive to be able to move forward with formal commissioning of further services, and we will continue to support them in doing that.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
The Minister will be aware that tomorrow marks the commencement of Down’s Syndrome Awareness Month, when we celebrate Down’s syndrome, raise awareness and promote inclusivity within our society. With that in mind, what assessment has he made of the impact of the Government’s decision to allow for termination to birth for diagnosis of Down’s syndrome in Northern Ireland? Does he agree that many people see this as disability discrimination within the womb that would otherwise be illegal outside of the womb?
Mr Walker
Let me first join the hon. Lady in supporting all those living with and supporting people with Down’s syndrome. There is absolutely no intention whatsoever for any form of discrimination. As I repeatedly made clear in the debate on the regulations, they do not list specific conditions but rather ensure that we have complied with what CEDAW—the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women—requires. These are complex decisions. It is only right that women can make individual, informed decisions, following medical assessments, clear provision of information and proper support from medical professionals. That support should be there in cases where they choose to take their pregnancies to term even in cases of severe foetal impairment. We will continue to support the Department of Health and the Executive to deliver on this issue.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
United Kingdom Internal Market Bill
Robin Walker Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
Thank you, Mr Evans. I am pleased to be opening this detailed consideration of part 5 of the Bill, which deals with matters relating to the Northern Ireland Protocol. I welcome this opportunity to discuss these provisions and the important issues they raise in depth today. Before I turn to the specific clauses and amendments in this group, let me begin by making it clear that the Northern Ireland protocol to the withdrawal agreement is designed to recognise and protect the needs and unique circumstances of Northern Ireland. Central to that is ensuring that the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, its successor agreements, and the gains of the peace process are protected. But, above all, we must ensure that the delicate balance between all communities in Northern Ireland is maintained and that the UK Government pursue policies for sustained growth and stability in Northern Ireland. Those have always been and will remain this Government’s priorities.
Through this Bill, we are acting to uphold those priorities and deliver the commitments we made in our election manifesto that we would provide unfettered access between Northern Ireland and Great Britain and
“maintain and strengthen the integrity and smooth operation of our internal market.”
The protocol also explicitly depends on the consent of the people of Northern Ireland for its continued existence. As we implement the protocol, that must be kept in mind. Those commitments are, of course, entirely in accord with the protocol itself, which makes it clear that, among other things, Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom’s customs territory, that nothing in the protocol prevents unfettered access from Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK market, and that in its application the protocol should impact as little as possible on the everyday life of communities in both Ireland and Northern Ireland.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that if the European Union kept its promise in the political declaration of a free trade agreement, many of the troublesome issues would drop away and all would work smoothly?
Mr Walker
My right hon. Friend is of course right about that, and we still hope to strike a free trade agreement with the EU. I also point out that these issues can and should be resolved through the Joint Committee—I will come back to that.
Both the UK and the EU signed up to the protocol on the basis I just outlined. We are committed to implementing the protocol and we have been working hard to ensure that it is done in a way that delivers the promises that have been made. That includes working with the EU to reach agreement through the Joint Committee process in a number of areas that the protocol left unresolved, and we very much hope that agreement can be reached shortly. But if it is not, the harmful legal defaults contained in some interpretations of the protocol, which were never intended to be used, would be activated. The consequences for Northern Ireland in that scenario would be very damaging. We cannot and will not run that risk.
The provisions we are considering today will therefore ensure that in any scenario, we will protect Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom; ensure that businesses based in Northern Ireland have unfettered access to the rest of the United Kingdom; and ensure that there is no legal confusion or ambiguity in UK law about the interpretation of the state aid elements of the Northern Ireland protocol.
Mr Walker
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment, because I do intend to refer to some of his comments in my speech, and I will happily take his intervention shortly.
Further measures will be set out in the Finance Bill. These will have the same effect as those already proposed in the UKIM Bill, and will make it clear that no tariffs will be payable on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland unless those goods are destined for the EU market, or there is a genuine and substantial risk of them ending up there. We will take the necessary powers in the Finance Bill to ensure that this is defined in a reasonable and proportionate way, which ensures that legitimate traders are not penalised, while also resolving the outstanding issues relating to the payment of VAT and excise duty. So we are taking limited and reasonable steps through the legislation to create a legal safety net by taking powers in reserve, whereby Ministers can guarantee the integrity of our United Kingdom and ensure that the Government are always able to deliver on their commitments to the people of Northern Ireland in line with the three-stranded approach of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I declare an interest as a member of the Ulster Farmers Union, which has contacted me, and it says:
“there will be a total amount under the NI protocol that will be a maximum we can give to agriculture in the form of support and there will be a certain percentage that we could give as coupled support.”
It clearly sees that less state aid will be available for Northern Ireland and we will be treated differently from Scotland, Wales and the rest of England. Does the Minister of State agree with that?
Mr Walker
I will come in detail to the amendment tabled by the hon. Gentleman’s party later in my speech, but I do recognise that when it comes to state aid, we have made specific agreements under the protocol on goods traded between Northern Ireland and the EU, and we should stick to those in order to ensure the effective functioning of trade north, south, east and west. We are taking steps in the Bill to clarify the state aid elements, and some of those will be to the benefit of businesses in Northern Ireland. I will come back to that point in more detail.
Mr Walker
If I may, I will come to the right hon. Gentleman’s point very shortly, and then I will happily give way to him.
We would not take these steps lightly. We hope it will never be necessary to use these powers, and we would do so only if, in our view, the EU was engaged in a material breach of its duties of good faith or other obligations. We would, of course, always activate appropriate formal dispute resolution mechanisms with the aim of finding a solution through this route in parallel to any domestic legislation. I draw the Committee’s attention to the statement that the Government made on 17 September .
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
Can I ask my hon. Friend to go just a little further than he has just gone? He has explained already that the Government may end up in a position where entirely outrageous behaviour on the part of the EU might lead to a conclusion that no Government could possibly accept. Can I ask him to confirm that in those circumstances the Government would explore to the fullest all the options available to them within the withdrawal agreement before resorting to any breach of international law outside the withdrawal agreement—accepting, of course, that there would come a time when if the Government did not act unilaterally it would then be too late to do so?
Mr Walker
I absolutely hear what my right hon. and learned Friend has said, and I draw his attention to the words of the Prime Minister, who said that we would simultaneously pursue every possible redress under international law, including those provided by the protocol. In those circumstances, in addition to our steps under domestic law, we would—if we had to—make it clear that we believed that the EU was engaged in a material breach of its duties in good faith as required and provided for under the withdrawal agreement and the Vienna convention on the law of treaties.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
This is a very important issue. If it is the case that, before the Government introduced the measures contained in this Bill, or those the Minister has promised will be contained in the Finance Bill, he would first pursue the avenues that are open through the withdrawal agreement—the Joint Committee, adjudication and finally the European Court of Justice—does he not recognise that that process itself could be so elongated that the economic damage done by the requirements of the EU could be very severe in Northern Ireland?
Mr Walker
The right hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point. That is why we are taking the powers in this Bill, and we would seek the consent of the House before those powers were exercised—it is to ensure that there is a legal default different from the one that he suggests. It is about taking these steps in parallel.
I want to recognise the significant concerns that many Members have raised, which is why we have agreed that a “break glass” provision should be included, requiring the House of Commons to give its approval before these measures are commenced. I will return to the detail of that shortly, but the Committee should be in no doubt that this Government will always seek to ensure that the Belfast/Good Friday agreement is protected and that the political and economic integrity of our United Kingdom is maintained. That is what the Government amendments in this group seek to achieve.
Clauses 11, 40 and 41 of the Bill give effect to the Government’s commitment to give unfettered access to Northern Ireland goods to the whole UK internal market, in line with the protocol. They will ensure that we protect the vast majority of the £8.1 billion of goods sales from Northern Ireland to Great Britain and guarantee Northern Ireland’s place in the UK’s internal market. That will provide vital legal certainty for businesses in Northern Ireland, whose largest market is the rest of the United Kingdom—56% of Northern Ireland’s goods trade is with Great Britain—and deliver on a promise that has been repeatedly made throughout the process of our exit from the European Union.
Clause 11 sets out that qualifying Northern Ireland goods will benefit from mutual recognition and are not discriminated against. It ensures that the mutual recognition principle will apply to all such goods that will also benefit from unfettered access under clause 40. Clause 40 ensures that, in implementing the protocol, authorities must have special regard to the fundamental need to maintain Northern Ireland’s integral place in the UK’s internal market and customs territory and to facilitate the free flow of goods between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. That, of course, applies to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in both directions.
Clause 41 ensures that there will be no new checks, controls or administrative processes on goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. This clause is in keeping with what the Government have constantly said, including in our manifesto, and in line with our commitments to businesses in the “New Decade, New Approach” agreement.
Clauses 42, 43 and 45 set out the safety net that I have described. Clause 42 ensures that full unfettered access is guaranteed in any scenario by providing a power to disapply or modify the requirement for export declarations or other exit procedures when goods move from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. As the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) rightly said on Second Reading, there is no real justification for such declarations being needed to protect the EU’s single market or customs union. It is a wholly reasonable suggestion from the UK that this issue can and should be resolved through the Joint Committee, but if it is not—and this is perhaps where he and I disagree—there needs to be a safety net in place.
Hilary Benn
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way on that point. I want to press him on the safeguard measures that are provided in article 16 of the protocol and the extent to which they enable the Government to take action if they think the EU is being unreasonable. There is a one-month waiting period, but after that, the Government are able to take safeguard measures. Annex 7(5) goes on to say:
“The safeguard measures taken shall be the subject of consultations in the Joint Committee every 3 months”.
Could he clarify what would cause those safeguard measures to come to an end? Would it be a decision of the arbitration mechanism that the Government lost? Could it then go to the European Court of Justice? In other words, could he explain why what the Government negotiated to protect the country from bad faith action by the EU is insufficient? We have not had an answer to that question.
Mr Walker
We are talking about the question of legal default. The UK Government are responsible for their implementation of the protocol, and we want to ensure that we have the necessary powers in UK law to avoid those legal defaults. As I have said, we would initiate all necessary proceedings in international law, including those under the protocol, if necessary, at that stage. It is not a stage that any of us want to get to, and we still hope to resolve these issues through the Joint Committee.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
There is a way of reconciling the points made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) and the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). Under the amendment that the Government have tabled, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) paved the way for, is it not the case that Ministers would have to come to this House and make a case that it found compelling before they could use these powers? As the Bill was formerly drafted—this is why so many of us had concerns about it—Ministers could have made those resolutions under the affirmative procedure, and the powers would have come into force before any of us had a say. Under the amended Bill, Ministers would have to come to the House in advance, make the case and win not only the argument but the support of this House. That should reassure us all that these powers will only be used when absolutely necessary.
Mr Walker
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was going to come in more detail to the amendment tabled by our hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, and the Government’s amendment in response, but my right hon. Friend is absolutely right in what he says, and that should provide significant reassurance to Members across the House.
Mr Walker
I will make a little progress.
Clause 42 is in keeping with what the Government have constantly said, including public commitments from the Prime Minister, our manifesto commitments and commitments to the people of Northern Ireland. It is clear from the protocol that it is for the UK to implement unfettered access. Declarations of the sort that would be disapplied through this clause would be contrary to the recognition in the protocol that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom.
Clauses 43 and 44 provide a similar safety net in the case of EU state aid rules that will apply in the UK by virtue of the protocol. Clause 43 gives the Secretary of State the ability to ensure there is no ambiguity in UK law about the interpretation of article 10 of the protocol, which provides that EU state aid rules will apply in respect of goods and electricity traded between Northern Ireland and the EU. A clear interpretation of how they will apply may be needed in the interests of legal certainty for both public authorities granting subsidies and companies throughout the UK receiving support. There is a risk that a maximalist interpretation of article 10 of protocol by the EU, which was never intended but is none the less a risk we must protect against, could give the European Commission extensive jurisdiction over subsidies granted in the rest of the UK, known as reach-back. All the subsidies granted to the services sector in Northern Ireland could be caught even if there is no link, or only a trivial one, to a goods provider.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Absolute clarity and certainty is required on this state aid issue. For example, will traders in Northern Ireland be able to benefit from subsidy paid by the EU, will they be able to benefit only from subsidy paid by the UK, or will they be able to benefit from both? If it is both, that would certainly address the issue of the best of both worlds, but I think it is an absolute nonsense, because it will not be allowed to happen. Can the Minister clear up that matter immediately? Will the European Union, or our predatory neighbour to the south of Ireland, be able to stop Northern Ireland benefiting from free ports that could be given to Northern Ireland? Would they be able to block that? Clarity on those issues is absolutely essential.
Mr Walker
The hon. Gentleman raises some important points. It is for the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to use the powers in the Bill to take further steps in setting out the UK’s state aid policy. As the hon. Gentleman will recognise, the UK also has a policy on free ports, which we absolutely want Northern Ireland to be part of, so perhaps that is for future debates.
Let me be clear: the Government’s position is that EU state aid rules will apply in Northern Ireland as long as the protocol is in place in respect of goods and electricity, as agreed, but we have to give businesses the certainty that they will not face the destabilising prospect of the European Commission applying its state aid rules to companies in Great Britain with no link, or only a trivial link, to Northern Ireland. The power in the Bill allows the Business Secretary to make provision for how article 10 is to be interpreted for domestic purposes.
Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)
My hon. Friend has been setting out throughout his speech that the Government want clauses 41 to 45 because of the bad consequences that could come from an interpretation of the withdrawal agreement. If the potential consequences of the withdrawal agreement were so bad, why did the Government sign it?
Mr Walker
As my right hon. Friend knows well, the withdrawal agreement was negotiated by the UK and the EU and agreed with a view that certain elements would be resolved by the Joint Committee. I think there was a reasonable expectation on both sides that the Joint Committee would have made more progress on those issues, but unfortunately we have heard some harmful interpretations over the past few months. The point of these Government clauses is to ensure that we can rule those out and put in place the appropriate legal default.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
Surely the Government’s approach is self-defeating in the following respect? Ministers rightly outline that a range of issues are still to be resolved through the Joint Committee. For that, we need to prove to the European Union that the UK can be trusted if various derogations are granted to the UK, but if we pass legislation that still contains even the merest threat of breaching the existing agreement, why would the EU be flexible and give us that trust as we will not have shown the ability to follow through with other previous agreements?
Mr Walker
I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that we have consistently followed through with our agreement. We have done that with the delivery of protocol requirements when it comes to the legislation for the dedicated mechanism and to citizens’ rights, and we will do so regarding EU state aid rules applying in Northern Ireland in respect of goods and electricity as agreed.
Mr Walker
I will make a bit of progress and take an intervention from my hon. Friend later.
Clause 44 establishes a statutory requirement that no one besides the Secretary of State may notify the European Commission of state aid where the UK is required to do so as a consequence of article 10. That codifies in legislation the existing practice where aid is notified by the Foreign Secretary via the UK mission in Brussels and will ensure that a uniform approach to the state aid elements of the protocol is taken across the UK.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The objection seems to be that we may have to act in this way, but we do not want to break international law. Has my hon. Friend noted my amendment 45, which shows a way through? Under the Vienna convention, which is already mentioned through the conditional interpretative declaration, if another party is acting in bad faith, we can use the declaration to escape from an impossible situation. Will the Minister at least look at that amendment?
Mr Walker
I will look at my hon. Friend’s amendment. I will come to amendments shortly—I realise that I need to make some more progress in addressing the many amendments we face. We do not consider necessarily that a unilateral interpretative declaration would be required, although as I said, we will use all the tools at our disposal to resolve the issue within the terms of the protocol before using the powers in the Bill. If that is one that we considered would help, we would not hesitate to use it, but we do not see the need for the amendment in that respect.
For the avoidance of doubt, let me confirm again that we are of course committed to implementing the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol, and have already taken many practical steps to do that. However, as a responsible Government, we cannot allow the gains of the peace process or the economic integrity of the UK’s internal market to be compromised inadvertently by unintended consequences and harmful legal defaults suggested by some interpretations of the protocol.
Finally, clause 50 disapplies certain provisions of the UK Internal Market Bill in the scenario that Northern Ireland’s representatives resolve, under the protocol’s consent mechanism, that articles 5 to 10 of the protocol should cease to apply. This is a practical step to account for and respect the principle of consent enshrined in the protocol. The protocol itself is not codified as a permanent solution for Northern Ireland, and neither should it be in the domestic legislation that implements it. Taken together, these clauses deliver on our commitments to Northern Ireland.
I want to address the amendments as briefly as I can, so I will have to be limited in the number of interventions I will take.
Alan Brown
I thank the Minister for giving way. If we go back to the legal defaults that he says were never envisaged to be enacted, will he explain why plenty of people in the House pointed out that these were the very scenarios that could come about because the agreement was signed? Will he also explain why the EU is acting in bad faith by upholding an agreement that the Prime Minister himself said was a fantastic deal for Northern Ireland? Finally, can he explain what happened to this magical technological solution that the Government said they were working on that would prevent all this?
