Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019

Emma Little Pengelly Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Julian Smith]

The consultation paper makes very clear that we have not set a timeframe. We have talked about the period of the troubles ending with the Good Friday agreement, but I am not prejudging the decision. Omagh is one atrocity, but there are many more, subsequent to the agreement, that we will have to consider as well. I want to hear from all victims. I want to hear from people who may not have been involved in a tragedy such as Omagh but whose victimhood may have resulted from their being in prison or being attacked, or as a result of a range of other experiences. I want to hear from all those people, and we will then reflect on what, if any, is the best timeframe for the payments.

[Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)]

The Secretary of State will know that there have been many detailed discussions about the legacy proposals, including discussions about dates. He will also know, from his time in his current role and also from briefing about events that preceded it, that—as far as I can recollect—all the political parties have been flexible about taking a compassionate approach. I do not think that this should be a controversial issue; I think that we should show compassion.

[Julian Smith]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s intervention. That is exactly the approach that the Government will take. We cannot be hard and fast. We must be inclusive. We must ensure that the payment scheme, for which many Members have campaigned on behalf of constituents throughout Northern Ireland, applies to all victims. We talked about the period of the troubles during the consultation, but I was also careful to ensure that we would not be restricted to that and that we would work with Opposition parties to bring about a better definition if we need to define a period that is acceptable to us all.

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[Jim Shannon]

I am very capable of reading the information. The information that I have is contrary to what the hon. Lady has just said.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

For the purpose of clarification, reference was made to the case in the courts recently. The case included the procurement of abortion pills. It was dropped because of the change in the law around decriminalisation. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is wrong to say that access to these pills is not affected by the change? It clearly is impacted by the change.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and for the clarification. In his introduction, the Minister referred to the abortion pills as well.

If encouragement were sufficient, then we may as well do away with legislation and simply replace it with guidance, but we would not do that because it would not be responsible, especially when dealing with matters as important as the safety of women. The truth is that the Northern Ireland Office has failed the women of Northern Ireland. Quite apart from the wider concerns about respecting devolution and the fact that the Assembly voted against any change in the law as recently as February 2016—and that was a decision passed by the Assembly—the Northern Ireland Office did not need to support an amendment in another place removing abortion law regarding pregnancies up until the point just prior to when the baby is capable of being born alive, five months before making provision for a new law to take its place. This, I believe, was grossly irresponsible and completely unnecessary. Clearly, there must be no question of rushing the new legislation. It is right to take five months to consult on it and develop it. I welcome the fact that the Minister has referred to that and to the consultation with the Church groups. That is critical, and I appreciate his mentioning it.

In the intervening period, however, rather than pretending that guidance provides the same protection as the law, the Government should now urgently reintroduce sections 58 and 59 until the new law is ready to take over. The opinion of the people of Northern Ireland in relation to the law on abortion is clear. The majority of people from all sections, of all genders and of all ages are against this liberalisation and change in Northern Ireland, and this House does not respect that and does not take that into consideration.

I want to quickly speak about historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland and survivor groups. This morning, I met some of the people from one of those groups—the HIA survival group, which set up a trust, the Survivors (North West). Some of them made representations at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. I met them today in my office. I wish to comment on one issue alone within the historical institutional abuse case and it is to do with the length of time in an institution. What has been agreed, which would be contrary to the opinion of the Rosetta Trust and Survivors (North West), is that there should not be a fixed payment for each year that an individual spent in an institution. Redress awards are to be assessed on an individual basis, taking account of the incidents, the duration and the severity of abuse.

Some of the people I spoke to this morning were in Rubane House in my constituency, where physical and sexual abuse took place. They were very traumatised by what happened to them. They welcome the fact that there will be a one-off payment of £10,000. That is good news, but they are concerned about the redress award system. They feel that there should be a payment for every one of those years retrospectively, but that does not seem to be included in this process. I ask the Secretary of State to look at that again.

