Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill

Debate between Anna Soubry and Christine Jardine

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I rise to speak in support of new clause 7, and I urge hon. Members on both sides of the House to support this really meek and mild amendment. It really should not be causing so much agitation, and I think we have to ask ourselves why it is doing so in certain quarters of the House. As many of us discovered when we went to Northern Ireland as guests of Amnesty International, the simple truth is that the laws in Northern Ireland are at best antiquated and at worst barbaric. God forbid that a member of any hon. Member’s family who lived in Northern Ireland were to be raped, but if that woman then found herself to be pregnant, she would not be allowed to terminate her pregnancy even if she had been raped by a member of her own family. She would have no rights and no choice.

In this matter, I have never sought to impose my views on anybody else, but women and young children throughout Northern Ireland have none of the choices that our own constituents have. I met a woman there who was diagnosed with a foetal abnormality when she was 23 weeks pregnant. This was her third attempt to have a child through in vitro fertilisation, and she and her husband were distraught when they were told that their child would die either in the womb or within hours of being born. If they were my constituents, they would have had a choice. They would have been able to talk to their doctor and go through all the available options and, if they so chose, they could have had a termination. That woman was denied all that. She could not even come to England to terminate her pregnancy. She carried that child for 11 weeks as it grew within her womb, with people saying to her, “When is your baby due?” She had to tell them, “My baby is going to die in my womb or it will die within hours of it being delivered.” She had to look at prams, cots and Moses baskets and know that she would never put her child, carried in her womb, into any of them. Her baby did die in the womb, 11 weeks after the diagnosis of a foetal abnormality, and she carried a dead baby for three days before she was finally induced. She gave birth to a baby girl who was decomposing.

Colleagues, right hon. and hon. Members, that is the situation that pertains in Northern Ireland, and new clause 7 seeks not to change that barbaric law, which we want to change—that is why many of us voted with the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) yesterday—but to maintain the rights of our fellow citizens of this proud United Kingdom. It merely asks that their human rights are properly monitored and does nothing more than that. I urge Members to vote for new clause 7, and the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), who is not in his place, also urges and reminds colleagues that his Marriage (Same Sex Couples) (Northern Ireland) (No.2) Bill returns to this place on Friday. New clause 7 is a matter not just of conscience, but of decent humanity. It is about ensuring that everybody in the United Kingdom has these basic human rights.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her comments about amendment 22 and simply urge her to continue to pursue the creation of pensions for the 500 people who are suffering from severe physical injuries as a result of the conflict.

I also rise to support new clause 7, and I will be brief because the situation is simple for me. I have defended and promoted devolution for a decade, but I never thought it would be used as a means of abrogating responsibility for the human rights of anyone within the United Kingdom. It is astonishing that my daughter, who lives in Scotland, could perhaps take up a job in Northern Ireland and then lose the rights that she was born with in the United Kingdom. That cannot be acceptable to anyone in this House, but there are people within the UK who do not have the rights that those of us who sit here today enjoy. New clause 7 would help to put that right, and we should support it.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I had not intended to speak, but I listened to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and with great attention to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) who, as the Secretary of State said, argued her case with fluidity, passion and an exemplary understanding of the issues, referring back to the ten-minute rule Bill speech of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson). Irrespective of what side of the abortion debate line one might find oneself falling, nobody will doubt the passion that the issue evokes or the concern that is expressed.

However, I do say—before anyone starts shouting at me, this may not be the right word to use—that there is a cruelty implicit in new clause 7. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that the Bill’s purpose is not to create new law and that civil servants are not empowered to create new law, the hon. Member for Walthamstow said that her intention is not to ride a coach and horses through or to undermine in any way either the Good Friday agreement or the legitimacy of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe—she is a friend—spoke convincingly and movingly. The cruelty of new clause 7 is that, if it is passed, it will raise a huge amount of hope—although not among everyone in the community of Northern Ireland—but it will not address or deliver on that hope. The cases that she cites would in no way be alleviated or resolved by new clause 7. Those who seek a termination will still have to travel to the mainland, but a huge amount of hope would be raised.

We understand, and the hon. Member for Walthamstow understands, the minutiae of new clause 7. And the Secretary of State, because she is advised by a phalanx of officials, understands what the new clause means in law.