Mr Walker
I take no lectures from the SNP on this issue. It is clear that the reason why the SNP opposes the withdrawal agreement is that it opposed our leaving the EU in the first place. With regard to the development of technological solutions, I agreed with Michel Barnier when he said that it is important that both sides look at innovative and flexible solutions. When it comes to the future debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly on consent, it may be that technological progress can help with delivery, so I think that many of these arguments stand. We are committed to the protocol and to all our commitments to Northern Ireland, including the unfettered access as part of our United Kingdom.
I turn to two amendments regarding the commencement of these provisions that have been subject to much debate and attention, including a number of powerful and persuasive speeches on Second Reading. Amendment 4, which is in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, the Chair of the Justice Committee, and is signed by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, seeks to provide in essence that break-glass mechanism on the key safety net provisions in relation to the protocol by stating that clauses 42, 43 and 45 of the Bill may not come into force until a motion in this House is passed. Since that amendment was tabled, I am pleased that there have been constructive talks between my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and Ministers, and the Government have tabled amendment 66, which provides for substantially the same break-glass mechanism, with the additional requirement for a take-note debate in the other place. I hope that that amendment will demonstrate to hon. Members, including the Chair of the Justice Committee, that we are committed to ensuring that any decision to use the powers is explicitly approved by Parliament.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for the constructive tone that he and members of the Government have adopted in these matters. It enables some of us who otherwise would not have been able to support these clauses to proceed, on the understanding that there is a specific parliamentary lock that bad faith on the counter-party’s side must be proven to the House before these powers are brought into operation, which of course all of us hope will never be the case. I welcome that, and it enables us to support the Government’s amendment.
Mr Walker
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. A fundamental principle of our constitution, and one that lies at the very heart of our exit from the EU, is that this Parliament is sovereign. As set out in clause 38 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, that means that it can choose to legislate to deliver an interpretation of the protocol consistent with our understanding, while recognising that to do so is a significant step. The parliamentary procedure set out in amendment 66 recognises that, and provides a clearer, more explicit democratic mandate for the use of the powers. I therefore commend amendment 66 to the Committee, and urge my hon. Friend and all Members to support it and not to press amendment 4.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Will the Minister give way?
Mr Walker
Not right now—I will come back to the right hon. Gentleman.
Amendments 64 and 65, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary, make it clear that any regulations made under clauses 42 or 43 would, of course, be subject to judicial review, contrary to some of the claims that have been made over recent weeks, while ensuring that any claims must be brought within a three-month period. That ensures that any challenge to the regulations will be subject to a timely resolution before the courts, which is essential to ensure that Northern Ireland businesses and investors in Northern Ireland have the certainty that they need, which is at the heart of the Bill. I commend those amendments to the House. As they clarify the position on judicial review, amendment 44 is not necessary.
Amendments 61 to 63, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary, are targeted technical amendments to ensure that the Government are able to maintain the integrity of the UK’s VAT and excise systems and can deal with any threats to biosecurity in Great Britain in response to changes required in Northern Ireland under the protocol.
In particular, the amendments ensure that the Government can act to address cases of double taxation and non-taxation created by the Northern Ireland protocol, as well as to close down opportunities for tax evasion.
The amendments will also ensure that both the UK Government and the devolved Administrations can continue, as they do now, to respond to specific biosecurity threats arising from the movement of animals and high-risk plants. The principle of facilitating actions to protect biosecurity on an ongoing basis between England, Scotland and Wales is already reflected in schedule 1 to the Bill. The amendments simply clarify that similar processes can also apply with regard to Northern Ireland where there is a genuine risk of a biosecurity threat that poses a serious threat to the health of humans, animals or plants.
I commend those amendments to the Committee.
Mr Carmichael
May I take the Minister back to the undertaking that he gave to his hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill)? Some of us have some misgivings about that undertaking, because this Government have shown an exceptional fondness for withdrawing the Whip from those in their own party who disagree with them. In the circumstances of the parliamentary lock being necessary, can we get an assurance from the Treasury Bench at some point in this debate that any such vote will be a free vote?
Mr Walker
I will perhaps give way on a point of substance later, but not on that point.
Amendment 41 seeks, among other things, to add a paramount duty to clause 40, requiring authorities to act without prejudice to international and domestic law. Amendment 53 similarly seeks to prevent authorities from exercising functions in a way that is incompatible or inconsistent with relevant domestic or international law. Amendment 52 appears to require the Government to follow the process agreed in the withdrawal agreement as the only mechanism for dispute resolution. Amendments 54 and 55 seek to prevent regulations made under clause 42 from having effect, notwithstanding international and domestic law. Amendment 46 would remove the Northern Ireland protocol from the list of international law that may be set aside, undermining the intent of clauses 42 and 43.
Amendments 57 and 59 would prevent regulations under clause 43 from interpreting, disapplying or modifying the effect of article 10 of the protocol. Clause 43 is a necessary provision that will ensure that the Secretary of State’s interpretation will achieve the correct effect in domestic law.
I repeat that the Government are committed to implementing the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol; however, as a responsible Government we cannot accept any amendments that would undermine the provisions in the Bill and render them no kind of safety net at all, thereby risking the compromising of the UK internal market’s economic integrity by unintended consequences or harmful defaults contained in some interpretations of the protocol, or creating confusion or uncertainty about the position in domestic law. I therefore urge right hon. and hon. Members to withdraw the amendments.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
The Minister invites us to withdraw the amendments. This is the second occasion in the past week on which a Minister has stood at the Dispatch Box and held up an olive branch of potential amendments or provisions that will be brought forth in the Finance Bill. We have not seen the text of those potential provisions and we do not know their content. I invite the Minister to go a little further and explain why we should withdraw the amendment at this time, given the verbal assurances he has offered.
Mr Walker
I absolutely hear the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. I have made the point about what we have said in the Command Paper and what the Prime Minister has referred to in respect of the Finance Bill.
Amendment 69 seeks to ensure that there would be no new costs for a Northern Ireland business to access or sell in the market. The UK Government have already committed in legislation to delivering unfettered access for Northern Ireland businesses, including through the Bill, which will apply the principles of mutual recognition and non-discrimination to qualifying Northern Ireland goods, thereby ensuring that they can continue to be sold in the Great Britain market in the same way as now. The amendment is therefore unnecessary.
Amendment 70 seeks to ensure that goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain through Ireland will benefit from unfettered access. I reassure Members that we recognise the importance of trade from Northern Ireland to Great Britain that moves via Dublin to Holyhead. We are currently engaging with businesses and the Northern Ireland Executive on the long-term means for delivering qualifying status for unfettered access. It would be wrong to pre-empt the outcome of that consultation, so the Government cannot accept the amendment.
On amendment 71, the Government have been working and will continue to work closely with the Northern Ireland Executive on the implementation of the protocol, including on unfettered access, but we do not agree that a restriction on the Government’s powers to make regulations effectively would be justified.
We resist amendment 72 on the basis that it is legally unnecessary. The current wording already encompasses distortions of competition between persons supplying goods or services in the course of a business within the UK internal market. Such wording is already sufficient to cover the regulation of subsidies that would have the effect of making Northern Ireland businesses less competitive in the Great Britain market.
Although the Government agree with the spirit of amendment 78, the whole Government are acutely aware of the need to maintain Northern Ireland’s integral place in the UK internal market, which is already referenced many times elsewhere in the Bill, so we do not believe the amendment is necessary.
On amendment 79, I understand Members’ concerns and support mutual recognition and the non-discrimination principle, but the exception to mutual recognition that we have introduced for chemicals is there to allow the relevant authorities to respond to local factors. Authorisations granted by the EU after the end of the transition period will not take local conditions into consideration. I emphasise that the authorisations relate to the use of substances of very high concern. It is important that the Government and devolved Administrations can take local factors into account when they decide how to protect human health or the environment from the significant risks posed by such chemicals. I therefore urge Members to withdraw or vote against the amendment.
On new clause 7 and amendment 45, I want to reassure Members that the Bill includes provisions that are there precisely to protect the essential basis of the peace process, by ensuring that, regardless of whether further agreement is reached in the negotiations, there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, and that Northern Ireland businesses will continue to benefit from unfettered access to the rest of the UK market when the transition period ends.
I can also reassure hon. Members that our commitment to protecting the Belfast/ Good Friday agreement of course includes protecting north-south co-operation in areas specified under that agreement, and the protocol is clear on that. That commitment is already enshrined in UK legislation: in section 10 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, and through our continued support for this strand of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement throughout the process of exiting the European Union.
Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)
Can the Minister explain how people in Northern Ireland can have any confidence that this Government, who said only the week before last that they would break international law, will not break or undermine the Good Friday agreement, which of course is an international treaty?
Mr Walker
As I have said repeatedly, we are absolutely committed to the Good Friday agreement, and I can give the hon. Gentleman an illustration of that in UK law on the very next clause. I can assure him that amendment 48 is simply unnecessary. The protocol guarantees that there will be no hard border on the island of Ireland under any circumstances. We are fully committed to delivering on that and no power in the Bill makes any change to that. We have already included in law our commitment not to
“create or facilitate border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after exit day which feature physical infrastructure, including border posts, or checks and controls, that did not exist before exit day and are not in accordance with an agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU.”
That is set out in section 10(2)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, which I was pleased to take through the House. For those reasons, the hon. Gentleman’s amendments are unnecessary and I urge him not to press them.
On amendments 43 and 47, I can offer hon. Members an assurance that the recognition and protection of rights are fundamental values of the UK. Our human rights framework offers comprehensive, well-established and effective protections within a clear constitutional and legal system. The Bill is compatible with the European convention on human rights, and the Minister who presented the Bill has given a certificate of compatibility, pursuant to section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998, in the usual way. We remain committed to the ECHR, as we have made clear time and again.
Further on amendment 47, the Government do not envisage any circumstances in which the powers set out in clauses 42 and 43 could be used to amend the Northern Ireland Acts of 1998 and 2006. That renders the amendment unnecessary. For this reason, the Government are not willing to accept the amendment. I hope that hon. Members will be reassured by our commitment on this very serious matter and will not press them.
New clause 6 would require the Government to
“use their best endeavours to seek through the Joint Committee…the disapplication of export declarations and other exit procedures”.
I appreciate the thought and sentiment behind the new clause, but I am happy to say that there is no need for it because, as I have already set out, the Government are committed to implementing the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol. We are continuing to work with the EU in the Joint Committee to resolve outstanding issues with the protocol, including export declarations. Although well intentioned, the new clause is unnecessary and I urge hon. Members to reject it.
I will now turn to the other amendments on our safety net clauses pertaining to subsidy control. Now that we have left the EU, we have the opportunity to design our own subsidy control regime in a way that works for the UK economy. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy set out the Government’s plans in this regard in a written statement to the House on 9 September. Clauses 43 and 44 seek to mitigate the risks that stem from the European Commission imposing a broad interpretation of article 10. Ministers will still have respect for the rule of law and human rights when making regulations using these provisions, which is why amendment 56 is unnecessary. I remind the Committee that the purpose of the provisions in clause 43 is to strengthen our legal safety net and ensure that it is the Government’s interpretation of article 10 that UK public authorities must follow. That is why we must reject amendment 58.
Amendment 60 would amend clause 44 by limiting the scope of the Secretary of State’s interpretation of article 10 when notifying possible state aid to the European Commission. Given the complex and novel nature of the application of EU state aid law through the Northern Ireland protocol, it is the Secretary of State who is best placed to interpret and then make any possible state aid notification to the European Commission. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to ignore the safety net that the Government have proposed when making such a notification.
I will deal briefly with amendments 31 and 32. I recognise the spirit of the amendments, but I have to say that they are simply not necessary. An assessment of the legal implications of the clauses has already been provided in the Government’s statements of 10 and 17 September. Nor is there any need to make regulations defining “incompatible” or “inconsistent”, because these are self-explanatory terms. There can be no serious doubt what they mean and no further definition is required. The true intention of the amendments may be to seek to provide another point for parliamentary debate. If that is the case, I trust that the hon. Members who have tabled them will support Government amendment 66. On that basis, I urge them not to press the amendments.
Joanna Cherry
I respectfully remind the Minister that the SNP has 48 Members in the House, not just one MP. I am grateful to him for giving way, because he has dealt with amendment 43, which I tabled, but not with amendment 44. Does he understand that insofar as clause 45 seeks to oust the inherent supervisory jurisdiction of the Court of Session, it not only interferes in devolved matters but it is in breach of article 19 of the treaty of Union between Scotland and England? I know that he does not have a Scottish Law Officer to advise him, but can he take that on board and address it now?
Mr Walker
I am happy to look into the specific issue that hon. and learned Lady raises, but if she looks at the text in Hansard she will see that I addressed the point that she made about amendment 44. I mentioned a Government amendment that had been introduced on separate issues, but I am certainly happy to take that point away for consideration.
In conclusion, the clauses are a necessary protection to deliver our promises on unfettered access and to deliver what the protocol acknowledges on Northern Ireland’s place in the internal market and customs territory of the United Kingdom, and to respect the principle of parliamentary sovereignty.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I rise to speak to amendments 52 to 60, which I tabled with my hon. and right hon. Friends. Together, these amendments seek to provide a solution to the mess that the Government have got themselves into by removing the provisions in the Bill that put our country in conflict with international law. We do so, because we want to maintain our reputation as a country that respects the rule of law; because we want to see a successful internal market for the whole UK when we leave the transitional arrangements on 31 December; and because we want the Prime Minister to deliver the “oven-ready” deal with the EU that he promised the British people last December—a deal that pledged tariff and barrier-free trade for services as well as goods, along with safeguarding workers’ rights, consumer and environmental protection, and which offered a broad, comprehensive and balanced security partnership underpinned by continued adherence and giving effect to the European convention on human rights.
The Bill makes that less likely. Our talks with the European Union have been damaged, our reputation in the world appears trashed, and it is a mess that was completely unnecessary and is not resolved by the amendment tabled by the Government. This so-called compromise may calm some Government Members, but it does not resolve the issue: the breach of international law that has led to the resignations of the head of the Government legal service, Jonathan Jones, and of the Advocate General, Lord Keen, who said in his letter to the Prime Minister that he could not reconcile his obligations as a Law Officer with the Bill, as he could find no
“respectable argument for the provisions at clauses 42 to 45”.
In an interview on Radio 4 last week, the Lord Chancellor was uneasy in his defence of the Bill, as he might well be, having sworn an oath when taking office to
“respect the rule of law”.
The situation could not be more serious, and we accept that the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), which has been seized on by the Government, was introduced with good intention, arising from real, genuine concern among many Government Members, but it does not solve the problem.
In providing for a vote subsequently, the Government have offered a sticking plaster to salve consciences, but we would still be acting in contravention of international law—not when we enact the Bill’s provisions, but when it goes on to the statute book. The Government amendment does not change that fact. Let us look at the withdrawal agreement—as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) did in her intervention—which was negotiated by the Prime Minister, signed by him and commended to the electorate as the reason to vote for the Conservative party in December’s election. Now, apparently, it is so flawed that we have been asked to break the law.
I saw the argument advanced by the Attorney General that it is okay to breach international law if the decision is taken constitutionally. That clearly flies in the face of the Vienna convention, to which we are a signatory. Article 27 makes that clear:
“A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.”
Antony Higginbotham
I will not, because I am short on time. The clauses we are talking about today do exactly what we said in the manifesto. Clause 40 deals with Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market. Clause 41 deals with unfettered access. Those should be uncontroversial clauses and they should be uncontroversial because they are explicitly referenced in the protocol itself, which states that
“nothing in this Protocol prevents the United Kingdom from ensuring unfettered market access for goods moving from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom’s internal market”.
As we have heard today, the protocol goes on to set out in high-level terms how we avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, something that I am as committed to today as I was the day I voted for Brexit. We heard eloquently from my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) why that is so important. The protocol also sets out that it is for the Joint Committee to reach agreement on some of the specifics. It delegates decision making to that committee to finesse the detail and act in a way that is consistent with the protocol. The protocol requires both sides to negotiate in good faith, protect the Good Friday agreement and reach a free trade deal, because ultimately that free trade deal is what will prevent a hard border. That is what we are striving for, and that is what the clauses help to do.
However, given the short time before the end of the transition and that no free trade agreement has yet been agreed, we have to give thought to what happens if the EU takes an approach that is not in good faith. What if it takes a maximalist approach to what goods are considered high risk or a maximalist approach to what would constitute state aid that impacts the European Union? The outcome of that decision would not only be a major impediment to Great Britain and Northern Irish trade, but would threaten our own integrity and the Good Friday agreement. Are some seriously suggesting that in that scenario there should not be a means for the UK to respond? Are they suggesting we should look at such a situation, shrug our shoulders and say international law means we must surrender parts of our country?
I heard the concerns from Members on both sides of the Committee about international law, but let us be clear on what we are not doing. I do not think that the language has been helpful. We have heard references to rogue states, to the Novichok poisoning on UK streets and to Hong Kong citizens, but we are not breaking international criminal law. We are not breaking an international treaty on global security. We are not breaking a free trade agreement. We are saying that, having signed up to an agreement to fulfil a democratic mandate to the people of this country, which one side appears to be using to undermine our constitutional integrity, we will stand resolutely as one country in pushing back.
We have values as a country, and yes, those include standing up for an international rules-based system, the rule of law and democratic sovereignty, but when conflict arises, which it can do from time to time, Parliament remains sovereign, and this Parliament will act in the interests of our Union. That position was reaffirmed in our own EU withdrawal Act, which recognised the sovereignty of Parliament. If this Parliament is sovereign, we must act for the constitutional integrity of our country, and for that reason, I will be supporting this Bill.