The reason I say that is that those people who came to see me today are greatly traumatised by what has happened. They are severely traumatised, and suffer from memories and nightmares of the abuse that took place against them physically and sexually. When it comes to what they feel is appropriate and should happen, it is not about the money; it is about the recognition of years of abuse. The compensation should be retrospective for every year the victims were abused. If those people had the opportunity for legal redress, the cost for each individual would be between £35,000 and £40,000. The point is that making retrospective compensation payments would probably be a cheaper option, but it would address the victims’ issues.

I will conclude now because others wish to speak. The two issues that I have discussed today are really important: first, the clear impression and opinion of people across Northern Ireland is that the changes liberalising abortion are wrong and should not be imposed on Northern Ireland; and secondly, that compensation for survivors of HIA, including those in the Survivors (North West) group, should be retrospective with a payment for every year they were abused.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise, as the Secretary of State might expect, to ask him another series of questions about the changes in the law regarding abortion in Northern Ireland, which he knows I feel very strongly about. This Act compelled the Secretary of State to act—from start to finish. A week ago, 50% of what the Act asked the Secretary of State to do came into law, which was to repeal sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. It has been mentioned already that there was a court case outstanding, and it is worth starting there and talking about the difference made by that 50% of the Act coming into law.

The case involved the mother of a then 15-year-old girl, who was in an abusive relationship. The mother bought her daughter abortion pills online to help her, but when she took her to the doctor was reported to the police under the legal duty to report. It is about removing that legal duty to report; it is not that people who continue to supply abortion pills and are not medically qualified will evade prosecution. It is worth reading into the record the words of that mother, who went into court the day after the legislation came into effect and saw the case against her, which had been hanging over her for so long, abandoned. She said:

“For the first time in six years I can go back to being the mother I was, without the weight of this hanging over me…every day…I am so thankful that the change in the law will allow other women and girls to deal with matters like this privately in their own family circle.”

She said that she could finally move on with her life.

We can debate all the technicalities of these issues, but fundamentally last week something of a magnitude beyond any of our individual comprehensions changed for so many people in Northern Ireland when that Bill became law—in that 50% repeal of the Offences Against the Person Act. And, yes, I think this place should welcome that, not least because the case of the mother I just spoke about shows the human impact of that piece of legislation from the 1800s hanging over the lives of women in Northern Ireland.

I am here this evening to ask the Secretary of State about his duty to finish the other 50% of this legislation, and to ask him what happens now. I share the concern that we need to clarify the regulations. I understand that there is scepticism from some about the existing regulations, and I pay tribute to the shadow Minister, who did a fantastic job of setting out all the existing regulations—and therefore the confidence that many people should have that this is not some free-for-all in Northern Ireland that has happened in the last week—but there is a case for clarifying what the regulations are. That case is being made not least by the doctors who have been writing to the Secretary of State asking for that clarification because, as of last Tuesday, they can prescribe abortion pills.

I think we would all recognise that had this place passed the 1967 legislation for abortion access in England and Wales by saying, “Well, we’re going to say that you can continue to have a back-street abortion, but you won’t be prosecuted if you go to A&E”, none of us would have accepted that as a reasonable position. And yet, at this point in time—because it is not clear how doctors in Northern Ireland can prescribe abortion pills to women in Northern Ireland who wish to use them—we are risking saying to women, “Continue buying them online and not being clear about which providers are safe, but at least now you won’t be prosecuted”, as the mother I described had to deal with for many years.

I would really welcome clarification from the Secretary of State about what he is doing with regard to the doctors who are writing to him asking him where they get the prescriptions from and how they make sure they can give safe advice. To be honest, asking women to travel is not a solution. In the past week, the only message we have been able to give to women in Northern Ireland who now wish to access their right to a safe, legal and local abortion is that they have to travel. If they have family commitments, if they are in abusive relationships or if they do not have the relevant travel documentation, that is not a solution for them.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

The hon. Lady said that the only advice to some would be to order these pills online. It is very important to outline that the medical advice is absolutely clear that it can be dangerous to take these types of pills without medical supervision. The case that she referred to was a case of abortion pills being procured by a mother for her child where there were complications resulting in her having to present. So, yes, I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady: there needs to be guidance in relation to this but we must also be responsible and say very clearly that we should not recommend the route of buying these types of pills online because people do not know what they are going to get.

