Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Carla Lockhart and Maya Ellis

Report stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)]

I rise in support of new clause 1 and new clause 20. I am someone who chooses the spend the majority of my time in this place focusing on women, who make up 51% of the population —on mothers, parents, women’s health and maternity—and I would like specifically to address comments that have been made in the Chamber today which pit the life of a foetus against that of a mother. Despite the fact that 40% of MPs are now women, and that every single one of us represents a constituency that will be 50% women, I rarely hear women’s issues being discussed here. On every issue in this House there is an angle that affects women differently, and that especially affects those caring for children differently, yet we do not speak about it.

When people speak against abortion in any form, I am stupefied by the bubble from within which they speak. Will they also speak out about the risk of giving birth when two-thirds of maternity wards are deemed unsafe by the Care Quality Commission? I doubt it. Will they speak out about the fact that more than 1.6 million women are kept out of the labour market because of their caring responsibilities, which are seven times those of men? I doubt it. Will they speak out about children in temporary accommodation, the extortionate cost of childcare, medical negligence and the decimation of Sure Start? I doubt it.

Until hon. Members have done their time making this world one thousand times better for mothers and parents, as it needs to be, I suggest that they reflect on the audacity of making a judgment in isolation today that cries, “Life.” Every decision we make in this place comes relative to its context. A woman who ends up in the truly agonising position of having an abortion is protecting a life—she is protecting her own life. Hers is the life that hon. Members choose to vote against if they vote against these amendments; hers is the life hon. Members would be choosing to discard.

As others have said, in reality, the amendments before us today will affect very few people, but will critically mean that while a woman is the carrier of a child, she will not be criminalised for anything to do with or within her body. Given how little the world tends to care about women and their bodies, I personally trust those individual women far more than I trust any state or judicial system that has yet to prove it can properly support the rights of women. That is why I will be voting for this and any amendments that further the rights of women over their own bodies.

[Carla Lockhart]

I believe that both lives matter in every pregnancy—both the mum’s life and the child’s life. Abortion is often framed as a choice between the rights of the mother and of the child. I reject that framing, but today we are considering two amendments, new clause 1 and new clause 20, that would be bad for both women and unborn children; and one amendment, new clause 106, that would protect both women and unborn babies who are old enough to survive outside the womb.

In the last Parliament, I, along with a number of colleagues, warned that the pills-by-post scheme for at-home abortions would cause an increase in medical complications, dangerous late abortions and coerced abortions. Sadly, those warnings have become reality. A study based on a freedom of information request to NHS trusts found that more than 10,000 women who took at least one abortion pill at home, provided by the NHS, in 2020, needed hospital treatment for complications; that is the equivalent of more than one in 17 women or 20 per day.

Last December, Stuart Worby was jailed after using abortion pills, obtained by a third party through the pills-by-post scheme, to induce an abortion in a pregnant woman against her knowledge or will. Such cases could have been prevented if abortion providers had not pushed, in the face of warnings about precisely such incidents, for the removal of in-person appointments where a woman’s identity and gestational age could be accurately verified, and any health risks assessed.

The issue of inaccurate gestational age has led indirectly to the amendments before us today. Abortion providers have themselves conceded, and I quote Jonathan Lord, former medical director for Marie Stopes, that, until recently,

“only three women have ever been on trial over the past 160 years”

for illegal abortions. Since then, there has been an increase in investigations and prosecutions, albeit a small number compared to the quarter of a million abortions we now have every year in the United Kingdom. This small rise in prosecutions has been caused by the pills-by-post scheme, which has enabled women, either because they miscalculate their own gestational age or through dishonesty, to obtain abortion pills beyond the 10-week limit, when at-home abortions are legal and considered safe for women, and even beyond our 24-week time limit for abortions. Tragically, this has led to viable babies’ lives being ended.

What is the answer? I suggest it cannot be to make things worse by decriminalising abortion. That would be bad for women and unborn lives, removing the legal deterrent against dangerous late-term, unsupervised abortions that would put women at risk as well as babies, even long after they are viable in the womb. This would render our already very late time limit redundant in a context where pills can be obtained without any reliable in-person gestational age check.

The alternative solution is to end the pills-by-post scheme and reinstate in-person consultation. That is why I support new clause 106, and the public support it too. New polling has found that just 4% of women support the current pills-by-post arrangement and two thirds want a return to in-person appointments. Decriminalisation may allow the problems with the pills-by-post scheme to be covered up, but it will not stop the problems happening. In fact, it will incentivise more dangerous late-term abortions of viable babies.

Let me close by turning to Northern Ireland. When the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) hijacked the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc.) Act to impose abortion on Northern Ireland, she argued that women in Northern Ireland faced discrimination because they did not have access to the same abortion provision as women in Great Britain. Let me very clear: Northern Ireland is very different. Northern Ireland does not have the pills-by-post scheme, so a direct correlation with GB cannot be made. I ask hon. Members to support new clause 106.

Farming and Inheritance Tax

Debate between Carla Lockhart and Maya Ellis

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Maya Ellis]

I will come on to opportunities to increase the prosperity of farmers, which should be our mission.

The second opportunity for farmers is around procurement and trade, and using the Government’s own purchasing power to back British produce, so that 50% of food brought into hospitals, Army bases and prisons is locally produced. We can protect farmers from being undercut by low welfare and low standards in trade deals, and we are seeking a new veterinary agreement with the EU to get our exports moving.

I want to touch on devolution and its ability to empower local understanding. Anyone who lives in a rural community knows that part of its strength is a deep generational knowledge of the land and local area. Nowhere is that more evident than in generational farming. Indeed, it is that knowledge, passed down through generations and trained into children from the time they can walk, that ensures some of the efficiencies that keep our farms going. I am a huge advocate for devolution, especially for areas such as Lancashire, where Ribble Valley is located, that include vast rural areas, because it brings democracy and understanding closer to communities. That is a huge issue that the Government are progressing at pace in order to do right by rural communities.

I am grateful to all the farmers who have been having open conversations with me about how past and future policy has and could affect them. Any new Government will take some time to unpick how relationships have worked in the past, and how they might want to change them. I came to Westminster as someone who is passionate about local leadership and devolution, and there is much that this Government can do to help farmers by taking decisions.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is making an eloquent speech about farming and the importance of farmers to our communities; they undertake roles such as gritting the roads and cutting our hedges, as well as feeding the nation we live in. She talks about devolution. Does she agree that the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs of Northern Ireland has said that one third of farmers will be impacted by the agricultural property tax, with 75% of our dairy farmers being the hardest hit? The policy is not working. Stop the family farm tax grab.

[Maya Ellis]

If the hon. Lady will allow me, I will come to how we can help the farmers who will be affected by the measures.

To finish my point about devolution, as an MP in an area with huge extents of rural economy, it is critical to me that devolution reflects our rural areas as much as our metropolitan ones. I look forward to seeing how the upcoming devolution White Paper addresses that challenge. Town and parish councils really understand our rural communities and can play a bigger role in local democracy.