Mr Robin Walker
We have heard passionate speeches from both sides of the debate and from a range of colleagues across the political spectrum in Northern Ireland and across the UK. I will not be able to take interventions because of the short time available.
In response to the specific question from the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), although I will not go into the detail of Joint Committee discussions, I can confirm that we certainly have raised the issue of state aid. We, of course, want to see that resolved through the Joint Committee, as we have repeatedly set out.
I recognise the significant concerns raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) and others across the Committee, which is why we have agreed that the break-glass provision should be included in the Bill, requiring the House of Commons to give its approval before these measures are commenced. My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) asked an important question, and we will, of course, ensure that the House has the opportunity to debate matters in full before voting on commencement of these provisions.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) has made clear, if we reach that point, the Government will have to make a persuasive case to the House. We published a statement last week saying that we will ask Parliament to support the use of provisions in the Bill only in the case of the EU being engaged in a material breach of its duties of good faith and thereby undermining the fundamental purpose of the Northern Ireland protocol.
As I set out earlier, let me reassure Members that the Government are absolutely committed to implementing the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol, meeting our obligations to secure the peace process. We continue to work with the EU in the Joint Committee to resolve outstanding issues with the Northern Ireland protocol, as the Prime Minister has set out. However, as a responsible Government, we cannot allow the economic integrity of the UK’s internal market to be inadvertently compromised by unintended consequences of the protocol. The protocol was designed as a way of implementing the needs of our exit from the EU in a way that worked for Northern Ireland, and in particular for maintaining the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, the gains of the peace process and the delicate balance that that reflects between both communities’ interests. It explicitly depends on the consent of the people of Northern Ireland for its continued existence.
We are taking limited and reasonable steps to create a legal safety net by taking powers in reserve, whereby Ministers can guarantee the integrity of our United Kingdom and ensure that the Government are always able to deliver on their commitments to the people of Northern Ireland. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) said in an excellent speech, one of those commitments is to the sustained economic growth of Northern Ireland.
These limited steps deliver on the commitments that the Government made in their general election manifesto—the manifesto on which every Government Member was returned. They deliver on the commitments made in the Command Paper published in May, and they deliver on the promises made by this Government and our predecessor to provide unfettered access between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. I therefore urge Members to vote against all amendments, other than those brought forward by the Government, to ensure the peace and prosperity of Northern Ireland and our whole United Kingdom.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 11 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 40
Northern Ireland's place in the UK internal market and customs territory
Amendment proposed: 41, page 31, line 16, at end insert—
‘(1A) When exercising any functions covered by this Part, any appropriate authority has a paramount duty—
(a) to act without prejudice to all international and domestic law, including the Withdrawal Agreement;
(b) to address the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland;
(c) to maintain the necessary conditions for continued North-South cooperation;
(d) to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland;
(e) to protect the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement in all its dimensions.” —(Stephen Farry.)
This amendment is intended to provide a safeguard so that any actions with respect to Part 5 of the Bill must be consistent with relevant existing international and domestic law commitments, including the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement and its Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol.
Oral Answers to Questions
Robin Walker Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
The UK Government will never be neutral in expressing our unequivocal support for the Union. We are committed to strengthening the link between our four great nations, levelling up the whole country. That is why the Prime Minister has created a Cabinet coimittee on Union policy implementation. Our commitment to Northern Ireland is demonstrated in the £2.2 billion we have provided to help fight coronavirus, including an extra £300 million announced at the summer economic update.
Elliot Colburn
May I begin by welcoming today’s news on same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland? Carshalton and Wallington residents have noticed that next year will be the centenary of the creation of Northern Ireland, so what plans does the Northern Ireland Office have to commemorate the United Kingdom as we know it today?
Mr Walker
I agree with my hon. Friend on both points. This centenary represents a significant national anniversary. In the new decade, new approach deal, the Government recognised that the centenary provided an opportunity to reflect on the past as well as to build for the future in Northern Ireland across the UK and internationally. We are committed to facilitating national recognition and international awareness of the centenary. On his recent visit to Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister announced the establishment of a centenary forum and a centenary historical advisory panel. This approach will offer us the opportunity to work with a broad spectrum of people to deliver an ambitious and exciting programme of events to mark this important national anniversary. Further details about the centenary programme will be set out in the autumn.
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
Self-isolation exemptions have been in place since 5 July for the whole of the United Kingdom for all international cast and crew working on qualifying TV and film productions. We have worked closely with the Northern Ireland Executive and the film and TV industry, which has been a major success in Northern Ireland and represents a significant part of its economy estimated to be worth £270 million a year. This has seen important projects such as “The Northman” and “Line of Duty” restart filming, bringing significant investment to Northern Ireland’s economy.
Joy Morrissey
Does my hon. Friend agree that the quarantine exemption arrangements could be the catalyst for reigniting the Northern Ireland film industry, where 49 locations were used for “Game of Thrones”, including Winterfell. Although the days of House Stark have passed, I hope that the exemption will allow for Northern Ireland to continue to be a beacon for the film industry across the world.
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said, over the summer we introduced the exemptions. We absolutely recognise what a crucial and important sector this is, and the benefits of its success can be seen across Northern Ireland, not least for the tourism industry. Local success stories such as “Game of Thrones” and “Derry Girls” benefit every part of Northern Ireland. Programmes such as “The Fall” have firmly established Northern Ireland as an ideal destination for film and TV projects. The restart of filming in significant projects shows that the industry can continue to achieve global success.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
The Government recognise that this industry is key to Northern Ireland’s economic success, with the sector in Northern Ireland valued at over £1.8 billion. Like many sectors, aerospace has come under immense pressure during the pandemic. That is why we put unprecedented support in place through the job retention scheme and the Bank of England’s covid corporate financing facility. Last week, I met Bombardier at its Shorts site and Stratospheric Platforms to discuss the challenges and opportunities for developing the sector and how the UK Government can support their success.
Stephanie Peacock
Ministers seem to be doing little more than shrugging their shoulders as the UK’s world-leading aerospace sector goes to the wall. When will they step in with sector-specific support?
Mr Walker
The UK Government have made available £2.1 billion to the UK aerospace sector through the covid corporate financing facility and additional flexibility for UK export finance, which is supporting £3.5 billion of sales in the next 18 months. I continue to work closely with my colleague the aerospace Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi). I am determined that we do support businesses in Northern Ireland, as across the UK.
Gavin Robinson
I trust that the Minister’s visit to Bombardier last week was successful. He knows how important aerospace is to the Northern Ireland economy, but he also knows that there is a cliff-edge coming in the job retention scheme and in the support for our aerospace sector in particular. He also knows that should redundancies continue and the situation gets worse, the skills will be lost and they will not come back. The time is coming. Talk is talk. We need to see action. We need to see a bespoke package of support for aerospace in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom.
Mr Walker
I absolutely sympathise with the point the hon. Gentleman is making, and the crucial importance of this sector and its skills to his constituency. The covid-19 outbreak has seen a severe impact on aviation and aerospace industries around the world. The UK Government have provided significant support to the sector, including the business interruption scheme and the job retention scheme. The Chancellor has confirmed that that commitment remains in place until October, but one of the things I discussed with Bombardier on my visit last week is the vital importance of maintaining that skills base. That is a point I will absolutely take to colleagues across government.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
Draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Video Recording with Sound of Interviews and Associated Code of Practice) (Northern Ireland) Order 2020
Robin Walker Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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The Chair
Before we start, I am double checking that everyone is sitting at a designated space. I think everyone is, but I may have to repeat myself if anyone else comes in. I remind Members that they can sit on the Government or Opposition sides. I ask Members to send their speaking notes to hansardnotes@parliament.uk to assist our Hansard reporters.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
I beg to move,
That the Cttee has considered the Draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Video Recording with Sound of Interviews and Associated Code of Practice) (Northern Ireland) Order 2020.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. The order puts into place a revised code of practice governing the recording with sound of interviews of persons detained at a police station in Northern Ireland under section 41 of, or schedule 7 to, the Terrorism Act 2000. A copy of the draft revised code of practice was laid before Parliament on 8 June 2020. The purpose of the code of practice is to provide protection to both the person being interviewed and the officers conducting the interview.
I begin by assuring hon. Members that the revisions will not change in any way the way in which interviews are conducted. The changes are uncontentious, relating mainly to technical matters intended to allow the Police Service of Northern Ireland to begin using digital recording technology in line with the practice commonly adopted in England, Wales and Scotland. The changes to the code of practice will impact how interviews are recorded and how recording is stored.
The code is being changed, first, to allow the Police Service of Northern Ireland to use modern digital recording technology. The current code of practice allows for the use of Super VHS tape, disc or any other format producing a record equal or superior to those. That is clearly outdated. The proposed update allows for recording media or a secure digital network to be used instead. That involves taking an original interview video recording and storing it instead as a digital multimedia file on a secure file server accredited by the national accreditor for police information systems. This revision will bring Northern Ireland into line with the technology used in the rest of the UK. It is worth noting that the Police Service of Northern Ireland already possesses the necessary technology and utilises it for other non-Terrorism Act interviews.
Secondly, the code of practice is being changed to shadow closely the equivalent code of practice for Great Britain. While that means some changes to language and format, the purpose and key content of the code remain the same. It is worth noting that the draft code does not exactly replicate the code in Great Britain, reflecting the devolution of police and justice functions in Northern Ireland and consequent differences of approach adopted in different jurisdictions. I draw hon. Members’ attention to the fact that the code for Great Britain, for example, contains references to post-charge questioning provisions as set out in the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, but the proposed code does not, because the 2008 Act stipulates that before its provisions on post-charge questioning can be commenced, police and criminal evidence codes must be amended to reflect how post-charge questioning should be dealt with and recorded. While the Home Office amended the PACE codes for Great Britain in 2012, that function in Northern Ireland falls to the devolved Department of Justice. To date, that has not been done, so it has not been possible to commence post-charge questioning provisions under TACT.
I reassure hon. Members that the Government ran a 12-week public consultation on proposed changes to the code of practice. We received six responses, all of which were in favour of the revisions. Three respondents suggested other slight amendments to the code, which were duly considered, and most were accepted. The full details of those suggestions were published in our consultation response document. The Police Service of Northern Ireland, in its response to the consultation, suggested the addition of remote monitoring to the code. Remote monitoring is routinely used in the TACT serious crime suite at Musgrave police station, which uses technology to enable the senior investigating officer, interview co-ordinator or any other person with justification to monitor the interview process from another room. As remote monitoring is routinely used in TACT interviews, the PSNI recommended including it in the code of practice.
I hope hon. Members agree that while the revisions are technical, they are important, aligning the code of practice used in Northern Ireland with that used in the rest of the UK. They allow the Police Service of Northern Ireland to use digital recording technology in terrorism interviews and future-proof the code.
Mr Walker
I welcome the hon. Lady to her place and echo her thanks to the PSNI and the Chief Constable for all the work that they have been doing during the recent difficult period and for the feedback that they gave us as part of the consultation for the review. She has raised some important issues. On the security of digital network interview records, there is detail in the code of practice, which I will briefly run through.
Section (g) states that interview record files must be
“stored in read only format on non-removable storage devices, for example, hard disk drives, to ensure their integrity. The recordings are first saved locally to a secure non-removable device before being transferred to the remote network device. If for any reason the network connection fails, the recording remains on the local device and will be transferred when the network connections are restored…Access to interview recordings, including copying to removable media, must be strictly controlled and monitored to ensure that access is restricted to those who have been given specific permission to access for specified purposes when this is necessary. For example, police officers and…lawyers involved in the preparation of any prosecution case, persons interviewed if they have been charged or informed they may be prosecuted and their legal representatives.”
I hope that that provides some reassurance about the handling of the security risk .
On the issue of interpreters being included, the hon. Lady will recognise that that was a recommendation of the NIHRC. The PSNI was closely involved in the drafting and preparation of the measure as well as in responding to consultation. We put the issue of interpreters to it and it had no reservations about accepting it. It is likely that someone who would need help with interpreting the code would also need the help of an interpreter at interview, so no extra resource should be required.
As the hon. Lady said, the statutory instrument is largely technical. It is important for policing in Northern Ireland. She raised issues about legacy, including the oral history archive, which is part of our legacy proposals. As I think she will recognise, we will debate those issues another time, with other statutory instruments. It is right to focus on the purpose of the statutory instrument before the Committee, which relates to evidence taken from the point when it is passed. It is about evidence taken, and the recording of interviews, under the Terrorism Act, going forward from this point. I am glad that we seem all to agree that we should go ahead with that. I commend the order to the Committee and thank the hon. Lady for the constructive approach that she has taken.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Robin Walker Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
Northern Ireland has a rich sporting and cultural heritage and is a great setting for any event, as proven by the success of the Open last year. While any decision to bid to host major events is a matter for the Executive, my officials are in regular contact with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and their devolved counterparts to support UK-wide events.
Ian Paisley
The United Kingdom’s involvement in next season’s world rally championship is currently very uncertain: nine of the 11 rounds have already been chosen and GB is not currently part of that choice. The WRC promoter has previously spoken about the need to rotate Rally GB into Northern Ireland, where most of the competitors wish to participate. Can the Secretary of State save WRC? Will the Secretary of State assist by co-funding the event with the Northern Ireland Executive during our centenary year?
Mr Walker
The hon. Gentleman in a consistent and passionate advocate of hosting a round of the world rally championship in Northern Ireland. We can safely say that if it does come to Northern Ireland, he will have been a driving force. In the “New Decade, New Approach” agreement, the Government have already pledged up to £2 billion to help the Executive to deliver on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland, but I would be very happy to support the Executive to foster closer ties and better collaborative working across sectors of the UK to attract the WRC and a portfolio of other events to Northern Ireland.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
The UK Government have supported Northern Ireland businesses and employees through grants, loans and the job retention scheme. The additional funding available to the Executive as a result of the Government’s coronavirus response amounts to £1.3 billion so far. In addition, the UK Government have provided £2 billion in new investment for Northern Ireland through the “New Decade, New Approach” agreement, to turbocharge infrastructure investment and provide the best possible platform for businesses to grow.
Catherine West
The impact on the economy in Northern Ireland has been severe. What will the Minister do to avoid a double whammy once the 28 weeks have passed in the case of a no-deal Brexit to stop chaos, confusion and potentially violence between parties in Northern Ireland?
Mr Walker
The hon. Lady is right to recognise that there has been a severe impact, and we are determined to work hand in hand with the Executive on the response to that. I was pleased to see them publishing their own plan, and their focus on skills and infrastructure are shared objectives with the UK Government. This certainly needs to be a joint endeavour, to ensure that we support a strong economy and the conditions for safety and security for the people of Northern Ireland.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Northern Ireland is reported to be heading for a prolonged economic downturn. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) said, its aerospace industry is in crisis, with significant job losses at Bombardier and Thompson Aero. The Secretary of State can stop further decline by putting pressure on the Treasury to accelerate defence procurement programmes. Why has he not done that?
Mr Walker
The hon. Lady is right that the covid-19 outbreak has had a severe impact on the aviation and aerospace sectors around the world. The UK Government have already provided significant support to the sector, including through the business interruption loan scheme, the job retention scheme and, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned, £2.1 billion through the covid corporate financing facility, with additional flexibility from UK Export Finance. Of course we will have contact with Ministers at the Ministry of Defence, and we are always happy to work with the sector to promote job opportunities in Northern Ireland.
Alex Cunningham
Virtually every major commercial aircraft programme in the world comes back either in structure, services or parts to Northern Ireland, yet the recent redundancies have been greeted with no more than a shrug of the shoulders from Ministers, who seem to think that general statements are enough. When will the Minister meet the workforce at those plants and put his weight behind a plan to help them survive this crisis?
Mr Walker
UK Government Ministers and officials have been engaging with key stakeholders in Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State has met the key business leaders in this respect to inform our response to covid-19. The lead Department on this, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, has been engaging extensively with the trade unions. Only this morning, I spoke to my ministerial colleague at BEIS to ensure that we can continue to co-ordinate our work on aviation.
Rosie Cooper [V]
Given the Secretary of State’s previous answer that business will have unfettered access within the UK, could the Minister explain why HMRC is telling businesses to prepare for new formalities in west-east trade, and could he describe them?
Mr Walker
The simple answer is that it is not. We want to make sure that we meet our commitments in a way that imposes a minimal burden on business and provides unfettered access. We are absolutely clear that we will provide that unfettered access and legislate for it through this House.
Christian Matheson
My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State has already mentioned the severity of job losses at Bombardier, which drives a whole host of other supply-chain companies. What is the Minister doing to support capital investment in the supply chain to maintain jobs and skills at this particular time?
Mr Walker
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: the supply chain is crucially important to this industry. Making sure that we take the right approach to unfettered access and that we provide support across both the UK and the Northern Ireland economies is crucial in that respect. That is why we are working very closely with colleagues at BEIS and in the Executive to make sure that the support is there up and down the supply chain.