[Stella Creasy]

I completely agree. What I am saying, therefore, is that the Secretary of State now has a responsibility to the women and girls in Northern Ireland who wish to be able to access this right to make sure that there is clarity about where they can get abortion pills prescribed by a medical professional. These changes were never about removing the medical component of abortion, but simply about recognising that it should be a medical rather than a criminal matter.

The Secretary of State will know from the letters that I have been writing to his Department that I am concerned that there has not been clarity for women and girls in Northern Ireland about their rights and how to access those rights in the past week. There needs to be more public information about how to access an abortion, alongside the work to make sure that they can access a safe abortion. He will know of the long-standing concerns that many of us have about the concept of public consultation. While he talks about both sides of the debate, he himself has been clear that what is up for debate is not whether abortion is available in Northern Ireland but how it happens. Many of us consider that to be a purely medical question. Indeed, the legislation required the Secretary of State to do this in line with the CEDAW––convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women—principles.

A week ago, the Secretary of State’s junior Minister—I am sorry, but I am not quite sure of his role—said that the consultation would be published on the following day. We are now a week on. We do not have any of the details of that consultation—what the Government believe they should consult on that meant that any consultation would be in line with the CEDAW principles and would not undermine what this House decided, which is that women in Northern Ireland should be able to access an abortion equally. The Secretary of State talks about consulting the widest range of stakeholders, but he will understand the concern that many of us have about bringing non-medical professionals into the provision of medical services, and, indeed, as the hon. Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly) has highlighted, the importance of having proper medical engagement.

Let us be honest about this: there is no way a member of a Church community would have the same medical standing as, say, doctors or the royal colleges with regard to the specifics of how a medical procedure is provided. It is absolutely imperative that we have the details of what the Secretary of State thinks he is going to consult on and how he squares that with the CEDAW requirements, so that we can be confident that he is not opening a hornets’ nest when it comes to providing the other 50% of this legislation.

It is very important that we put to bed any suggestion that anything has changed in the time limits through what happened last week. The 1945 Act, which the shadow Minister mentioned, is still in place. That is very clear about not changing the viability provisions. People talk about abortions at five months, but that is not what is being talked about in Northern Ireland at all. If anything, modern medicine changes the concept of what viability is to perhaps something that people would consider to be even lower. But there is an issue when it comes to fatal foetal abnormalities and the Bourne judgment. Again, the CEDAW judgment called our attention to how that is interpreted in Northern Ireland, with the concern about how the concepts of the preservation of the life of the mother and of long-term damage were being interpreted. It is vital that the Government address this so that we can be sure that women in Northern Ireland are not being treated differently with regard to preservation of life from women in England and Wales.

We know that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence clinical guidelines apply, but can the Secretary of State confirm that those will be used to deal with these sorts of issues? While the vast majority of abortions happen before 10 weeks, there are some very sad cases that involve late-term abortions, often for very good medical and health reasons. It is vital, in separating out these two issues and ensuring that people in Northern Ireland have confidence about what this legislation has done and the regulations that the Government will bring in, that those issues are addressed. We know that whether people can access a safe, legal abortion has no impact on the rate of abortion, but we also know that keeping people safe starts with ensuring that they are not criminalised for wanting to make a basic human right choice—to have control over their own body.

I urge the Secretary of State to address those issues. In this interim period, many women in Northern Ireland will need our help and support; I have been contacted by women who are not clear about how to access these services. They have seen that their human rights are finally being upheld, and now they need the Secretary of State to finish the job—which he alone can do, because the legislation was clear that it ultimately rests with him to protect their human rights—that the House asked him to do in July and that came to fruition last Monday.

