Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Edward Leigh

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I speak as one of the 13 MPs who co-sponsored the original ten-minute rule Bill of the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I did that because I think she was right to make people aware that sex selective abortion is illegal, and I thought her Bill was a powerful and good tactic to do that. However, I feel a bit as though I have been pulled along by a Trojan horse because, as the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) said, the new clause confers the status of an unborn child on the foetus, and that radically changes our abortion laws in a way I believe is dangerous.

As I said in an earlier intervention, clauses 73 and 74, which deal with coercive behaviour, contain a powerful tool that we should use to prevent the kind of coercion to which the hon. Member for Congleton referred. In those references she quoted extensively from an organisation based in my constituency, but personal experience of how that organisation has failed to help individual constituents has led me to the conclusion that it is not possible to depend on the accuracy of what it says. I am therefore concerned that we are using anecdote from an unreliable source to make legislation on the hoof.

Having supported the hon. Lady’s original ten-minute rule Bill, I have since read something from an organisation in America that is closely linked to the all-party pro-life group that she chairs. The head of that group stated:

“I propose that we—the pro-life movement—adopt as our next goal the banning of sex…selective abortion. By formally protecting all female fetuses from abortion on the ground of their sex, we would plant in the law the proposition that the developing child is a being whose claims on us should not depend on their sex…This sense of contradiction will be further heightened among radical feminists—”

I think he means people like me—

“the shock troops of the abortion movement. They may believe that the right to abortion is fundamental to women’s emancipation, but many will recoil at the thought of aborting their unborn sisters.”

My final reason for arguing that we should reject the new clause is the concern of the British Medical Association that it will make doctors more fearful of providing abortion services and training to carry out abortions. One of the biggest risks for young women seeking help to terminate a pregnancy is not getting that help in time, as a result of which we end up with late abortions and women who cannot have abortions when they are entitled to them. One reason for that is the growing number of doctors who are reluctant to perform abortions because they practise defensive medicine. I have no doubt that the new clause is unnecessary and likely to increase that and make it more difficult for women to access their right to termination—a right that I am afraid the hon. Member for Congleton, although I agree when she says that we all agree that abortion should not be available on the basis of gender, does not support at all.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

If the whole House is agreed that it is morally repugnant to destroy a foetus simply on the basis of its gender—it is usually a girl—let us make that explicit in law.

Grammar School Funding

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Edward Leigh

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Although I wanted to talk about the problem affecting grammar schools—one should be absolutely honest—as I said at the beginning of my speech, the problem affects not only grammar schools, but successful comprehensives with large sixth forms. The hon. Gentleman is right to make that point. I hope we can look at this issue in a bipartisan way. It should not be about grammar schools versus other schools, but about fairness. All sixth-form pupils, whatever school they are in, should be funded as equally as possible.

Supplemental funding for the disadvantaged is widely welcomed, and we all accept it. Part of the reason why I and others are such passionate advocates for grammar schools is that they provide a superb helping hand for pupils from less-advantaged backgrounds.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I have a number of brilliant grammar schools in my constituency, but one of the reasons why they are comparatively underfunded is that, compared with the other schools in my constituency, they do not attract the pupil premium because they have fewer pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. The funding system, which is skewed towards disadvantage, has disadvantaged grammar schools, so the claim that grammar schools help disadvantaged pupils is belied by the statistics.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Grammar schools can help people, in particular those from ethnic minorities. In the school that my son attends, 60% of the pupils are from an ethnic minority background, which is high. I believe that, if there were more grammar schools, we could do more to help people from disadvantaged backgrounds. One of the problems is that there are not enough grammar schools. We are not going to get into this debate now, but I wish county councils had the freedom to set up more grammar schools if they want to do so. That is what localism is all about.

The way that the funding is worked out—there is an over-emphasis on pupils who qualify for free school meals—is not adequately grounded in the hard evidence of the additional costs associated with disadvantaged pupils. The Government have injected additional funding into four sections: pupil premium; special needs; pupils who have failed GCSE English; and pupils who have failed GCSE maths. As I have said, that intention is laudable, but unfortunately, in many cases, it means that the Government have perhaps unwittingly pumped four different funding streams into the same child.

We also need to recognise that that funding increase has a converse effect on the opposite end of the spectrum in grammar schools and sixth forms more generally. It would be counter-productive to unbalance the funding of education so much towards disadvantaged pupils that we undermine centres of excellence in the state sector that we want to protect. This is not a zero-sum game: we can help disadvantaged pupils and promote centres of excellence. Surely that is the right way to proceed.

The number of young people over the age of 16 educated on a full or part-time basis has increased in recent years as a result of raising the participation age to 17 in 2013 and 18 in 2015. Schools and further education colleges have come under pressure to expand to accommodate such increased numbers. That is fair enough, but at the same time, the funding pot for post-16 education has become fixed, and the method of distribution has changed from a model that included higher levels of funding for courses with large practical elements, and incentives for institutions with high levels of success and retention.