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
The UK Government have made £1.3 billion of additional funding available to the Executive as part of the coronavirus response. That has enabled them to provide £25,000 grants to businesses in these sectors and to extend the initial three-month business rates holiday to 12 months for most Northern Ireland businesses. Prior to lockdown, I visited many of Northern Ireland’s beautiful tourist attractions and saw first hand the amazing experience and the giant welcome that Northern Ireland offers to visitors. I look forward to encouraging everyone to visit as soon as the public health guidelines allow.
Caroline Ansell
I agree wholeheartedly that tourism is indeed a jewel in Northern Ireland’s crown. Does the Minister agree that, subject to public health guidance, of course, now is the opportune time to really promote Northern Ireland as a destination? Being in the common travel area, quarantine does not apply to English, Welsh and Scottish visitors, so they can fly into Belfast or sail across the Irish sea and still be on staycation.
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I absolutely encourage people to avail themselves of those opportunities. It is worth noting that on 1 May the UK Government, together with the Executive, announced a generous £5.7 million funding support package for City of Derry and Belfast City airports so that we can keep this connectivity going. There is a huge opportunity for Northern Ireland tourism. As we enter the recovery phase, many more people from across the UK can go and visit the beautiful sights across Northern Ireland.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
Northern Ireland is and will remain a great place for businesses to invest and grow. Only this week we saw Belfast listed among the top 10 tech cities of the future. A number of companies have recently announced investments into the Northern Ireland economy, including Randox, Cygilant and Hypixel Studios.
Mr Carmichael
May I bring to the attention of the Minister, in case he has missed it, the words of the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), who said recently that businesses in Northern Ireland were telling him that because of the uncertainties they faced they were considering shifting jobs into the Republic of Ireland? Will he not listen to the warnings of a very highly respected former Secretary of State and actually start engaging with businesses instead of just disregarding them?
Mr Walker
I share the right hon. Gentleman’s respect for the former Secretary of State, but there is no need for Northern Ireland businesses to move elsewhere to trade with the UK. The Government will provide unfettered access for Northern Ireland businesses to the UK market. Working together with the Executive, we can provide strong conditions for recovery that will make Northern Ireland an excellent place to invest.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
As my hon. Friend knows, following successful talks in January this year, the Executive and Assembly were restored on 9 January with their full powers. We are grateful for the progress that they have made since in delivering public services, bringing to an end the nurses’ pay dispute in Northern Ireland and working alongside other parts of the UK to tackle coronavirus.
Bob Blackman [V]
My hon. Friend will know that this House has passed draconian laws that have been put on the people of Northern Ireland, particularly in relation to abortion. Can he confirm that it is now up to the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive to decide whether to keep those laws, to reform them, or even to revoke them?
Mr Walker
As my hon. Friend knows, the regulations to which he refers do not replace or remove powers from the Executive. I remind him that they were introduced and approved by this House via an amendment to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, following a three-year absence of devolution. We have delivered regulations that came into force on 31 March, as we were required to do. Parliament has now approved the regulations and they remain the law on access to abortion services. Abortion remains a devolved issue, and the Northern Ireland Assembly can legislate on that or amend the regulations, so long as it does so in a way that remains compliant with the CEDAW—convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women—recommendations and convention rights.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
The Government, despite the challenges of the pandemic, have continued to progress work where possible to implement our commitments. These include helping to end the nurses’ pay dispute, launching and progressing the recruitment process for a veterans’ commissioner, releasing £553 million of funding out of the £2 billion made available to progress implementation, and making changes to immigration rules. We will also be restarting the process with the Executive for organising a joint board that will provide quarterly review of UK Government funding provided under the deal.
Jerome Mayhew
Now that covid and our response to it is thankfully less all-consuming, does my hon. Friend agree that now is the time to see some real progress from the Northern Ireland Executive?
Mr Walker
Absolutely. I agree with my hon. Friend, but we should recognise the manner in which the Executive have worked collaboratively to tackle the immediate crisis, including the way in which the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister have demonstrated leadership and the ability to put their differences aside, working together to protect the public.
The Government and the Northern Ireland Executive have set out our complete commitment to ensuring that the “New Decade, New Approach” deal is implemented in full. As the Secretary of State said earlier, one aspect we would welcome rapid progress on is the independent fiscal council.
Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020
Robin Walker Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
I beg to move
That the Committee has considered the Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020, No. 503).
I welcome your chairmanship, Sir David, and I thank the House staff for the work they have done to make this Committee Room safe for Members in the current difficult circumstances.
In proposing this debate, I recognise that this issue is a contentious and difficult one, and that there are strong opinions on all sides. I respect the deeply held views that Members will bring to this debate, and I am glad that the decision of the usual channels to allow a free vote on the issue will allow all Members to vote according to their conscience. However, I remind colleagues that in carrying out the instructions of this House of Commons from another vote last year, the Government are doing no more than meeting their legal duty.
We previously made the Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020, which came into force on 31 March 2020, to set out the new legal framework for the provision of abortion services in Northern Ireland. Those regulations were also made under the affirmative procedure, and were required to be debated by 17 May 2020 to remain in force as law. However, the unprecedented situation created by covid-19 has impacted on parliamentary processes, and virtual voting systems were not yet fully implemented. We therefore took the decision to remake the regulations and give Parliament an additional 28 days to consider and scrutinise them properly, given the nature of this policy. This approach has ensured that the law on abortion in Northern Ireland continues to apply, with no risk of a gap or legal uncertainty, and that services in Northern Ireland can continue on the same legal basis as they have started operating within the new legal parameters.
Ian Paisley
The Minister has stressed that he is following a legal duty. If that is the case, I would like him to put on the record which treaty obligations he is in breach of if he does not pursue the implementation of a Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women recommendation. I believe that we are in breach of no treaty, and that he is under no legal obligation to do what he is doing.
Mr Walker
The hon. Gentleman mentions treaties, but I did not; I mentioned a legal obligation, under which the House of Commons has placed us through section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019. As he will know, as a result of an urgent question last week, we debated at some length the fact that we were bringing this forward, and I provided answers as to why we were doing so, rather than—as some in his party suggested—repealing section 9. I think this is a perfectly rational approach to delivering on the commitments that the House has placed on us under the 2019 Act.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister, who has behaved with genuine courtesy throughout the whole of this process. Would he comment on whether, in the write-round that precedes these things, our Attorney General expressed any concerns in respect of the legal and constitutional implications of these regulations? I appreciate that the Minister cannot detail any concerns—that would be inappropriate—but were concerns expressed by the Attorney General about the legal and constitutional implications?
Mr Walker
As my right hon. Friend knows very well, the Government never comment on legal advice. However, he is quite right to refer to the fact that there has been a write-round process, and the Attorney General of the United Kingdom has supported that process to allow these regulations to move forward.
This statutory instrument, the Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020, came into force on 14 May and revoked the earlier regulations. These regulations have been made in accordance with the statutory duty that Parliament imposed on the Government last summer through section 9 of the 2019 Act. That duty was to make regulations to provide for lawful access to abortion services in Northern Ireland in a way that implemented the recommendations in paragraphs 85 and 86 of the 2018 United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women report of the inquiry concerning the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, under article 8 of the optional protocol of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. The CEDAW recommendations mandate access to abortion services at least in the cases of
“(i) Threat to the pregnant woman’s physical or mental health without conditionality of ‘long-term or permanent’ effects;
(ii) Rape and incest; and
(iii) Severe foetal impairment, including FFA, without perpetuating stereotypes towards persons with disabilities and ensuring appropriate and ongoing support, social and financial, for women who decide to carry such pregnancies to term.”
Jim Shannon
The Minister will know that the GB law allowing discriminatory abortion is already under fire. The way things are shaping up here, abortions of those who have Down’s syndrome, for instance, could actually take place. What consideration has the Government given to the GB law allowing discriminatory abortion, given that it is already under fire but this legislation is coming through with the same intention?
Mr Walker
The hon. Gentleman is perhaps referring to litigation that is under way, which I of course cannot comment on. What I can say is that we gave very careful consideration, both in the consultation itself and in the follow-up to it, to all aspects of this legislation. We decided to follow the approach of GB law by not specifying particular conditions, but being clear that the approach to severe foetal impairment has to be for the individual woman, in consultation with medical professionals. We think that is the right approach; it is the approach established elsewhere in the UK, and indeed in many other jurisdictions.
The CEDAW report does not recommend or mandate specifics of how access should be provided. In particular, it is silent on issues such as gestational time limits for legal abortion, which it leaves open to the state to determine. The key requirement is to ensure access to services for women and girls in the circumstances I have set out, and abortions should be delivered as part of sexual and reproductive health services.
We recognise that this is a sensitive and personal issue for many people. We have heard many differing views about abortion in this House and the other place over the past 12 months, including in the debates on the reports under the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019. I extend my thanks to all hon. Members who have engaged with me over recent months in discussions about these regulations, and have contributed views and shared insights from the wider engagement that they have been having with a range of constituents and other stakeholders.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
The Minister refers to the fact that a number of people have contributed to this debate, but does he not accept that the Northern Ireland Assembly—the place where this should be debated and decided upon—was unable to contribute to the debate and articulate its view? It voted on Thursday. Why has this Committee not taken cognisance of that vote?
Mr Walker
I respect the hon. Lady and the position from which she is arguing, but the Northern Ireland Assembly has had many opportunities to take forward these issues and provide a framework that would address the requirements of CEDAW, and it has not taken them. As she refers to the debate, I reiterate what I said in response to the urgent question last week: the Northern Ireland Assembly chose to vote on one aspect of these regulations and said that it did not like it. It did not debate the full details of the regulations themselves, and it did not provide a way forward that is compliant with CEDAW. I am very happy for it to debate these issues and take them forward, but it must do so in a way that is CEDAW compliant. It has every right to do that and reform these regulations, should it choose to do so in a way that is CEDAW compliant.
I appreciate that this is an issue on which views are deeply held, and I respect the fact that people coming at it from either side of the argument are doing so with the best interests of others in mind. I have no doubt that the arguments that we will hear today, across the whole spectrum of opinion on the subject, come from the heart and will be well informed. The starting point for the framework was that, as a result of the repeal of sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, from 22 October 2019 carrying out an abortion is no longer a criminal offence, except for late-term abortion, to which the offence of destroying a child capable of being born alive would still apply.
In relation to complying with the statutory duty on the Government, our overarching policy aims were to ensure that the framework protects and promotes the health and safety of women and girls, provides clarity and certainty for the medical profession, and is responsive and sensitive to the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly being restored from January, where our legal obligation remained to act on this issue.
Towards the end of last year, we publicly consulted on the proposals for the new legislative framework. The consultation gave people and organisations in Northern Ireland an opportunity to provide input and views on how we could best deliver an abortion framework consistent with our statutory duty. We were clear in that consultation that this is not about whether the Government should deliver on our statutory duty, but rather about how we can most effectively deliver a framework as required.
The Government have engaged with a range of stakeholders in Northern Ireland during this process and in recent months, including political parties, medical professionals, women’s groups, abortion service providers, trade unions, civil society organisations, individuals with lived experience and church groups. We listened to feedback expressed in the consultation process and through various engagements, and we have responded accordingly. We have sought to balance the range of views against our statutory duty, and to take pragmatic decisions informed by evidence.
Many stakeholders have welcomed the regulations, including the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. It is our firm view that the regulations provide a new legislative framework that is operationally sound, works best for Northern Ireland and delivers on the Government’s statutory duty.
Sir John Hayes
On the issue of the legality of these regulations, I understand the Minister’s reticence about discussing the legal advice from our Attorney General, but he will know that Northern Ireland’s Attorney General has also commented, and made those comments publicly available. That gentlemen has argued that regulations 7 and 12 are ultra vires and that, in respect of regulation 13, the Secretary of State may have been guilty of misdirection. Those are very serious remarks from a Law Officer. Would that advice not make it almost impossible to receive these regulations in Northern Ireland?
Mr Walker
My right hon. Friend refers to the Attorney General’s comments to the Executive, which, as he says, he has made public.
I am, for my part, very confident that we have the vires under the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 to carry forward the legislation. I have to say to my right hon. Friend, whom I greatly respect, that this issue has been a matter of contention over a long period. He, like me, would much rather that Northern Ireland politicians had been able to address the issue together and take it forward, but that has not proven to be the case. It was in recognition of that that this House told the Government to take action on this issue.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
Further to his correct response to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings in relation to legal advice, does the Minister recognise that the courts in Northern Ireland and, in particular, the UK Supreme Court have already ruled that the outgoing abortion regime in Northern Ireland is incompatible with human rights? In that regard, I pay tribute to the work of Sarah Ewart in championing the need for reform.
Mr Walker
Absolutely, and I recognise that the decisions that this House took to give the Government the locus to act on these issues were partly in the light of those judgments, both in the Belfast High Court and in the Supreme Court. The hon. Gentleman is right to address those issues. I must say, having met with Sarah Ewart and her mother, that I was hugely impressed by the courage that she has displayed in bringing her issues to light and publicly engaging in this, coming from a background that was not necessarily one that people would expect.
Jim Shannon
Does the Minister recognise the depth of feeling among the community across Northern Ireland? He referred earlier to churches and so on, but he will know that some 20,000 people signed a petition in Northern Ireland. In comparison with the rest of the United Kingdom, that would equate to half a million people on the mainland signing a petition. When it comes to looking holistically across the whole of the community, the number of people who are unhappy with the legislation going ahead is very important. There are indications that some 71% of the population would be unhappy with this liberalisation of abortion going ahead in Northern Ireland.
Mr Walker
The hon. Gentleman refers to statistics, and numbers of people. These are contested matters; we hear of different polls giving different results on these issues. What is very clear is that this Parliament mandated the Government to deliver on this issue. We have the vires to do so, and we have sought to do.
Mr Walker
It was the last Parliament, as my right hon. Friend points out. I believe that the majority by which that Parliament, on a free vote, mandated the Government to do this was around two thirds. I think it is very clear that this is the right thing to do, partly because of the issues raised by the hon. Member for North Down.
I know that a number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Strangford when he just spoke, have expressed that this has resulted in what they view as a more liberal regime than in Great Britain. I do not believe that that is the case, and we have sought to ensure proper and appropriate implementation of the CEDAW recommendations, in a way that means that the outcomes delivered will be equivalent to those in the rest of the UK, to ensure that women and girls have the same access to services in similar circumstances.
Therefore, many of the provisions in the regulations mirror provisions under the Abortion Act 1967 on such issues as conscientious objection to ensure consistency in the provision of services across the UK. The Government’s response to the consultation, published on gov.uk, sets out further detail on how the Government made their decision on each element of the framework, and the reasons behind each decision.
I will briefly turn to an overview of the key elements of the regulations. They provide for access to abortions without conditionality up to 12 weeks’ gestation. We judge that that provision is proportionate and appropriate in order to implement the CEDAW recommendation of ensuring access in cases of sexual crime, while avoiding building a system that could lead to further trauma for victims of rape or incest, or act as a barrier to access for those victims. A barrier to access would, in the Government’s view, be a breach of the CEDAW requirements.
Without a period of access without conditionality, the duty to report a crime that applies to everyone in Northern Ireland, including medical professionals, could create a perceived barrier to access for victims of sexual crime and lead to women or girls seeking alternative, unsafe options outside the health system, which we want to avoid now that there is lawful access. We know that that was an issue in preventing access to even the very limited scope of abortions that were legally available prior to October 2019.
The regulations also set out three further circumstances in which an abortion is legal: first, up to 24 weeks’ gestation, in cases where the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk or injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or girl greater than the risk of terminating the pregnancy; and, secondly, in cases of severe foetal impairment and fatal foetal abnormalities with no gestational time limit. That is where there is a substantial risk that the condition of the foetus is such that the death of the foetus is likely before, during or shortly after birth; or, if the child were born, it would suffer from such physical or mental impairment as to be seriously disabled. The third set of circumstances are cases where there is a risk to the life of the woman or girl greater than if the pregnancy were terminated or, where necessary, to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or girl, including in cases of immediate necessity—with no gestational time limit.
In such cases, the regulations require that two medical professionals, as defined in the regulations, certify in good faith that the ground has been met. Abortions are also allowed where it is immediately necessary to save the life, or to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health, of the pregnant woman. The CEDAW report is silent on the question of gestational limit in such circumstances. We consider that the above grounds are an appropriate way of delivering on our statutory duty and implementing the recommendations of the report in a way that will work effectively in practice. An intentional contravention of the requirements to certify that an opinion has been reached in good faith that one of the grounds under the regulations has been met to allow the abortion is punishable by a fine of up to £2,500.
The regulations allow for abortions to be provided by a doctor, nurse or midwife. They may be carried out in general practitioners’ premises, clinics provided by a health and social care trust, and health and social care trust hospitals, operating under the overall Northern Ireland health and social care framework. Early medical abortions are carried out by taking two pills. The regulations allow the second pill to be taken at a woman’s home, following the first pill being taken at an approved location. That mirrors the approach used in the rest of the United Kingdom.
The regulations allow the Department of Health in Northern Ireland to approve other places where abortions may take place—a power that mirrors the power for the Secretary of State under the Abortion Act. That could be used, for example, to approve third or private sector provision, or to enable greater use of telemedicine.