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[Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)]

May I first add my support for the many issues that my colleagues have discussed today? In particular, I want to focus in my short remarks on a number of policy issues that should be being dealt with by the Northern Ireland Executive but that, sadly, are not.

Of course, there are many important issues in the overall reports, and we have heard some detailed discussion of them. In previous debates, I have gone into some of the detail of those issues, but I want to focus tonight on paragraph 3(1), which is on Executive formation, and to spend a little time outlining the impact of the lack of that Executive formation on my constituency, but also across Northern Ireland.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds), my party leader here at Westminster, articulated earlier the many issues that are suffering due to the lack of a Northern Ireland Assembly and because the Northern Ireland Government have not been re-formed. The update in the report is very short because, since we last considered these reports, there is still no Northern Ireland Executive.

I was elected to represent the wonderful constituency of Belfast South just in the 2017 election, and it has been an incredible privilege to do so. In many ways, Belfast South is a thriving constituency. We have some of the best schools in Northern Ireland. We have some of the highest employment rates in not just Northern Ireland but across the United Kingdom. We have some of the lowest unemployment rates. At the last count, we had over 19,000 registered businesses. We have an incredibly diverse constituency, with many wonderful institutions, including the Lyric, many arts institutions, the Ulster Museum, Queen’s University and Stranmillis College, to name just a few. Relative to many other constituencies, mine is doing very well, and I am incredibly proud to represent it.

Like all constituencies, however, we still have challenges. The constituents I represent still have very real needs across a whole range of public services from health, education and infrastructure to worrying about bills and worrying about their businesses. I want to touch briefly on some of those issues, because they are the type of everyday issues that are not being articulated in Northern Ireland because of the lack of a Northern Ireland Assembly. They are not being articulated in this place either, because of the nature of the debates. Debates on those issues tend not to include or extend to devolved issues, but they are the issues that are impacting on a day-to-day basis. I know that and my hon. Friends know that, because we listen to our constituents and we know the serious concerns they have. We know the serious detrimental impact those issues are having on their lives. I know that the Secretary of State and his team have been out and about as well, talking to constituents right across Northern Ireland.

I want to touch first on education. Education in Northern Ireland is under huge pressure. The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee took some evidence from a number of schools and headteachers. I went out and talked to schools—nursery schools, primary schools and post-primary schools—across my constituency. They are doing an incredible job at a very difficult time. We know that their budgets are under huge pressure. That is why the Democratic Unionist party, in the confidence and supply arrangement, secured additional money for education. We wanted to make sure that those additional funds went into much needed public services, not for one part of the community but for people right across the community. We knew that schools would be under pressure. We knew there were further projected cuts for schools, and we wanted to do everything we could to help every child in Northern Ireland succeed. It is my party that stood on that platform. No matter where a child comes from, or what their background or financial circumstances are, the DUP wants every child in Northern Ireland to succeed. We recognise that succeeding in education is the gateway to a much better life for people, their families and their grandchildren.

The other area under huge pressure in Northern Ireland on education is special educational needs. There have been a number of debates in this place about autism services and mental health needs, yet for Northern Ireland we have been starved of that debate because of the inability to get the Northern Ireland Executive back up and going. In Northern Ireland, we have some of the highest levels of mental health needs and that is also the case within schools. I speak to parents day in, day out. They are under huge pressure to try to get much needed help and support for their children. They know that their children need everything from getting a diagnosis to getting a statement to trying to get educational support for that child. The Education Authority needs more resources, both financial and in terms of professionals. Parents need more support in their fight to get what their child needs and schools need more resources to provide that support. These are the types of issues that are not being talked about in Northern Ireland. The Democratic Unionist party is committed to a fundamental review of special educational needs to ensure proper resources go into special educational needs for every child across all communities in Northern Ireland.

[Jim Shannon]

Some 60% of the pupils who go to Clifton Special School, in the constituency of the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), come from my constituency of Strangford. The issue is not just about resources for parents and pupils, but upgrading such schools so they can cope with the new workload. Disabled children have very complex needs, both educational and health. That is the predicament facing schools such as Clifton House in Bangor.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. In my own constituency, we have a number of fantastic schools on the frontline, including Fleming Fulton, Glenveagh and Harberton. They are three fantastic schools in my constituency which do a huge amount of work. Other schools are also dealing with complex needs. I have reached out and spoken to them, and I understand the pressures they are under.

