Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Garnier]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). I am sorry that he has been misdescribed as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) on the Annunciator. I do not think that either he or my hon. Friend has any doubt about who they are, and, having listened to the hon. Gentleman speak in the House for the past 20 or so years, I certainly have no doubt as to who he is. Had he been able to be here on time today, his ears would have been burning as the Minister and others praised him for his campaign on this matter. However, it is a pleasure to see him here now, even if he has been described as Stephen Barclay on the Annunciator.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Members do not need to get excited. One of the Annunciators is correct; the other is not working. However, I know what is going on, so we can proceed.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

As my father used to say, Madam Deputy Speaker, “There is no point in having two clocks if they both tell the same time.”

I want briefly to respond to what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire said about his new clause 28. Having spent quite a lot of my time as a Government Law Officer and having subsequently taken an interest in financial crime, I was much taken by what he had to say. My only suggestion would be that, rather than limiting himself to a further 31 days, he should propose—

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[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss New clause 25 —Termination of pregnancy on grounds of sex of foetus—

‘(1) The Secretary of State shall arrange for an assessment to be made of the evidence of termination of pregnancy on the grounds of the sex of the foetus in England, Wales and Scotland.

(2) The arrangements made under subsection (1) shall be such as to enable publication of the assessment by the Secretary of State within 6 months of the date of Royal Assent to this Act.

(3) The Secretary of State shall consider the assessment made under subsection (1) and—

(a) determine and publish a strategic plan to tackle substantiated concerns identified in the assessment made under subsection (1); or

(b) publish a statement and explanation in relation to why a plan under subsection (3)(a) is not required.

(4) Any strategic plan under subsection (3)(a) must include, but need not be limited to, steps—

(a) to promote change in the social and cultural patterns of behaviour with a view to eradicating prejudices, customs, traditions and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority of women and which may amount to pressure to seek a termination on the grounds of the sex of the foetus;

(b) to ensure best practice exists in identifying women being coerced or pressured into seeking a termination on the grounds of the sex of the foetus, or at risk of being so, and in the provision of protection and support to potential victims; and

(c) to promote guidance to service providers, health professionals and other stakeholders.

(5) The Secretary of State must lay a copy of the plan, determined under subsection (3)(a), before each House of Parliament within 6 months of the publication date of the assessment under subsection (2).’

[Fiona Bruce]

New clause 1, which I wish to be put to a vote, is supported by more than 100 MPs. The arguments for it are straightforward. First, it is to clarify beyond doubt, in statute, that sex-selective abortion is illegal in UK law. This new clause is not seeking to change the law on abortion, as some have said, but to confirm and clarify it. It also provides the Government with an opportunity to address the problem by bringing forward best practice regulations and guidance to support and protect women at risk.

New clause 1 is necessary because there is no explicit statement about gender selective abortion in UK law. The law is being interpreted in different ways because when the Abortion Act 1967 was passed, scans to determine the sex of the foetus were not available. That has led to a huge amount of confusion and mixed messages. That is despite the fact that the Government have repeatedly said that abortion on the grounds of gender alone is illegal. Health Ministers have said so; the Prime Minister has said so; the Department of Health has published guidance to that effect; and the chief medical officer has written to doctors about it. Despite all of that, abortion providers and others, staggeringly, are still refusing to accept the Government’s interpretation of the law.

Only last week, the country’s largest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, republished its controversial guidance in a booklet entitled, “Britain’s abortion law: what it says and why”. The following question is posed: is abortion for reasons of foetal sex illegal under the Abortion Act? To this, it answers, “No, the law is silent on the matter.” The former Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has said:

“The law does not in terms expressly prohibit gender-specific abortions.”

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[Sir Edward Garnier]

The arguments that the hon. Lady is making are those that I have read and that have persuaded me against supporting new clause 1, which I had originally intended to do when it was first mooted. I am persuaded that the real difficulty we face is getting evidence to court, and nothing that my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) has said will improve the quality of the evidence. I horribly disapprove—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. This is not an opportunity for the hon. and learned Gentleman to make a speech. This debate must end at 9 o’clock and many Members wish to speak, so interventions must be brief. I think that we have the gist of what he was saying—

[Sir Edward Garnier]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

No, I think that we have the gist. Thank you.

[Ann Coffey]

I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman has made his point.

I agree that the connection between cultural preferences for one sex and the factors that might then lead to a state of inconsolable distress for the pregnant woman needs to be better understood to enable us to protect women from coercion and to support them in their pregnancies. We should certainly look at the facts before agreeing to any change in the wording of the 1967 Act, because we must be careful not to worsen the situation for already vulnerable women.

New clause 1 assumes that restating that sex-selective abortion is illegal will offer women protection from pressure to terminate their pregnancies, but women subject to intolerable pressure to abort will continue to be subject to coercion. My concern is about how women would interpret the inclusion of the new clause. They might feel that Parliament has legislated that if the sex of the child is at all an issue, irrespective of their mental distress, they will not have access to a termination. Sometimes it is not what legislation says that has a powerful effect on behaviour, but what people believe it says. That might lead them to pursue alternative routes as a first resort, rather than a last one. We do not want to go back to the days of the botched backstreet abortions that took place prior to the 1967 Act, which throughout the ages have been the resort of desperate women. I remember the lengths to which women would go to terminate their pregnancies prior to that Act, in spite of the risks to their own health.

If the assessment that we propose uncovers substantiated concerns that there is pressure to seek terminations on the grounds of gender, we need to put in place a plan to deal with what is giving rise to those pressures and how we can better support women who might be being coerced. That is the proposal in the second part of new clause 25. I hope that in bringing forward those proposals there would be extensive consultation with women from all cultural backgrounds.

Finally, I would like to share a story with Members. On a recent train journey I started talking with an Asian woman who was originally from Bangladesh. In the course of the conversation she showed me a photo of her three daughters, who are now grown up. I said that they were beautiful and how lucky she was to have three daughters, at which point she looked very distressed. She then told me that she had never enjoyed any of her pregnancies because she knew that she was carrying a girl and that her then husband saw girls as being of no value and, in turn, viewed her as having no value as a wife because she had not produced a son. He eventually abandoned her. However, I am happy to report that my travelling companion went on to have her own career and that her girls are confident young women who are finding their own ways in life.

When I asked her what she thought could be done about those attitudes to girls, she said that the answer was education, education, education. She of course is right. We understand that from our own history of fighting for women’s equality—a fight that many of us still feel is a work in progress. I hope that this cross-party amendment will be supported by the House and that it will mean that when the Secretary of State reports back in six months’ time on her assessment, with accompanying proposals, we will be better informed about a way forward in addressing concerns that I agree we should not ignore. No woman should feel pressured into seeking a termination for any reason, including gender.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. May I ask Members to make their comments very brief, because the debate will end at 9 pm and I want to get in as many as I can?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Many Members, including myself, strongly support new clause 1 as a means of clarifying the law to make it absolutely clear that sex-selective abortion, which is plainly discriminatory, is illegal in the United Kingdom. In so doing, we seek to inspire the Government to develop interventions that will address the issue of why boys are more desired than girls—the issue of son preference.

In setting out my position, I want to address head on the argument that the new clause will criminalise women. That is not the case: the legal standing of women would in no way be changed, but doctors would instead be held to account, and rightly so. Sex-selective abortion is already illegal in the United Kingdom. In fact, the Prime Minister suggested in March 2014 that abortion on the grounds of gender was not only unacceptable, but illegal. It is alarming that medical organisations, such as the British Medical Pregnancy Advisory Service and the British Medical Association, have suggested that that is not the case, or that at the very least the law is silent on the matter. That must be addressed.