The regulations require the medical professional to notify the chief medical officer of the Northern Ireland Department of Health of the abortion, alongside other relevant data specified in the regulations. The Department of Health in Northern Ireland will then be responsible for annual publication of relevant data. To ensure confidentiality and the protection of personal data, the regulations impose restrictions on how the data can be used. Disclosure of information notified to the chief medical officer, other than in accordance with the regulations, is an offence punishable by a fine of up to £2,500.
We recognise the strongly held beliefs about abortion. That is why the regulations make it clear that no one will be required to take part in treatment for abortion to which they have a conscientious objection. The only exception is where that treatment is necessary to save the life, or to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of a pregnant woman.
That protection mirrors precisely the conscientious objection provision in the Abortion Act, is consistent with the interpretation of that provision by the Supreme Court, and does not extend to the ancillary, administrative and managerial tasks that might be associated with that treatment. The Government are satisfied that the current scope of the conscientious objection provision works satisfactorily in the rest of the UK, is human rights compliant, and is therefore appropriate to apply in Northern Ireland to the provision of abortion services under the regulations.
Finally, the regulations impose a criminal sanction on anyone who intentionally terminates or procures the termination of the pregnancy of a woman otherwise than in accordance with the regulations. That is about where someone is acting dishonestly or negligently, and it will not apply where a termination was done in good faith for the purpose only of saving the woman’s life or preventing grave permanent injury to the woman’s physical or mental health. It is not intended that a medical professional should be prosecuted where they form an honest opinion in good faith as to risk, but makes a factual error.
As an additional protection for medical professionals, the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions is required before proceedings can be brought under the regulations. Other criminal laws will continue to apply, including section 25 of the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1945, which prohibits the destruction of a child otherwise capable of being born alive. However, the regulations make relevant amendments necessary to ensure that abortions carried out in accordance with the regulations by the relevant medical professionals are not contrary to section 25 of the 1945 Act, and no woman or girl can be prosecuted with respect to ending her own pregnancy.
Ian Paisley
Is it not disingenuous to say that the regulations mirror what happens in GB? In GB, if what the Minister describes were to occur, a person would face imprisonment from up to five years to life. In the Republic of Ireland, that person would face up to 14 years’ imprisonment. In Northern Ireland, the very maximum that anyone would face for breaching this criminal law would be a fine of level 5, which is about £2,500. Is it not the case that the regulations do not mirror legislation, but liberalise that legislation?
Mr Walker
As I said, we set out in our response to the consultation the detail of how each of the decisions in this process was reached. We recognise that the situation ante this regulation in Northern Ireland was that the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 had already removed the criminal sanctions, so we were under an obligation to create a framework, then reimpose criminal sanctions outside of that framework. That is the way in which we have addressed this.
We are clear that this is a situation in which CEDAW requires us to ensure that women and girls cannot be prosecuted for these regulations, and the regulations should not have—as, unfortunately, it was clear from some of the consultation responses, the criminal law previously did have in Northern Ireland—a chilling effect on availability, nor erect any barriers to access.
Mr Walker
I will make a little bit of progress and allow the hon. Lady to come in before the end. Access to abortion services in Northern Ireland is now a matter for the Northern Ireland Department of Health, as well as the Health and Social Care Board and the Health and Social Care Trust, to take forward, as a new health service.
We continue to have full respect for the devolution settlement, recognising that health is a devolved matter, and to that extent have ensured that, where possible and practical, the regulations can be developed over time, in a way that works best for Northern Ireland by Northern Ireland. For example, the approval power for the Northern Ireland Department of Health to approve new locations in which services can be provided will allow it to respond to service needs and development over time, as the services are commissioned and embedded into health and social care settings in Northern Ireland.
Some interim service provision on the ground in Northern Ireland has now commenced, with early medical abortion services being provided as part of the existing sexual and reproductive health services in the Belfast, northern and western trust areas. This is to ensure access on the ground during covid-19, before fuller services have been commissioned by the Health and Social Care Board.
Of course, abortion remains a devolved issue in Northern Ireland going forward. That means that the Assembly is able to legislate further on abortion, subject to the usual Assembly and other procedures, including compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights. The UK Government will continue to ensure that we abide by our domestic and international legal obligations. The Government stand ready to provide whatever support and guidance we can both to the Northern Ireland Minister of Health and the Department of Health, to assist them in progressing work to set up abortion services in line with our new legislative framework.
As set out in our response to the consultation, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has written to the relevant Northern Ireland Ministers to ensure the implementation of all the recommendations under paragraphs 85 and 86 of the CEDAW report, and the Northern Ireland Office will continue to work closely with the Department of Health and other Northern Ireland Departments in continuing to progress this work.
I hope that the Committee will support these regulations. We believe that they will fully deliver on the requirements placed on the Government by section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 and allow us to move forward in a way that protects the safety of women and girls in Northern Ireland, will remove over time the need for travel for women and girls facing extremely difficult circumstances, and provide certainty and a clear framework for medical professionals. I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Mr Walker
We have heard a wide range of strongly held personal views and varied contributions on all aspects of the regulations from members of the Committee.
I thank all members of the Committee for the courteous way in which they have generally expressed themselves. In particular, I thank the hon. Member for Bristol South for her courteous response to the regulations. I will come to some of the specific points that she made as I go through some of the various issues.
The hon. Member asked about education, and the responsibilities that were placed on us in that regard. We have written as a Department to the relevant Northern Ireland Minister, as set out in our consultation response, but recognise that there are further steps to be taken on that front. It is an issue, as with the wider implementation, as raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke. We recognise that our duties do not finish with the regulations and their passage. We will monitor implementation and continue to work closely with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland to ensure that it can be taken forward.
It is understandable that right now the top priority of the Department of Health is, and has been, dealing with the covid-19 pandemic. Despite some positive moves by clinicians to get services up and running and to provide solutions, there is further work to be undertaken. The chief medical officer has been writing to let medical professionals know of changes to the law, but I agree with my right hon. Friend that it is vital that we provide legal certainty. Passing the regulations is a very important first step in doing that.
I would like to address several of the points raised during the debate, but I apologise to hon. Members if I do not have time to address every single one. I am pleased that, as a result of the regulations being in force, some services are operating on the ground in Northern Ireland, already providing local access for women and girls. The Northern Ireland Health Minister updated the Assembly on the numbers to date, and with 129 between 31 March and 22 May, it would seem that the majority of demand is already being met locally in Northern Ireland.
I was pressed by both the hon. Member for Bristol South and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke on when we can end the requirement to fund travel. We will continue to fund services in England until we are confident that sufficient service provision is on the ground in Northern Ireland for all the cases covered by CEDAW. We have not set a specific deadline for that, but of course we want to work closely with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland to make sure that that is as soon as possible.
The hon. Member for Walthamstow made a passionate speech and spoke, as she has many times before, of the voices that for too long have not been heard in some of the Northern Ireland debate. She asked about our interpretation of mental and physical health grounds on which I want to respond specifically, because it is important. I note that concerns have been raised about how previously in Northern Ireland health grounds have been narrowly interpreted in practice. The approach we have taken on risk to physical and mental health complies with CEDAW’s requirements to ensure access in cases of risk to mental and physical health without conditionality of long-term and permanent effect, mirroring the law in England and Wales. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings and the hon. Member for North Antrim accused us of departing from that law in other areas. We are clear that the grounds should be interpreted and applied in the same way across the UK, not in a restrictive way. That does not require a specific mental health diagnosis before abortion is allowed. The explanatory memorandum makes it clear in paragraph 7.11:
“In forming an opinion as to the application of this ground, medical professionals may take into account a woman’s wellbeing, and the woman’s actual or reasonably foreseeable circumstances, including wider social circumstances. The threshold of risk to the physical or mental health of the woman is a matter for the opinion in good faith of each of the registered medical professionals involved. However, medical professionals should interpret the grounds in Northern Ireland consistent with the rest of the UK, for example the risk to mental health is not required to relate to a specific or diagnosed mental health condition and does not require a mental health or psychiatric assessment before the abortion can be permitted.”
I hope that provides some reassurance to colleagues across the House.
I appreciate the concerns raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and the hon. Members for Bristol South and for North Down, but based on previous concerns in Northern Ireland when medical professionals were operating within a narrow window of what constituted legal abortion, they could be deterred by having a sanctions regime in place. Other Members expressed concern about a potential free-for-all without any sanctions. The CEDAW recommendations do not require unlimited access to abortion services; it is for the Government to set appropriate safeguards on the circumstances for provision of abortion services and determine how those will be enforced. It would be unusual to put specific regulatory requirements in legislation that have to be complied with, including where and how abortions can be provided, without sanctions being applied for breaches of those requirements. The sanctions are therefore in place to protect women and girls against intentional, reckless or persistent disregard for the requirements and conditions imposed by the regulations, so that anyone intentionally breaching the new framework, particularly outside of commissioned abortion services and where acting dishonestly or negligently, can be investigated and prosecuted as appropriate. The explanatory memorandum makes that clear in paragraphs 7.35 to 7.38, where it is noted that
“it is not intended that a medical professional should be prosecuted where a medical professional forms an opinion in good faith as to risk but makes a factual error.”
I hope that provides some assurance on that front.
I note that the hon. Member for North Down and some respondents to the consultation were concerned that we had not gone further on exclusion zones. I recognise that many campaigners are concerned about that. We have had conversations with the Police Service of Northern Ireland and I understand that a range of existing public order offences are likely to be able to be relied on. In this area, as in many others, we felt it right to look at practice across the whole of the UK and not to go beyond the UK framework.
The hon. Member for North Antrim and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings raised concerns about unconditional access up to 12 weeks. I set out the reason for that in my opening remarks: so as not to erect barriers that would be inconsistent with the CEDAW issue. However, based on current public data, 86% of the abortions accessed by residents of Northern Ireland in England under the Abortion Act 1967 take place prior to 12 weeks’ gestation and would be covered by that limit. We consider that the right approach to take to ensure that women resident in Northern Ireland have access without conditionality in the vast majority of cases where it is their individual choice to do so. This approach ensures compliance with CEDAW.
I appreciate also the deeply held concerns that have been raised with respect to severe foetal impairment. I respect the passion with which Members across the Committee have spoken on that issue, but I must be clear that in contrast to some of the things that have been said, there is nothing in this regulation that permits abortion for specific conditions. There is no discrimination in this respect. The regulation follows the law in England and Wales and the approach that we have taken to SFI in the rest of the United Kingdom. In that respect, it brings a consistent approach across the UK.
Given the often late diagnosis and timing of follow-up scans and tests, women need to be given time to understand the nature and severity of the conditions that they might be dealing with. It is right that they should be able to make informed decisions based on their own health and wider circumstances and in consultation with doctors. We of course recognise that CEDAW also calls for these proposals to be taken forward,
“without perpetuating stereotypes towards persons with disabilities and ensuring appropriate and ongoing support, social and financial, for women who decide to carry such pregnancies to term.”
Putting in place proper supports and provision of information to support women in making informed decisions is hugely important, but it is an operational issue for the Department of Health in Northern Ireland to take forward as part of commissioning and overseeing abortion services as a new health service, consistent with regulations.
The regulations will improve the situation for women and girls facing some of the hardest choices that anyone could ever have to face and for the medical professionals trying to support them. I appreciate that there are areas on which people on either side of the argument would like us to have gone further, or feel that we have gone too far, but I make no apology that when it comes to precedent we have sought to achieve the same outcomes as the frameworks in place across the rest of the UK. This is the right thing to do to remove the need for travel and to ensure that we have a CEDAW-compliant framework that does not create barriers to access, as well as to ensure legally robust protections for conscience. I therefore commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put.
DRAFT LOCAL ELECTIONS (NORTHERN IRELAND) (AMENDMENT) ORDER 2020
DRAFT REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS AND AMENDMENT) (NORTHERN IRELAND) REGULATIONS 2020
Robin Walker Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Local Elections (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2020.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the draft Representation of the People (Electronic Communications and Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020.
Mr Walker
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I apologise to the Committee for arriving a few moments into the sitting, having just come from a Division down the corridor. With your permission, we are taking both these election-related statutory instruments together. I hope that as neither is particularly contentious, we will not detain the Committee too long.
The draft Representation of the People (Electronic Communications and Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020 will amend the existing legislative framework for canvass in Northern Ireland to allow electors to respond to the canvass digitally, using the existing online registration system. Registration applications and canvass returns require substantially the same information, but because online registration is a relatively new development in Northern Ireland, our existing canvass regulations do not allow the use of electronic returns.
The Northern Ireland canvass is not an annual event and is not as light touch as it is in Great Britain. When a full canvass is conducted in Northern Ireland, it is not sufficient for an individual to note that their registration details have not changed; each individual must complete a full registration application or canvass form.
It makes sense that the law is now changed to allow the chief electoral officer to accept registrations made on the UK online registration system rather than requiring all individuals to fill out a paper application form. It is worth noting that online registration is already hugely successful and popular in Northern Ireland. The option to register online was extended to Northern Ireland in 2018, and since then over 80% of people registering have chosen to register using the digital service, rather than using a paper form. That compares favourably with Great Britain, where the most recent figure was about 75% of applicants using the online service.
However, I can reassure hon. Members that people will not be required to use the digital system. Nothing in this legislation will remove the paper-based canvass regime that we have always used, and that system will remain for those who wish to use it. Nevertheless, we know that a growing majority of people now expect to be able to interact with public services online. These regulations allow people the option of using the online registration service if they wish to do so.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Does the Minister agree that for these provisions to really take good effect, what has to follow them is investment in our electoral offices around the country? I am talking about investment in training of staff, in access to staff and in more telephone availability when people ring up with queries. The Minister is absolutely right that the measures have been a partial success, but there have been glitches. It is important that those glitches be ironed out, and they cannot be ironed out on the cheap, but only with investment in our electoral offices.
Mr Walker
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point. Of course we need to ensure that these services are properly supported. I will come to the fact that of course part of what these reforms will achieve is to make the service more efficient. That should in itself release funds for the investment that he speaks about.
These changes make administrative sense. The register for Northern Ireland stands at 1.3 million people, and not having these regulations allowing people to use the online service to register would mean posting out 1.3 million paper forms with return post envelopes—a huge undertaking. Reducing the number of forms issued will save money, streamline the administrative process and save a good deal of wasted paper.
Importantly, the changes will make canvass more efficient and allow the chief electoral officer and her staff more time to focus on encouraging under-registered groups to engage with canvass and get on the register. I hope hon. Members agree that the changes, which will make it easier for people to register, allied to increased efficiency, are very welcome.
The draft regulations make provision for a slight amendment to the stages to be undertaken by the chief electoral officer as part of the next canvass, which will take place in 2021. Under the new provisions, a new first step will apply in the canvass process. From no earlier than 1 July in a canvass year, the chief electoral officer will send out a leaflet to all homes explaining the importance of canvass and asking people to go online and register. It will also explain that forms will be posted shortly for those who want to apply on paper. In this way, we hope to encourage a good many of the public to simply register online.
Following that first leaflet, the usual chasing cycle of canvass will proceed as it has previously. Addressed forms will be sent to every individual who has not already responded, chasing letters will be issued and, finally, canvassers will be sent door to door to non-responders. Every effort will be made to explain the importance of being on the register and to capture as many registrations as possible.
I should also say that current legislation allows the chief electoral officer to retain on the register, for up to three years, individuals who fail to respond to canvass, if she is content that data-matching shows their details have not changed. That provision was originally for a two-year retention after the 2013 canvass, but it was extended to three years to cover the 2016 Assembly election. The regulations move the retention period back to the original two years.
In addition, the regulations also make a number of more minor technical amendments in relation to canvass, such as ensuring that an individual’s unique digital registration number is issued or reissued, as appropriate, to people registering for the purpose of canvass.
Finally, the regulations also make a small technical amendment in relation to recall provisions. During the recall petition held in Northern Ireland in 2018, it became clear that there was an inconsistency in provisions concerning the marked register and how it could be accessed. The draft provisions mirror the position for parliamentary elections, enabling the chief electoral officer to allow access to the marked register when appropriate.
Registration and canvass are the foundation of our democratic system, and I am happy to tell the Committee that the implementation of digital registration for canvass is fully supported and welcomed by the Electoral Commission and Northern Ireland’s chief electoral officer. I should also say the regulations have been approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office. I hope that hon. Members agree that the introduction of digital electoral registration for canvass is another step towards modernising the delivery of elections in Northern Ireland and that they will support the regulations.
The draft Local Elections (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2020 will amend the existing legislative framework for local elections in Northern Ireland so that it is no longer a requirement for a candidate’s home address to be disclosed and published during an election.
It used to be an accepted part of local elections across the UK that candidates standing for election to local councils would be required to disclose their home address; that address would be printed on the ballot paper. The provision was designed to demonstrate the local connection of a candidate, which has always been an important aspect of our local government system.
Sadly, however, we are all too aware that intimidation and threats are now part of the lives of too many elected representatives. As a consequence, it is no longer proportionate to require candidates to make public their home address in order to stand for public office. It is already the case that there is no requirement to disclose publicly home addresses at parliamentary or Assembly elections in Northern Ireland, nor in most other elections across the UK. The draft order will provide consistency by removing the requirement for all candidate home addresses to be published for local elections in Northern Ireland. Candidates will be able to choose whether they wish their home address to be included on nomination papers, consent to nomination forms and the ballot paper.