The simplification of the funding system—funding is attached to the student rather than the course—is welcome, but the impact on high-achieving academic schools with large sixth forms, including the grammar schools in my constituency and others, has become considerable. The funding system means that, in some local authorities, students receive more funding for education from 11 to 16 than from 16 to 18—can that be right?—even though it is widely recognised, and obvious common sense, that the cost of delivering the curriculum increases as a student gets older. That is why many universities feel justified in charging fees of £9,000 a year.

As students move through the school system, they can exercise an increasing level of choice over the subjects they study, which tends to reduce financial efficiency. More broadly, there is a bigger perspective, which I want to end on. We need to think about that point, which I want to emphasise. The world is becoming more and more globalised. As the Prime Minister keeps telling us, Great Britain is competing in a global race for excellence. For us to compete successfully, we need more scientists, more engineers, more mathematicians, more doctors and more innovators.

Induced Abortion

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Edward Leigh

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Crausby. People often say that such debates are very emotional, but it is nice that our debate this morning has been calm. I hope I will be very calm too; my wife always says to me that I must be less emotional when I speak, so I shall give a boring little speech that tries to deal with some facts and surveys. I hope that there will not be a lot of controversy about what I say.

According to the most recent figures for this country, one in five pregnancies ends in abortion. Whatever one’s views about pro-life or right-to-choose issues, I am sure that most people would regret that. In 2011, there were almost 290,000 abortions; that is 572 abortions every day. As we all know, United Kingdom law allows abortion up to 24 weeks, or until full term if the baby is disabled with a “serious handicap” or the mother’s life is threatened. In 2011, only 0.02% of abortions carried out in England and Wales were because of a risk to the mother’s life. Meanwhile, abortions carried out on the grounds of foetal handicap constituted a mere 1.2% of the total number of abortions. Even so, abortions on those grounds are often undertaken even when the handicap in question is undoubtedly curable. Many will recall the noble work of the Church of England vicar, Joanna Jepson, who highlighted that abortions were being carried out on babies with cleft palates on the grounds of foetal handicap.

Since 1929, British law on abortion has, for better or worse, linked the legality of abortion with the viability of the child to survive outside the womb. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 reduced the upper time limit on abortions set by the 1967 Act from 28 weeks to 24. The arguments employed in the parliamentary debates of the time recognised that and highlighted the issue of viability. Since the passing of the 1990 Act, significant improvements have undoubtedly been made to neonatal care, increasing the ability of prematurely born children to survive. Figures from 2005 show that 52 babies born earlier than 24 weeks have survived. In the specialist neonatal unit at London’s University College hospital, five of the seven infants born at 22 weeks between 1996 and 2000 survived, as did nearly half those born at 23 weeks.

Our French and continental neighbours have been mentioned today, and in France, abortion on demand is legal up to only 12 weeks. As we have heard from the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), 91% of abortions take place before 12 weeks. I do not think that it is a massive attack on women’s right to choose if we therefore try and focus the debate on late abortions. We are talking about a relatively small number, but we are also discussing human life, and even one human life is important.

In France, abortions are only allowed after 12 weeks if two physicians certify that it is being done to prevent grave, permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman, or because there is a risk to the pregnant woman’s life, or if the child in question will suffer from a particularly severe illness recognised as incurable. That law was reinforced in 1994, when French law-makers required that multidisciplinary diagnostic centres decide which birth defects are severe enough to allow for abortion after the 12-week limit.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of a study of late abortions in Britain? A number of those abortions seem to be as a result of difficulties that women have had getting abortions earlier. If we had abortion on demand up to 12 weeks, as France does but we do not, perhaps the result would be a greater number of earlier abortions in this country.

[Mr Leigh]

We can certainly debate that point. I should have thought that the law is that we have abortion on demand, but if the hon. Lady believes that some women feel they are under pressure not to have abortions before 12 weeks, we can discuss that matter. I thought, however, that we were focusing on late abortions today, which I should have thought we regret all around the Chamber.

A lot of European countries that are viewed as much more liberal than we are have time limits on abortions that are many weeks less than in Great Britain. The UK’s 24-week upper limit is double that of most European countries. Sixteen of 27 EU countries have a gestational limit of 12 weeks or lower; thus attempts to stir a reduction of the upper time limit as controversial have very little ground to stand on when we compare our laws with those of our European neighbours, as we often do in many other areas. A 2005 survey revealed that more than three quarters of women in the United Kingdom are in favour of reducing the time limit on abortions. A 2007 survey, commissioned by Marie Stopes International, found that 65% of GPs would welcome a reduction.

The number of abortions performed in Britain is now four times higher than in 1969, the first full year that abortion was available under the 1967 Act. G.K. Chesterton wrote:

“Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable”.

For those of us who are abortion opponents, like my hon. Friends, our views are known, and they can be dismissed. I hope, however, that even the most fervent supporters of legal abortion recognise that abortion is not desirable, even if they find it excusable. Anything that we can do to prevent late abortions is surely desirable for our country.

Regardless of the obvious moral debate, there is a compelling medical case for wanting to reduce the number of abortions. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has recognised that abortion can damage a woman’s mental health. Studies have discovered that women who have had abortions are almost twice as likely to suffer from mental health problems, three times as likely to have major depression, and six times as likely to commit suicide as mothers who do not have an abortion—