Moving on to health, in one respect we have been fortunate in Northern Ireland in that before Sinn Féin collapsed the Assembly, the Bengoa report, which talked about transformation, was agreed to, so we have a policy framework. However, let me be absolutely clear: these types of issues and pressures are not being articulated because there is no forum for this in Northern Ireland. Health-related matters do not fall to councils. There is no Northern Ireland Executive and this is a fully devolved matter, so it is rarely spoken about in detail in this forum, but we need health transformation in Northern Ireland.

We recognise that the current system is not fit for purpose. The Democratic Unionist party is absolutely committed to that transformation in a way that protects frontline services. We want to, and will, stand up for healthcare workers to ensure that they get proper remuneration for their hard work. Nurses, doctors, cleaners and the other staff in hospitals, including the administrative staff and consultants, are all working under huge pressure, and I pay tribute to them and the incredible work that they do in a system that is no longer fit for purpose, puts huge pressure on them and prevents them from getting the remuneration that they really deserve and that people really want to give.

We recognise that as the transformation is undertaken, we also need the additional resources to sort out things such as waiting lists. All Democratic Unionist party Members know how many constituents come in to see us who are sitting on waiting lists that are growing and growing, week by week, month by month. We want to get that investment in parallel with the much needed transformation, so that the money does not just go on transformation when people on the frontline are suffering. We need to reduce GP waiting times and get more GPs into the practices to help them to support our constituents.

I want to touch briefly on the business community. Businesses are rightly concerned about the proposal in relation to Brexit, but I do not want to talk about Brexit in any great detail today, because there will be plenty of other opportunities—and there have been opportunities—to do that. However, many of the issues for the business community in Northern Ireland are the same as those that businesses face across the United Kingdom. I have absolutely fantastic commercial areas in my constituency—everything from the Lisburn Road to Stranmillis Road, to Ormeau Road, to Finaghy Road, and there are many others across my constituency. They are fantastic areas with many small businesses where the business owners and staff are working incredibly hard under difficult circumstances. Our business rates are too high. Our businesses are struggling and they very much need this reform. I welcome the fact that there is a consultation out, but the Democratic Unionist party wants to do something fundamental to support the very many small businesses that are trying to make our economy work and make Northern Ireland thrive.

Our high streets are suffering. There was an announcement on the high streets fund across England and Wales, but we do not have that in Northern Ireland. I wrote to the head of the civil service asking him to use that money because Northern Ireland got a Barnett consequential. It got money from that announcement. Is it going to our high streets? No, but the Democratic Unionist party would absolutely prioritise supporting our high streets and those businesses and trying to make the very hearts of our communities, towns, villages and cities work.

I briefly want to mention the environment. I will not go into a huge amount of detail, but many people in Northern Ireland are really interested in this issue. I am not sure whether the Secretary of State is aware of this, but Northern Ireland has one of the lowest levels of woodland cover of any region in the United Kingdom. We have on average 6% or 7% woodland cover. The average across the United Kingdom is 13%, and across the European Union, it is 38%, so Northern Ireland has the lowest percentage of woodland cover by far across the British Isles, the Republic of Ireland and the European Union.

I will conclude with a plea, because I genuinely feel that this needs to be addressed. I have put a proposal on the table: to mark the 100 years of Northern Ireland, I am proposing the creation of a project to increase significantly the amount of woodland cover. One way that we could do this is by planting a tree for every person alive across Northern Ireland and the border counties—approximately 2 million trees. That would bring our woodland cover up from about 7% to about 12% or 13%, which would be the UK average. That project could happen and has happened elsewhere. There are other big initiatives across the United Kingdom, and I ask the Secretary of State to give serious consideration to supporting that proposal.