The hon. Member for Rochdale, who is not able to join us today, raised this issue with the Secretary of State at the time of the last local government elections. I hope he in particular will welcome this provision.
Nevertheless, when voting for candidates in local elections, electors have a right to know that each candidate has a tie to the local area. To balance that right with the aim to provide protection for candidates, the draft order will ensure that candidates are required to provide their home address on a separate home address form. The home address form will not be made public and will be used by the chief electoral officer to confirm that the candidate has the required local connections.
Hon. Members will wish to note that the provisions do not alter the requirements for a local connection. As has always been the case, anyone wanting to stand as a local councillor in Northern Ireland must be on the electoral register for that council area or, broadly speaking, have owned or rented land or lived or worked in the area for the preceding year.
If a candidate indicates on the home address form that they do not wish the address to become public, it will not be included in any published documents. In such cases, the ballot paper will show the area that the candidate’s address is in. For the vast majority of candidates, that will be the local government district in which their home is situated. That is a small change, which will do nothing more than bring local elections in Northern Ireland into line with other elections. However, as I am sure hon. Members will agree, it is an important change. It is critical that, where possible, we remove any barriers that can inhibit individuals from engaging in the public democratic life of our country.
In addition to removing home addresses from ballot papers, the order also makes provision to remove the legislative requirement that candidate’s surnames be printed in all capital letters on ballot papers. That will ensure that a candidate’s name on the ballot paper can appear as the candidate would normally spell it. So, for example, where a capital letter is not usually at the beginning of the name, as is sometimes the case with Irish names, that can be accurately reflected on the ballot paper.
Finally, the order will remove the requirement that local councils be described as district councils on the ballot paper. It will provide instead that the council can print its official name and describe itself as, for example, a borough or city council, as appropriate.
The draft order is about engagement and helping to ensure that as many people as possible feel able to be part of the democratic process without feeling intimidated. It is about letting people who stand as candidates have their names spelled as they would usually spell them and allowing councils to describe themselves on ballot papers by the name they are commonly known by. I hope that members of the Committee agree that the provisions, while technical, are important, and that both statutory instruments are, in their way, a step towards modernising the delivery of elections in Northern Ireland, and that they will support them.
Mr Walker
I welcome the support for these sensible regulations from everyone who has spoken in the debate, including the constructive support of the hon. Member for Bristol South. She mentioned the case of Máiría Cahill and the Minister at the time saying that we were tremendously sympathetic. She is right that the hon. Member for Rochdale would welcome the action taken, and I pay tribute to his work as shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland over a long period. He was certainly always a pleasure to work opposite, as indeed is she.
The hon. Member for North Antrim rightly raised the question of resource for electoral officers. As I said, some of the resource that is freed up as a result of these changes will help in that respect, but of course the democratic process needs to be properly resourced. That is certainly something we will continue to discuss with the relevant organisations, to ensure that they have the resources necessary.
The hon. Gentleman absolutely rightly also raised the issue of measures to protect against fraud. It is important that using an online system does not make the system in any way more open to fraudulent applications. Details of an applicant’s name, date of birth and national insurance number will be checked against the national Department for Work and Pensions database to ensure state-of-the-art identity verification, but, once that identity check has been conducted, the electoral officers will still run further data matching to verify addresses. The safeguards are important.
The hon. Gentleman is also right to draw attention to the fact that there have to be consequences for people who conduct electoral fraud. That is not the purpose of the draft order or the regulations, but it is provided for elsewhere in the law.
I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that he seeks: this is in no way a move to electronic voting. This is about making the canvass system more efficient and effective, while recognising that people are now able and willing to register online for the purpose of canvass. However, we still think that voting in person is an important part of our democratic process. There is no attempt to move away from that.
The hon. Gentleman also spoke, as he said, with great experience of the petitions process. It is absolutely correct that the police need to have the right powers, so I undertake to take that issue away, look at it and ensure that we make the process as robust as possible.
With that, I commend the draft order and regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Representation of the People (Electronic Communications and Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Representation of the People (Electronic Communications and Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020.—(Mr Robin Walker.)
Victims of the Troubles: Payment Scheme
Robin Walker Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the implementation of the payment scheme for victims of the troubles.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
The Secretary of State has asked me to pass on his apologies for not being able to answer this urgent question in person, as he is currently in Northern Ireland engaging in discussion on these and other matters and was unable to return to the House in time for it. I hope that the House will not mind, therefore, if I answer on his behalf. He has written to the hon. Lady, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and the Victims’ Commissioner on this matter today.
Last summer, the House agreed that in the continuing absence of an Executive, the Government should make regulations establishing a troubles victims payment scheme. There was cross-party support for establishing the scheme, which was intended to provide much needed acknowledgement and a measure of additional financial support to those most seriously injured during the troubles. We made regulations establishing a victims payment scheme in January and did so, yes, to fulfil our legal obligation under the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, but also because we are committed to doing what we can to progress a scheme that has been too long delayed by political disagreements. Having spoken personally to a number of victims’ groups and the Victims’ Commissioner in recent weeks, I am very aware of how long many people have waited for an acknowledgement of the physical distress and emotional trauma caused by injuries to themselves or loved ones during the troubles.
Much has been made in the media of the suggestion that funding is holding up the establishment of this scheme, but that is not the case. Funding is not preventing the Executive from being able to take the vital steps to unlock implementation; rather, the key step to unblocking the process is the designation of a Northern Ireland Executive Department to provide administrative support to the Victims’ Payments Board. I am afraid to say that despite this decision being the subject of discussion by Executive Ministers for some time and one on which the Secretary of State is currently engaging them in Northern Ireland, they have not yet designated a Department to lead on the implementation of this scheme. The Justice Minister is prepared to lead on the scheme, but Sinn Féin has been clear that it wants to reopen the criteria by which eligibility for the scheme will be determined. That is already set in legislation and provides a fair basis for helping those who suffered most throughout the troubles. It is therefore imperative that Sinn Féin, along with all the parties, enables the scheme to move forward, as the time for delay is gone.
The Government take this matter very seriously, and we are extremely disappointed by the current delay. It is because of the high priority we place on this issue that the Secretary of State has written to and had meetings with the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. We have been offering and providing all appropriate support to help progress the implementation of this scheme. I assure all right hon. and hon. Members that the UK Government are committed to seeing this matter progress; victims have waited too long for these payments. The Northern Ireland Executive committed to finding a way forward on this issue in 2014. The UK Government have provided that way forward, through the regulations made in January, following public consultation. The Executive must now set aside their political differences and deliver for victims.
Louise Haigh
Thank you for granting this urgent question on this important and sensitive topic, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for his response, and the Secretary of State for speaking to me last night and writing to me about the issue this morning. Last year, we were proud to join cross-party efforts to introduce the victims’ payment scheme, as has been laid out by the Minister, to provide a measure of support and, crucially, acknowledgement to those whose lives were devastated by the troubles. I wish to pay a particular tribute to my noble Friend Lord Peter Hain; to the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), who is in his place; and to the many victims and groups in Northern Ireland who have been campaigning for this for so many decades, not least the WAVE Trauma Centre. Clearly, nothing will ever take away a lifetime fundamentally altered by sickening acts of violence, but ensuring victims can live in dignity was and still must be our overriding principle. I know it is one the Minister is deeply committed to, and I do not, for a moment, doubt his personal commitment to making sure those promises made to victims in Northern Ireland are now honoured. However, last Friday the deadline for the payments that victims are entitled to in law came and went.
The legal obligation under that law, passed here in Westminster, to start processing payments was not met, and victims in Northern Ireland and across the rest of the UK have looked on in horror. Many victims have waited a lifetime for some measure of support, and there is simply no excuse for victims to be so cruelly denied that support once again. They are victims such as Alex Bunting, who lost his leg when the IRA planted a bomb in his taxi in 1991, in a case of mistaken identity, and who has since campaigned on behalf of all victims of the troubles, from all communities. They are victims such as Paul Gallagher, whom I have met on two occasions. He was shot by loyalist gunmen who were waiting to attack an ex-republican prisoner who lived nearby but who tired of waiting for their target and fired into the Gallaghers’ living room with a submachine gun, leaving him permanently disabled. Despite that horrifying experience, Paul has described the past week, in which he has seen something he has fought so hard to see achieved not delivered, as the worst week of his life. It is hard to overestimate how re-traumatising this experience has been for many victims. All of us, as politicians, have a moral and legal responsibility now to get this scheme over the line. The legislation has been passed, the debates have been had and no one should be standing in its way. The legislation, as passed, allows a judicial panel to determine on the more controversial cases, so any attempts to frustrate this or reopen questions over eligibility are not only disrespectful to victims, but utterly misplaced.
In that spirit, I would like to ask the Minister a number of questions. He said that funding is not at issue, but the First Minister has said:
“It is unseemly that these deserving people are being let down due to the Government not releasing funding.”
So can he confirm what funding is with the Executive now and in place in order to implement this scheme? Can he further explain to the House whose responsibility it is to issue guidance and whether the Secretary of State will issue draft guidance to a Department when it is designated? It is very welcome to hear that the Department of Justice stands ready to be designated.
Will the Minister further confirm that the regulations are explicitly permissive and allow significant scope for the judicial board to consider cases on an individual basis, and that controversial cases should not be holding up payments to victims as a whole? What discussions have been held with the Lord Chief Justice and the Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commissioner to ensure that once a department is designated, victims can have confidence that the payment board and president will be in place very quickly? Finally, does he accept that way victims have been treated, finding out about delays to the scheme almost by accident has, in the words of Judith Thompson, the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors, literally added insult to injury? This cannot be another false dawn for the victims of the troubles. Surely it is now time for all of us, Westminster and Stormont, to meet our moral and legal obligations, and finally to deliver the pension and acknowledgement that so many have waited so long for.
Mr Walker
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the chance to answer this urgent question, and it is an area on which the Government and Opposition have worked closely and constructively in the past. I share the sense of frustration that is palpable in her question, as does the Secretary of State, and she gave powerful examples of some of the victims who have been affected by the process. We want this scheme to be in place as soon as possible, and to ensure that people begin to see some acknowledgement of the suffering they have undergone.
The UK Government have complied fully with their legal duties by establishing a victims payment scheme in January. We welcomed the opportunity to do so, as we wanted progress on the scheme that has been delayed by political disagreements for too long. It is important to remember that this is a devolved matter, which the Executive were to take forward under the Stormont House agreement, and which they are legally obliged to implement under the provisions of the 2020 regulations.
We take the recent delays in the implementation of the scheme extremely seriously. As I said, the Secretary of State has spoken to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to express his concern, and there have been multiple discussions with the parties in Northern Ireland. He will continue to raise this issue in his regular engagements with them, until such time as all parties, including Sinn Féin, have agreed a way forward.
We will continue to prioritise supporting the Executive in their delivery of the scheme for victims who have already waited too long. Officials from the Northern Ireland Office already provide support to the Executive Office on implementation, by advising officials about the intended effect of policy thinking behind the regulations. We stand ready to provide that guidance to the relevant Northern Ireland Department as soon as it is designated—this is a matter that that designation issue will unlock.
I appreciate the points that were raised about funding, but I wish to be clear that funding for the scheme is, and always was, to come from the block grant. This is a devolved matter, and devolved matters are traditionally funded from the block grant. Northern Ireland receives a generous financial settlement each year from the UK Government. It receives £12.6 billion for the block grant, and since January it has received £2 billion for the “New Decade, New Approach” programme, £1.2 billion in covid-19 support, and £216 million in the March Budget.
The Executive have tried to rely on a technical funding argument that because the UK Government decided the shape of the scheme, they should fund it. They also argued that it is our responsibility because the incidents took place largely during periods of direct rule. We are clear, however, that the Executive committed to establishing a scheme like this one in 2014, and the UK Government acted exceptionally in the absence of the Executive to legislate for it. Those were unprecedented times.
In the 2014 Stormont House agreement, the parties in Northern Ireland agreed that further work should be undertaken to seek an acceptable way forward and deliver on a scheme such as this. In the absence of an Executive, the UK Government consulted widely on our approach, including with the Northern Ireland parties, and in January we legislated to establish the scheme. We acted in a devolved area in exceptional circumstances—we have already heard about that today—and it is for the devolved Administration to fund the scheme. I agree with the hon. Lady that any attempt to reopen questions that have already been settled about the definition of victims, or the role of the independent panel, are totally unnecessary and would upset the vast majority of victims who we want to help with this scheme.
In conclusion, I reiterate the Secretary of State’s total commitment to seeing the Executive make progress on opening this scheme. The Executive are responsible for delivering this much needed scheme, and they must communicate a timetable for opening it urgently. The current delay and lack of clarity cannot be allowed to continue. Victims and survivors have waited too long, and the scheme must open as soon as reasonably practical.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I ask Members to keep their questions as concise as they can, because we have a lot of business today.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I commend the Government for the progress that they have made on this matter. I draw the Minister’s attention to the forthcoming report by Mr William Shawcross. Can he say how much tax has been received by Her Majesty’s Government on transactions involving Gaddafi-related frozen assets? Does he agree that it is morally questionable for the Treasury to be benefiting from those assets while Northern Ireland’s victims of Gaddafi-sponsored terrorism are being short-changed?
Mr Walker
I pay tribute to the work that my right hon. Friend did on this as a Minister. The Government take this issue extremely seriously, which is why the Foreign Secretary appointed William Shawcross as special representative on UK victims of Gaddafi-sponsored terrorism. Mr Shawcross’s role will help to inform the Government’s approach to this issue. His report was recently received by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and is currently under consideration. I do not have the answer to the detailed question that my right hon. Friend asks, but I think this will be a matter for the Foreign Office to take forward.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend and the Secretary of State on sorting out this problem of victims’ compensation, but may I ask my hon. Friend whether he is applying equal vigour to veterans who are still subject to vexatious claims from courts in Northern Ireland?
Mr Walker
My hon. and gallant Friend makes a very important point. Of course we are pressing forward with legacy proposals to make sure that veterans and victims alike can have certainty. We should focus on getting information for victims and make sure that people do have certainty, and we should not see vexatious claims of any nature. He is absolutely right that, as we move forward in providing proper treatment and support for victims, we must also take into account the position of those who served so well to protect many more people from becoming victims.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) to her role on the Front Bench and pay tribute to her predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), who did such a wonderful job in that position. I am sure she will do an excellent job too.
May I follow up on what the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) said? The Minister says that a technical funding argument is an excuse for holding up justice for victims in this instance. That sounds particularly empty as an excuse. Can he not be more specific about when we can expect to see the scheme opened?
Mr Walker
If I may correct the hon. Gentleman, I do not think I said it was an excuse. I think I made it very clear that it is not an excuse. This is a case of the Executive needing to get on and designate the Department, and then this can go ahead. There is no technical reason why any discussions about funding should hold this up. We need to move forward with the process. We have put the legislation in place, and it is in the hands of the Executive to nominate a Department to take that forward so that we can get on and do it.
Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
I join the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) in paying tribute both to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) in her new role and to her predecessor, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), who in my time as Secretary of State provided fair, reasonable and very constructive scrutiny of the work that I was doing. He was particularly keen that we should see progress in this area, and he raised it on a regular basis. I agreed with him that we needed to see progress made, and I commend my right hon. and hon. Friends the Minister and the Secretary of State for making that progress. However, does the Minister agree that too much time has been wasted arguing over small technicalities when, actually, the politicians need to put first the humanity of those victims—entirely innocent victims—who suffered? They have waited far too long for this money. They need it now.
Mr Walker
My right hon. Friend obviously speaks with considerable experience. She is absolutely right. We need to get on with this. We need to make sure that this is delivered as soon as possible. The kinds of arguments that she refers to have held this process up for far too long and have been settled. They are settled in the legislation. We now need to get on and make sure that the money starts flowing.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
It is not just frustrating; it is scandalous that the scheme and its implementation are being held up by Sinn Féin, who were so often responsible for the injuries that many victims experienced. Many of them have been left not just physically scarred but financially impoverished as a result of the damage that was done to them. But it is not just the designation that Sinn Féin is holding up; the financing of the scheme will be equally important. Despite what the Minister said, there was always an understanding that this would be financed outside the block grant. The scheme was widened by his predecessor, which made it more expensive, and there are many people outside Northern Ireland who will be able to qualify for the payments. It stands to reason that historical commitments and the financial obligations that are now in the scheme should result in at least some additional financial support being given to the Executive to ensure that payments can be made.
Mr Walker
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s call for these issues to be resolved and for the Executive to move forward on this. I recognise that the First Minister has made it absolutely clear that she is determined to move forward on this issue, so I think that is also welcome. With regard to the commitment to a victims payment scheme, it came out of the Stormont House agreement and was a commitment from the parties. The UK Government will absolutely meet their obligations with regard to financial support to the Executive which were made in New Decade, New Approach, and we continue to provide funding to the Executive on a range of issues, including legacy issues. Where he and I will perhaps part company is on the issue of it having been previously established that there would be a Treasury contribution. I think it is very clear that this is a devolved responsibility to take forward. It is vital that we build consensus on the way forward so that the Executive can deliver on that.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The Minister made mention of attempts to re-designate who would be classified as victims. Do such attempts include the likes of Gerry Adams, whose convictions for trying to escape from the Maze prison have recently been controversially quashed by the Supreme Court on the basis of a dubious technicality?
