Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 Section 3(5)

Jeffrey M Donaldson Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

What I do know is that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, would not forgive me for straying into what is essentially a family matter for the Labour movement. The Labour movement has stood up for human rights around the world. We stand up for the human rights of the people of Northern Ireland to love who they love and to marry who they want, yet when it comes to the human rights of women in Northern Ireland to have control over their bodies, suddenly this place is stuttering.

The Government have issued guidance on this legislation, but there is no public information campaign. What do we say to people in Northern Ireland next week? Can they go to a doctor and ask for misoprostol and have an early-term abortion—yes or no? It will not be illegal any more, so physicians could certainly prescribe the pill, but the Government have not done the work to tell people what the legislation will be. We will be in an interim period. That is exactly why the legislation was drafted not just with decriminalisation in mind, but to keep the regulatory period as short as possible to avoid this confusion.

What the Minister has done tonight, by waving in front of one party in this place the opportunity to kill this measure through providing the role of the Assembly, is to create further confusion about how women in Northern Ireland will access their basic rights. We know that he is going to do that, because he has talked about having a public consultation on how to do abortion, as though it is something that we all have an ability to make happen. People on Twitter think that I have the ability to do that, but I want to be very clear that I have never made an abortion happen.

The point here is that we do not ask for public consultation on other healthcare issues. At no point do we put the concept of doing a vasectomy up to people in the community, yet somehow—

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Stella Creasy]

I happily give way; I was going to finish.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

The reason we have to have a public consultation in Northern Ireland is that this Parliament passed into law section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998—part of the Good Friday/Belfast agreement —which says that on such issues that affect certain groups, there must be a public consultation. That is a statutory responsibility on the part of the Government.

[Stella Creasy]

I have a lot of respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but on his point about a section 75 consultation, he will find that that is not the case. The whole point about how the 2019 legislation was drafted was that it was about human rights—it was about not devolving human rights. Absolutely, there could be a consultation, but nobody can tell me what non-medical questions we should be asking people who are not medical professionals about abortion. That is the challenge we face.

Women in Northern Ireland deserve honesty. From next week, if the Executive are not reconstituted, will those women be able to get an abortion and, if so, how? That is what the 2019 Act pledged—it pledged to treat them as equal citizens, just as we pledged to treat our fellow citizens who want to marry somebody of the same sex equally. Yet somehow one of those is being disposed of in favour of political gain. At least if the Government were honest about that, women in Northern Ireland could prepare themselves.

I fear what will happen next Tuesday, because we will enter a period in which the Government will try every single trick to undermine this very basic piece of legislation that this House passed. I tell the Minister now, just as I tell the protestors in my constituency: they will not stop us standing up and fighting for the rights of women in Northern Ireland to be treated equally and fairly and to ensure that what this place promised overwhelmingly in July that it would do happens by March 2020. The Government set that deadline, not us. Now we can see why they wanted the delay, but I tell the Minister that it is not in the legislation, it will be contested, and he needs to be honest, if he is going to seek new legislation, that that is what he will do.

Surely, those women who have waited—who have watched rape victims not be able to get abortions, watched women with fatal foetal abnormality suffer and seen parents prosecuted for trying to protect their children in abusive relationships—at least deserve that from the Minister: some honesty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I am very grateful to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. During the course of my remarks, I hope to consider what I can only describe as the conspiracy theories that have been shared in the Chamber this evening: mistruths, suggestions that do not have any bearing in fact, and assumptions that have been raised about the motivations of individuals who represent Northern Ireland, in this Chamber or at home, that are wholly without foundation and, I have to say, incredibly unhelpful when we consider the reports before us this evening.

Before I commence my remarks, may I welcome the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) to the Scottish National party Front Bench on Northern Ireland issues? I hope that that is a recurring thing. He is an honourable man, and we look forward to his contributions and interest in Northern Ireland.

I listened very carefully to what the Minister had to say on a range of issues, but I want to focus on two of them. The first is on military issues and the reports on legacy, investigations, the presumption against prosecution, and measures he will be aware of about the full implementation of the armed forces covenant in Northern Ireland. I know that the reports we are considering tonight were first published on 9 October. I know they were printed and laid before us on 14 October. It is simply not good enough, however, to indicate this evening that there has been no further progress since the publication of those reports.

I was outraged by the text of the report that builds on the one from a number of weeks ago, which does not in any way address the national commitment that this Parliament has given to veterans in the United Kingdom; a national commitment that transcends our internal borders, one that should apply equally to those who put their lives on the line for this country be they living in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. To suggest that nothing substantive has changed, when, following the Gracious Speech on Monday, the Prime Minister stood in this Chamber and confirmed to two hon. Members that he was going to legislate on these matters, is a shame. It is a shame that that was not reflected in the comments this evening. For those who are interested in ensuring that service and sacrifice for this country from Northern Ireland is as equally valued at home as it is in the rest of the United Kingdom, it is a material change and it should have featured in the contributions this evening.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree with me that we are very proud of the contribution made by our armed forces. We are not just talking about Operation Banner. Northern Ireland accounts for about 3% of the population of the United Kingdom, yet more than double that percentage represents Northern Ireland’s contribution to the reserve forces, for example. We box way above our weight when it comes to our contribution to the armed forces. It is wrong that those men and women who are prepared to serve their country do not get the same benefits from the military armed forces covenant as others.

[Gavin Robinson]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right. This is an issue that we are going to have to return to. When I read the reports before us this evening, the very first line told me that I did not really need to read the rest. The report was based on information from the Northern Ireland Office. That said it all to me. I say that with great deference to the Minister and officials at the back of the Chamber. As somebody who sits on the Defence Committee and who knows the reports that we have published on these issues and what the Government response has been, particularly from the Ministry of Defence, I can say that to rely solely on information from our good friends at the back of the Chamber is simply not good enough.

On talks, it is right that there will be an opportunity, which I hope is seized, for the Assembly to return on Monday. There has been some strange confusion or concern around this quest to have the recall of the Assembly, as though that in some way satisfies the Act. We cannot elect an Executive unless the Assembly meets. One can only follow the other, but it is high time that there was a return to devolution in Northern Ireland. Back in July, when we considered the amendments that are being discussed this evening, we could not have been clearer that, irrespective of the personal interests of Labour Members or the way in which they have campaigned on these issues continually—it is entirely their right to do so—to focus on two issues solely and not in any way to include other issues or aspects of encouragement would have one fundamental impact: it would prove to be a disincentive to the restoration of the Assembly. We need only look at comments made by a party leader in Northern Ireland today. When asked whether their party leaders would support the recall of the Assembly, the response was, “No, because we would lose out on the proposals that are due on 22 October.”