Abortion in Northern Ireland

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Layla Moran

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend has been a powerful voice on this issue, along with other colleagues, over the last period. I know that a number of people appreciate the support he has given and everything he has done to make sure that women and girls in Northern Ireland get the right support and care. He is absolutely right: we really should not be in a position where people have to bring this matter to court individually in order to get the right healthcare. Parliament has put a legal obligation on us. There is now a legal requirement and a legal duty. I hope the Department of Health in Northern Ireland will take this forward itself, but we obviously have a legal and moral obligation in this House to follow through on the legal obligations that were put in place in 2019.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD) [V]]

I thank the Secretary of State for his robust defence of the human rights of women in Northern Ireland. I wonder whether he is aware of the troubling reports of women being wilfully misled by anti-abortion organisations, which encourage them towards anti-choice clinics, disguising themselves as abortion services. These clinics then string the women along until they are over 10 weeks, so ensuring that they cannot access early medical abortions in Northern Ireland.

That is happening because of a failure to commission services as there is not a clear pathway to abortion services. Have the Government made an assessment of how many women have been prevented from accessing early medical abortion services because they are being directed to these clinics?

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. Even putting aside the legal and moral obligations of this House to ensure that the right healthcare is being provided in Northern Ireland, doing nothing, as some people may make a case for—I understand the sensitivities behind this—does not actually mean that nothing is happening. Doing nothing actually means that people are at risk of the kind of problems and misleading guidance and advice that the hon. Lady has rightly outlined.

There is also a risk that people turn to unofficial, shall we say, healthcare—inappropriate healthcare—that does not give them the right sort of healthcare. Actions and procedures then end up being performed illegally and in back-door areas in a way that means that people are not getting the right sort of support and healthcare. That leads to other complications and problems.

As the hon. Lady has said and others have referred to, as I did earlier, there are too many harrowing examples of people who have not been able to get access to healthcare in the right way. Whatever our views on these matters and the sensitivities, we need to ensure that women and girls in Northern Ireland, like those in the rest of the United Kingdom, have access to good quality advice and good quality, proper, official well advised healthcare that takes into account their own individual needs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Layla Moran

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

Negotiations are progressing well. We are clear that, as our offer outlines, when we leave the European Union we will ensure that European citizens in this country have the same rights as British citizens. I am just disappointed that the right hon. Lady is not as focused on the rights of British citizens, both here and abroad.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

3. Whether her Department is taking steps to broaden the criteria under which refugee family reunions are permitted.

[The Minister for Immigration (Brandon Lewis)]

The family reunion policy allows immediate family members of those granted protection in the UK to reunite with them here. In addition, the family provisions in the immigration rules also provide for relatives with protection in the UK to sponsor children when there are serious and compelling circumstances. Our policy is clear: where an application fails under the rules, we consider whether there are exceptional reasons to grant leave outside the rules.

[Layla Moran]

As the Minister will be aware, a lone child refugee is currently unable to sponsor even their parents or siblings to join them in safety here. UNICEF and the Refugee Council have both said that the rules are too restrictive, and the Home Affairs Committee has called the situation “perverse”. Will the Government therefore support the Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill, introduced in the other place by my colleague Baroness Hamwee, and allow these vulnerable children a chance to have the loving upbringing that every child surely deserves?

[Brandon Lewis]

We are working with the UNHCR and with UNICEF on this issue, and we want to ensure that the application of these rules and this policy works in practice. I ask the hon. Lady to look again at the rules that I have outlined, because we can consider whether there are exceptional reasons to grant leave outside the rules.