Mr Walker
My right hon. Friend tempts me to comment on individual cases, which of course I cannot. Let me take this opportunity to reiterate the point made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh). To reopen this question, which has been settled through consultation and legislation, would be a huge retrograde step. The issue is settled. We should now move forward and make sure we get on with providing compensation.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Again, I am speaking on behalf of and in agreement with the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry), who is unable to be here today. I thank the Minister for acknowledging the position of the Northern Ireland Justice Minister, Naomi Long, and her willingness to designate and administer the scheme. Does the Minister agree that the ongoing controversy around a victims’ pension illustrates the need for a comprehensive approach to legacy that promotes reconciliation?
Mr Walker
Yes, the hon. Lady is absolutely right. I think it is agreed on all sides of the debate in Northern Ireland that we need to get on and address legacy issues. I welcome the fact that Ministers from a range of parties have already indicated their willingness to move forward with this. We need to make sure that the last obstacles are removed.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
The Department of Justice stands ready to administer the scheme. The panel that has been set up will look at each case in its entirety and make an all-round judgment on it. My big worry is the victims who are, in many cases, in ill health and a difficult mental health situation. They are desperate for this to be resolved. I urge my hon. Friend to continue to press the Executive, to tell the Justice Department to get on with it, get the scheme going—the money will come—and get this thing started.
Mr Walker
Again, my right hon. Friend speaks with huge experience and is one of the people who has contributed most to this issue being as advanced as it is. I totally share his frustration and desire to see it resolved, and to see it move forward. I agree with him that by far the most important people in all this are the victims themselves.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Will the Minister outline exactly how he intends to operate the scheme, regardless of the machinations of Sinn Féin? How will he ensure that a scheme that is designated to acknowledge and support those who suffered innocently during the troubles is not used to traumatise them yet again through the despicable abuse of office by Sinn Féin? Will the Minister of State commit to take steps to rectify that abuse immediately?
Mr Walker
As I said in my statement, the Secretary of State is out there meeting with the parties and talking to the party leaders to address that very issue. I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the huge importance of moving forward with this issue, addressing it and removing any blockages. It is absolutely essential that we get on and deliver it in the interests of the victims. The last remaining hurdle is the issue of designation, which we need to make sure is crossed. It requires the Executive to reach an agreement, but I think it is very clear where the challenges to reaching the agreement lie.
Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that while we rightly remember those who lost their lives in the troubles, we perhaps do not talk enough about or remember those who were injured during the troubles and those who continue to live with the impact of those incidents every day?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend makes a really important point, and it is one of the points that we were seeking to address in the way we approached the victims’ payment scheme when it was consulted on and when it was set out. It is so true that there are so many people who suffered injuries, both physical and psychological, during the troubles who deserve our acknowledgement and support. That is one of the reasons why we want to get this scheme active as soon as possible.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
In my constituency of Upper Bann, hundreds of homes still bear the scars of the terrorist campaign that brought much needless bloodshed and loss of life to our community. The suffering of those victims of terrorism cannot continue amidst this wrangle. I welcome the Minister’s recognition that Sinn Féin is the stumbling block on this matter, but does he recognise that the legislation passed in this House enables victims throughout the UK to receive this pension? Has he done any costings for the full implementation of the scheme, and will he expect the Northern Ireland Executive to pay for those outside Northern Ireland and across the UK?
Mr Walker
The hon. Lady is right that the response to the consultation set out that this would cover victims across the UK, and that is built into the approach. She will recognise that the vast majority of victims—I think she made the point herself in terms of her own constituency—will be in Northern Ireland or from Northern Ireland. The basis of this scheme was what was agreed in the 2014 Stormont House agreement, and it was on that basis that it was something for the Executive to take forward. Of course, the UK Government want to support the Executive with that process, and we will continue to work closely with them to make sure it is delivered as effectively as possible across the whole of the UK.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
I commend the Government for the positive work they have done in this area, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith). As a former special adviser at the Ministry of Defence, I am very aware of the difficulties involved in the discussions relating to Northern Ireland. Does the Minister agree that it is right that we support all victims from all sides of the troubles, particularly as they approach old age, and does he share my hope that this will enable families and communities in Northern Ireland to move on from this difficult time?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend is spot on, and it is really important to recognise that the way in which this scheme has been set out has taken account of all shades of opinion. It has engaged with all communities and with victims’ groups on all sides, and our response to the consultation reflects that. It is one of the reasons why any hurdle at this stage is really unacceptable, and we should be getting on and delivering it.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I congratulate the shadow Secretary of State on getting this important matter on to the Floor of the House today. There was no Northern Ireland Government from 1972 until 1998. These victims were made during a period of extended direct rule, and these victims were made all across the United Kingdom. I welcome the letter today that the Minister has referred to: it blames Sinn Féin. For the first time, the Government have called Sinn Féin out on an issue. I welcome them doing that, but it would be completely incompatible with reality if—as I understand Mr Shawcross has recommended—payments were made to victims of Gaddafi-sponsored terrorism and yet our victims, who have a piece of legislation made in this place, cannot have money drawn down to them that they are completely entitled to. So I plead with the Minister to stop using Sinn Féin as an excuse now, break the logjam, push Sinn Féin out of the way and administer this money to victims all across the United Kingdom immediately.
Mr Walker
As always, the hon. Gentleman makes his case very powerfully, but he will recognise that the Executive committed to delivering a scheme of this nature six years ago and received a generous financial contribution connected to New Decade, New Approach and other provisions. It has revenue-raising capabilities, and it must make funding available for this scheme, which everyone agrees should exist. As I said earlier, the Shawcross report is being analysed by my colleagues at the Foreign Office, and I cannot go into any detail on its contents at this stage. But we all agree that we want to move this forward, and we all agree that the money should be made available as quickly as possible. That money can be made available as soon as the designated Department is sorted.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
In media interviews this morning, I think Sinn Fein seemed to accept that this is its responsibility, but tried to blame what it calls “discriminatory” rules. I have looked at the regulations, and the only thing that is ruled out in statute, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) has suggested, is if you yourself were involved in committing the terrorist offence that led to you being injured, and I think everyone would accept that that is reasonable. All other cases of convictions are for a judicially appointed panel to decide. That probably goes further than many would like, but it is necessary, I suspect, for reconciliation purposes. Therefore, is it not right that Sinn Fein recognises that this is a balanced settlement and that it should get out of the way and facilitate payments to victims on both sides of the communities in Northern Ireland for everyone’s benefit?
Mr Walker
Yes, my right hon. Friend is spot on, as he so often is. He is very much echoing the point made by those on the Opposition Front Bench that we should not be reopening arguments that have been settled and settled with great impartiality—settled with a really serious consultation process to look at how this could be done in as fair and impartial way as possible, and with a judicial element to that which protects the independence of decision making. I think we have found a way forward here, which is sensible and which can command support of all communities, and we should take it.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Thank you, Minister.
We now come to the potter’s wheel moment—for those of us of a certain age, and I am looking at Julian Lewis. For the safe exit and the safe arrival of Members, and also for any necessary hygiene, I am suspending the session for five minutes.
Abortion Regulations: Northern Ireland
Robin Walker Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the abortion regulations for Northern Ireland.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)
As the Minister responsible for this policy area, I shall answer the question.
The Government originally laid the Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020 in Parliament on 25 March on the provision of abortion services in Northern Ireland. The regulations came into force on 31 March 2020 and became law on access to abortion services in Northern Ireland. The regulations were originally required to be debated by 17 May to remain in force as law. However, the unprecedented situation created by covid-19 has impacted on parliamentary processes, and virtual voting systems were not yet fully implemented in time for the regulations to be debated in both Houses. Therefore the Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 were laid and came into force on 14 May, revoking the earlier regulations. That gives Parliament an extra 28 days to consider and scrutinise the regulations properly, given the nature of this policy.
This approach has ensured that the law on abortion in Northern Ireland itself, a requirement specified by the House in the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, continues to apply with no risk, gap or legal uncertainty, and services can continue on the same basis in Northern Ireland as they are currently operating. The regulations are due to be debated in the House in a Delegated Legislation Committee on Monday 8 June and in the Lords after that. I understand that a committee has been empanelled to consider the regulations. I welcome the fact that the right hon. Gentleman’s party will be represented on that committee so that its voice can be heard. That will be the appropriate time for a full debate on the regulations.
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson
I thank the Minister for his response. When this House voted for section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act, it was argued that Parliament had the right to legislate on abortion in Northern Ireland in the absence of a functioning Assembly. However, that Assembly has now been restored for almost five months, so it is absolutely not the right way forward for Parliament to vote on the regulations. That point is greatly strengthened by the fact that not only has the Assembly been restored, but on Tuesday this week it voted in a motion by an absolute majority to reject these unamendable regulations. An absolute majority of the Assembly of 90 Members voted to reject them. The will of the people of Northern Ireland has spoken.
The Government have said that their hands are tied because the law is clear: they must bring the regulations forward for a vote in Northern Ireland. However, having taken legal advice at the highest level, I discovered that the law is not at all clear on that. There is actually as good a legal argument that the Government are under no such obligation. In that regard, I note the submissions of huge importance to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee from two QCs who also argue that the Secretary of State is under no obligation to press the regulations to a vote. To do so will fundamentally breach the devolution settlement and cause a constitutional predicament of the Government’s own making.
The Secretary of State would also be well advised not to bring the regulations to a vote because they sanction abortion for non-fatal disability up to birth, something that around 75 Members of the Assembly this week voted against. It is unthinkable that the Government should present such a discriminatory provision, which was not even required by CEDAW.
As Heidi Crowter, the very powerful disability rights campaigner with Down’s syndrome has said:
“I would now call on the Government not to ask MPs and peers to vote for regulations that contain discriminatory provisions that tell people like me that we should not exist.”
I today would do the same. The Government should withdraw the regulations, respect the fact that devolution has been restored and, rather than seek to further undermine devolution, allow the Northern Ireland Assembly its rightful place to legislate on its own abortion law.
Mr Walker
I recognise that this is an issue on which the right hon. Gentleman and his party, as well as many others in Northern Ireland, have deeply held views, and I know that it is an extremely sensitive issue that many across the House have a deep interest in. I do not intend to rehearse matters of detail that we will rightly address in the Committee that has been convened to scrutinise the legislation.
The Government were placed under a statutory duty to deliver abortion law for Northern Ireland by implementing the recommendations of the CEDAW report. That duty came into effect, given that the Executive was not restored by 21 October 2019. That followed many months, if not years, of the issues receiving ongoing attention at Westminster on human rights grounds, including parliamentary questions, Committee inquiries, amendments to other legislation requiring the Government to report, and so on, leading to this particular amendment being voted through with a significant majority.
The statutory duty in section 9 of the EF Act did not fall away with the restoration of the Executive, nor with the making of the initial regulations that came into force on 31 March 2020. That is why we have had to re-lay the new regulations. Even if the regulations had not been approved by Parliament in time, or the deadline had not been met, the Government would still be under a statutory duty to introduce new regulations.
We have always been clear, when we consulted on this, that the consultation was about how we would deliver an abortion framework for Northern Ireland in line with the statutory duty that Parliament placed the Government under. It was not on whether the Secretary of State should be exercising this duty in the first place. That matter was decided by this sovereign Parliament. We think that, following the consultation and the publication of the Government’s response to that consultation, we have struck the appropriate balance in providing a framework that can be effectively commissioned in Northern Ireland and meet the needs of women and girls, as well as providing certainty and clarity for the medical professionals providing the service. We have always been clear that, in doing so, we would be respectful of the restored devolved institutions.
We hope that the regulations provide a solid framework for abortion services to be provided within Northern Ireland, although I appreciate that this remains a devolved issue and the Assembly can amend the regulations in future, subject to the usual Assembly and other procedures, including compliance with the European convention on human rights. Repealing section 9, which I know some in the right hon. Gentleman’s party have asked for, has never been a viable solution. This would have required primary legislation before Westminster, which would have been subject to a free vote on grounds of conscience, but we would still have a legal obligation to propose an alternative human rights-compliant model by 31 March to ensure we complied with convention rights.
Similarly, if the Executive and Assembly were to legislate for an alternative approach, it would still be required to be human rights and convention-compliant. I recognise that the Assembly did debate one aspect of the regulations on Tuesday—severe foetal impairment—and passed a motion stating that it does not support the provision allowing for abortions in cases of severe foetal impairment without time limit. While I respect the Assembly’s right to state its position on this, it does not have any bearing on the legal obligations that have been placed on us by this Parliament. Unfortunately, the motion that the Assembly debated and backed proposed no solution that would deliver a CEDAW-compliant regime in this regard.
The sensitive issue of severe foetal impairment has long been debated over many years right across the UK, and I recognise the strength of feeling on all sides of the debate, many of which have been expressed in this House over recent years. The Government are, however, under a clear statutory duty to allow for access to abortions in cases of both severe foetal impairment and fatal foetal abnormalities, and this is what we have delivered. This is also consistent with the provision in the rest of the UK under the Abortion Act 1967. We consider the regulations in this regard to be compatible with the requirements under the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.
We recognise that these are difficult decisions, particularly so far as fatal foetal abnormalities or severe foetal impairment are concerned, which often occur late in wanted pregnancies, and it is right that women have the time to be able to make individual informed decisions, based on their own health and wider circumstances, in consultation with medical professionals. Putting in place proper support and provision of information to support women in making these informed decisions, including where women want to carry such pregnancies to term, is an operational issue for the Department of Health in Northern Ireland to take forward, as part of commissioning and overseeing abortion services as a new health service, consistent with the regulations. We have written to the Department on this point and stand ready to support it.
The Government stand ready to provide whatever support and guidance we can to both the Northern Ireland Minister of Health and the Department of Health to assist them in progressing work to set up these abortion services in line with the new legislative framework. I look forward to debating the detail of that framework next week.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Progressing these regulations now that Stormont has returned and following Tuesday’s decision there would show a profound lack of respect for the people of Northern Ireland and their elected representatives, and the rushed manner in which they were proceeded with here has thrown up deep flaws. Sex-selective abortion is not lawful here. It has been described by the Government here as abhorrent, yet the Northern Ireland regulations allow abortion for any reason up to 12 weeks, with no prohibition on sex-selective abortions. It is now possible to tell the sex of an unborn child between seven and 10 weeks. Women could even travel here from Northern Ireland for a sex-selective abortion. Does the Minister think this Parliament really intended this, and does it not show why these rushed regulations should be scrapped and the issue properly returned to Stormont?
Mr Walker
I respect the strength of feeling that my hon. Friend has always deployed on this issue. The UK Government take the issue of sex-selective abortions very seriously. They publish an annual analysis on the male to female birth ratio for England and Wales to see if there is any evidence for this. The most recent analysis was published in October 2019, and it found no evidence that sex-selective abortions are occurring in Great Britain. The regulations for Northern Ireland do not make any reference to sex-selective abortion and they follow the same approach as the UK on this issue.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
This urgent question this morning is on an extremely sensitive subject—perhaps the most sensitive of subjects that we as legislators can debate—and I, as the Minister has done, acknowledge the strength of feeling already expressed today and earlier this week in Stormont. But the task now for Westminster is implementing a law that already stands. In 2019, this place passed the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act, which has taken legal effect. Abortion is now legal in Northern Ireland, and women there are entitled to the same rights and services as women in all other parts of the United Kingdom. We are now tasked with implementing the regulations setting out the legal framework that will bring Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the UK.
Although abortion is legal in Northern Ireland today, there is limited provision available and more needs to be done to get a full service up and running, so will the Minister commit to working with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland to ensure the full implementation of services as set out in the legal framework and to fulfil the UK’s international human rights obligations? As he has said, that responsibility remains with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
Labour supported the recommendations of the United Nations convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women—CEDAW—and we are supportive of the regulations to be debated on Monday that provide safe, legal and accessible abortion services to women in Northern Ireland. We heard last year that the CEDAW report deemed that abortion law in Northern Ireland created a “grave and systematic” violation of rights, and in our own Supreme Court in 2018, the position was deemed untenable. It was seen to be treating women like vehicles and was found to be incompatible with article 8 of the European convention on human rights. We cannot pick and choose which parts of CEDAW or our international human rights obligations we do or do not like, and CEDAW explicitly recommended legislation on severe foetal impairment. That is not today’s debate, however.
As we look forwards, not backwards, will the Minister commit to a timeline for the full provision of services? Regarding signposting and the availability of current services, will he confirm what steps he has taken to ensure that public information is available, and will he further confirm that telemedicine, which is available in England, Wales and Scotland during this pandemic, will be made available to the women of Northern Ireland?
Mr Walker
I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for setting out the position so clearly from the perspective of the Labour party. I recognise that it is a responsibility of the United Kingdom Government to deliver on our international human rights obligations. She is absolutely right in that respect. With regard to implementation, clearly this is now a responsibility for the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, and it is something on which we have written to that Department. We have written to other Departments that have responsibilities in this regard to ensure that the full detail of what was recommended in the CEDAW report is addressed, and the details of that are set out in the Government’s response to the consultation.
In terms of timelines, we all recognise that there have been additional pressures placed on services, and health services in particular, by the covid situation, so while it is the case that the full range of services are not available in Northern Ireland, we will continue to fund and support the travel for those—hopefully very few—women who will need to travel to the rest of the UK for terminations. The hon. Lady is right to say that we have an ongoing responsibility on this, and we will engage with that. We will continue to engage with the Department of Health to ensure that the full provisions are delivered on.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I thank the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) for bringing this urgent question. Although I agree with him on most things, he will know that this is not one of them. My views have been founded on the experiences I had when meeting women in particular in Northern Ireland and the experiences that they had to go through in order for the law to be changed. We had to work very hard in this Chamber to get the law changed, but it has been changed. I would respectfully mention that it was not just a question of the Assembly and the Executive not being formed in Northern Ireland; it was also a question of treaty obligations not being followed, and it was the role of Parliament to ensure that they were followed. Regardless, I want to ask the Minister this question. I appreciate his saying that we will follow the law, but will he put more pressure than just written pressure on the Department of Health? There are women beyond the 10-week gestation period who are getting no service provision at all, and that means that the law that we in this place moved to an Act is not being followed. That surely cannot be right.
Mr Walker
I recognise the strength of feeling that my hon. Friend expresses, and his experience of meeting directly with some of the women affected by this. As part of the consultation process, I have also met some of those people, and their stories are in many cases harrowing, so he makes a powerful case. Absolutely, yes, we will continue not just to write to the Department of Health but to provide all the support that we can in getting it to implement this. It is important to recognise that this law is already in force and in effect, but this House will debate it in Committee in the coming week, and I hope that it will then be absolutely clear that the House fully supports these regulations and wants to see them observed. That in itself will send a message to the Executive.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Could the Minister of State further outline the reasoning behind the refusal to repeal the Act and instead allow the Northern Ireland Assembly to take the reins? Before the initial vote in this place, Ministers and Members underlined that this should be a devolved matter but that if the Assembly had not reconvened, Westminster would step in. Now that the Assembly is convened, this week the people of Northern Ireland have spoken through their elected representatives, and they have spoken in a largely ignored consultation process. Now we are speaking about this again in this House. Will the Minister revert to the democratically approved method? Let the Northern Ireland representatives and the people of Northern Ireland decide. That is really where it should be done—not here.
Mr Walker
I have great sympathy for where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, in terms of the fact that the Assembly should have decided on this issue some time ago. It was a responsibility incumbent on the Assembly before it broke up to address this issue in a way that would satisfy our human rights obligations. Unfortunately, it did not, and to date it has still not agreed a way forward on this issue. As he will know, the legislation passed by this House set a deadline of 21 October for the Assembly to be back in place, beyond which the responsibility to legislate was placed on to this House, and that is the law by which we are bound.
With regard to the suggestion that the hon. Gentleman and others have made to simply repeal section 9 of the Act, that would not excise from the Government its wider human rights obligations or the responsibility of this House to deliver on our human rights commitments. We would still have a responsibility to deliver on this, unless the Northern Ireland Assembly had taken it upon itself to do so. I would point out that the Northern Ireland Assembly can reform and take forward these regulations, so long as it does so in a way that is compliant with our human rights obligations and CEDAW.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
It is worth saying that these regulations do reflect the very sensitive situation in Northern Ireland on conscientious objection and the locations that abortions can be performed in. I support the Minister of State in saying that we did give an option, at every stage since the Act was passed last year, for politicians to get back into power and shape these reforms. I urge him to keep pushing forward and have the best interests of women and girls at the forefront of his mind.
Mr Walker
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have to keep the best interests of women and girls at the forefront of our minds throughout this process. He is also right about the sensitivity with which we have approached this process. I should perhaps thank him for the fact that I am here at the Dispatch Box, as he was the person who gave me responsibility for this. Throughout the process, he has shown extreme sensitivity to the concerns of women and girls in Northern Ireland and the deeply held views on both sides of the debate. It is absolutely right that we should do that.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Northern Ireland Assembly has expressed a view, with a clear majority not supporting the proposed regulations on abortion. For another legislature to impose these abortion regulations cuts right across the Assembly and the principles set out in the Good Friday agreement and shows an imperialist contempt for devolution. It is time for real pragmatism. It is not beyond the wit of this House to be respectful of the devolution deal and to enable the Northern Ireland Assembly to move this legislation forward. Why will the Minister not do that?
Mr Walker
As I made clear in my response to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), the Northern Ireland Assembly can take this issue forward, but it needs to do so on a basis that is CEDAW compliant and consistent with our human rights obligations. This House does have a standing in that respect, to ensure that we live up to those human rights obligations. Many of the hon. Lady’s colleagues have recognised that and supported the legislation, which required us to take further action. It is important that we move forward in a way that is respectful of the devolved settlement but also recognises our fundamental commitment to human rights, including the rights of women and girls.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I was under the impression that these regulations were no more liberal than those in the rest of Great Britain. I am a bit worried by some of the questioning, which might imply they are not. Can my hon. Friend reassure me that the regulations will simply be a reflection of what is happening in England, Scotland and Wales?
Mr Walker
My hon. and gallant Friend makes a very important point. I direct him to the Government’s detailed response to the consultation, in which we set out the importance of using the legal basis that has been established in England, Scotland, Wales for this process and ensuring that we stick to it as closely as possible, particularly on issues such as conscientious objection. There is a fundamental difference in how the regulations have had to be built up because of the way the EF Act repealed the illegality of abortion before putting in place the new framework. Whereas the Abortion Act 1967 works on the basis that abortion is illegal unless carried out under that Act, in Northern Ireland we have had to build up a framework and then say that everything outside that framework is illegal. That is the reason for the main differences between this and the framework in England and Wales. However, our approach throughout the design of this framework is to ensure that the outcomes are as consistent as possible.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I am speaking on behalf of, and in agreement with, my hon. Friend the Member for North Down (Stephen Farry), who was unable to travel here today at short notice. He has asked me to note that there is considerable support among people and elected representatives in Northern Ireland for CEDAW-compliant regulations. Does the Minister now agree that the priority must be to ensure the full commissioning of services, rather than the current piecemeal interim provision?
Mr Walker
The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and I know that the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) would have expressed that view had he been in the House today. It is vital that we get the services in place as quickly as possible. We recognise the additional pressures facing the Department of Health as a result of covid and we want to support it with that, but it is right that we should end a situation whereby women and girls from Northern Ireland have to undergo travel to access these services. Putting in place a proper CEDAW-compliant system will do that.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
These regulations enshrine a more liberal abortion regime in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the United Kingdom, against the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland and against the spirit and principle of devolution. I am grateful to the Minister for his engagement on this issue so far, and I appreciate that he feels that the Government are under an obligation to bring these regulations forward, but is he aware of the eminent legal opinion that the Secretary of State has already met his obligations under the emergency powers Act, and that now the Assembly is restored he is free to withdraw those regulations? That is something that the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy)—who is otherwise engaged—recognised in the debate on her amendment to the legislation last year, when she said that if Stormont was up and running, it would be absolutely not the right thing to do to impose regulations on Northern Ireland from London. She was right then, and will my hon. Friend heed the call from Northern Ireland to allow Stormont to decide whether it wants a more liberal regime than in the rest of the UK?
Mr Walker
I absolutely respect my hon. Friend’s views, but I disagree with him about the regime being more liberal than in the rest of the UK. We set out the detail of that in our response to the consultation and the detailed reasoning that the Government have provided in that respect. However, it is in the hands of the Assembly to propose reforms and a way forward on the regulations, so long as it can do so in a way that is CEDAW compliant. I would be very happy for it to take that opportunity. There is nothing to prohibit it doing so, and it is a matter of regret that, having been in place for a number of months before the regulations came into force, it has not. However, my firm understanding of the advice that the Government have received is that the legal obligations on us to ensure a human rights-compliant model in every part of the UK, including Northern Ireland, remain in place.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The Minister has to be absolutely clear about this. CEDAW does not require legislation for a full-term terminations. CEDAW does not require regulations for disability terminations. CEDAW does not require regulations for sex-selection terminations. That is that what is going to happen in Northern Ireland as a result of what has occurred in this place. On Tuesday, 78 MLAs, from a total of 90, rejected the CEDAW recommendations in a series of votes in the Assembly, whether the Minister likes it or not. They were right to do that, and if the Minister really wants to respect the Assembly, and indeed this place, he should urge the Assembly to go back, give it the space it needs and allow it to legislate on these matters and come to its own conclusions. That is the democratic thing to do, the right thing to do and the appropriate thing to do, and it is in line with what the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) said when she addressed the House on 9 July last year. I urge the Minister to allow that to happen and not brush this hideous vista under the carpet.
Mr Walker
Again, I respect the hon. Gentleman’s view, but the Government have been clear about what we are legally required to do under the EF Act. That has not changed. We have to bring in a set of regulations that comply with CEDAW, which specified that in cases of severe foetal impairment there would have to be the ability to have terminations. As the hon. Gentleman will recognise, many of those cases become apparent only late in term. It was therefore necessary to address that CEDAW requirement in the way that we have. However, I encourage the Assembly to engage with this issue and ensure that it can in future assess details of the framework and look at aspects of the issue to meet the rights obligations constructively. Any consensus that can be built in the Assembly on those matters would be extremely welcome
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I again welcome the Government’s work to ensure that, after many decades, women in Northern Ireland have proper access to abortion, as women in the rest of the UK do. I particularly thank the Minister for the way in which he is handling the matter. I think the whole House greatly appreciates that. The Government are quite properly protecting those women’s human rights and rights under international conventions. I thank the women who have had the courage to speak out about their experiences, which has shed so much light on these issues.
Last year, the Women and Equalities Committee identified a lack of medical facilities and clinical expertise on abortion in Northern Ireland because of the climate of fear on the matter in the Province. How will the Minister ensure that, in the absence in Northern Ireland of a separate, independent regulatory body overseeing the provision of health services, the regulations are put into practice? Will the Department of Health in Northern Ireland have a clear legal duty to ensure that facilities are in place? How will my hon. Friend ensure that they are in place in rural areas as well as towns, and that he gets independent advice on whether our international obligations are being acted upon?
Mr Walker
My right hon. Friend, who played a significant role as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee in the genesis of all this, makes important points. She will recognise that many aspects of implementation are in the hands of the Northern Ireland Department of Health, but she raises some extremely important matters, all of which we discussed during the consultation with some of the key medical professional bodies with which we engaged. She mentioned facilities and training. Those are important aspects of what will need to be delivered, but those responsibilities now fall on the Northern Ireland Department of Health. I assure my right hon. Friend that we will provide them with the support that they need. I know that my colleagues in the Department for Health and Social Care are also keen to lean in and provide any support on that front. We want this to move forward quickly. We recognise that the focus on covid-19 has presented specific challenges in the short term, but we want to ensure that the full range of services is available as soon as possible so that we can meet the challenge of providing human rights-compliant services to women and girls in Northern Ireland.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
“It makes me feel like I shouldn’t exist.” Those are the words of Heidi Crowter, who was born with Down’s syndrome. The Government, whether we like it or not, continue to ride roughshod over the devolved Administration in Northern Ireland. They are discriminating against people who have non-fatal disabilities and going far beyond their legal requirement. They have implemented the most liberal abortion laws in the whole of Europe. Will the Minister recognise the severe offence that the regulations cause to people with disabilities and also that the clear will of the devolved institutions is that the regulations are not wanted in Northern Ireland? What is the Minister’s message today to Heidi Crowter, who says that she feels she should not exist in this society if the regulations go ahead? [Interruption.] As I stand in this House, speaking on something I feel passionately about, I hear a little baby cry. I heard my own baby cry at 5 o’clock this morning—quite early. Both lives matter. It is not just about women’s health, but about both lives. It is not the Government’s right to impose such liberal abortion laws on Northern Ireland that will see abortion up to birth for disability.
Mr Walker
The hon. Lady speaks very powerfully, as she always does, on this issue. Of course, nobody in the House wants to regulate or legislate in any way to the detriment of people with disabilities. We rightly have a huge body of legislation in this country to protect the rights of people with disabilities. It is not for the Government—and it is not the approach we take in the rest of the UK—to list specific conditions that it may or not be decided constitute severe foetal impairment.
This is an individual decision for each woman to make following medical assessments, the clear provision of information and proper support for medical professionals and others. In this respect, the law that we are introducing in Northern Ireland reflects the law in the rest of GB. Addressing SFI was a specific requirement of the CEDAW report, which is why it is included in the regulations.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) on securing this urgent question. He knows that I agree with him on most things, but I respectfully disagree with him on this. Does the Minister agree that the laws we had to pass here in July and the regulations and framework that his Department has produced better align Northern Ireland with the rest of the United Kingdom in this respect and indeed with the Republic of Ireland and that, like same-sex marriage, we know from the data available that they accord pretty much with the overwhelming view of the people of Northern Ireland?
Mr Walker
I agree with my right hon. Friend, who speaks with considerable experience in these matters, from his time as a Minister and Chair of the Select Committee. As we have set out in our consultation response, it is important that wherever possible we make sure the outcomes of the regulations in Northern Ireland are aligned with the outcomes in the rest of GB. It is important both because it is the right thing to do fundamentally—as a Unionist I believe it is the right thing to do—and because the approach in the rest of the UK has been legally tested and found to be compliant with the relevant human rights law. For those reasons, he is right to make that point.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
We all recognise that this is a difficult issue for many and that there are strongly held views on all sides of this debate, but one reason the House stood up for the human rights of all women in the United Kingdom was that just because it was difficult did not mean their rights should be denied, and devolution does not absolve us of our responsibility to uphold the human rights of every UK citizen. I respect the Minister’s argument—[Interruption.] —as does my daughter—that human rights are at the heart of this and that the Assembly should come up with alternative proposals if it does not like the regulations, because not to propose regulations would mean further delay and possibly women making unsafe choices in Northern Ireland because there is not clarity about the services available to them.
I want to press the Minister on something he said. He recognises that travelling is not a sustainable option and that many women cannot travel—indeed, in the current crisis it is unacceptable. When we talk about these cases, let us also talk about the case of Sarah Jane Ewart, an incredibly brave woman who had to come forward. Her baby had a fatal foetal abnormality, and at the moment there is no provision to support anybody else in her tragic, horrific position in Northern Ireland. The Minister says he wants to see the Department of Health in Northern Ireland providing these services. What is his plan if the Northern Ireland Assembly continues to say it will not commission these services? How do we uphold the rights in CEDAW that we have said every woman in the United Kingdom is entitled to be covered by?
Mr Walker
The hon. Lady makes an important point. I recognise that, along with thanking the former Secretary of State, I can probably thank her for the fact that I am here answering this urgent question. It is important that we end the need to travel, which is what these regulations properly implemented should do. She will recognise that that cannot necessarily be done instantly, because of issues with facilities, training and other such things that my right hon. Friend the former Chair of the Select Committee has raised. We recognise that fact in continuing to fund and support travel in the interim. As I have said, however, we will work with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, provide it with the support it needs and continue to engage with the relevant medical bodies to make sure that this process can be completed as quickly as possible. I join her in once again urging the Assembly to engage and support this actively in order to make sure we have a set of measures in place that can deliver for women and girls in Northern Ireland.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for the sensitive and careful way he has approached these regulations. Does he agree that for every eminent legal opinion there is always an opposing view and that the right place to scrutinise that is in Committee, where these regulations will shortly be, and that the right thing for the Government to do is to uphold the CEDAW regulations, be compliant with our human rights obligations and do the right thing by all women and girls in the United Kingdom?
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
To follow on from the comments from the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), which I completely endorse, there is an incredibly moving account by a 24-year-old lady, Heidi Crowter. Heidi said that the proposed regulations make her feel “unloved” as they permit abortion up to birth if a child has been diagnosed with Down’s syndrome, but only up to 24 weeks if the baby has no disability. This House has a responsibility to send out a clear signal that all lives matter and all lives have an intrinsic human value. On listening to Heidi’s account, will the Government not reconsider these regulations and ensure that they do not allow abortion on the grounds of non-fatal abnormalities?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend makes his case very powerfully, as does Heidi Crowter. I want to be very clear that this Government believe in supporting the rights of people with disabilities and do not in any way see these regulations as impinging on those. The regulations mirror the law in the rest of the UK, where abortions are permitted in cases of severe foetal impairment and fatal foetal abnormality, with no time limit. The Abortion Act does not define what conditions fit within this meaning, but similarly, it is an individual’s decision based on proper medical assessments and advice and other relevant provision of information and support.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
Recognising the extremely sensitive and important issue that this is, will my hon. Friend provide an assurance as to the robustness of consultation on both sides of this debate?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend raises a really important point. This was a long and serious consultation in which we engaged with a huge variety of groups, from some of the medical professionals and royal colleges concerned to a number of the campaign groups and church groups from Northern Ireland, and all the parties were approached as part of this consultation. It is very important that we have listened to the views of all sides, but we were always clear, in opening the consultation, that this was about how we did this and not whether we did it, because there was a legal requirement on us to do it.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the Minister as we move on to the next urgent question. Exceptionally, if not uniquely, it will be responded to by the same Minister, so we will pause for up to a minute while those who wish to leave the Chamber can do so while safely distancing, and others can occupy their positions.