Abortion in Northern Ireland

Layla Moran Excerpts

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.

Northern Ireland Executive Formation

Layla Moran Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Julian Smith]

There are a series of commitments in this deal, which have been agreed to by the parties, that will require certain bits of legislation in the Assembly. In my view, they will ensure that we never again have to see—as we have had to in the past three years—the loss of the Assembly and the Executive.

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

May I add my voice to the collective delight at this announcement, and to highlight my delight at reading the words about educating children and young people of different backgrounds together in the same classroom? I ask the Secretary of State to commend the work of the Integrated Education Fund and the Northern Ireland Council for integrated education, and to seek assurance that the moneys in the transforming education programme could be used to further this purpose.

[Julian Smith]

I pay tribute to those organisations, and can reconfirm that there is a focus on education reform in the agreement. I would expect the Executive to be looking very closely at how education is being operated. It is a very high-performing sector of education in the UK, but there is a lot of transformation to be done.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons & Committee: 2nd sitting
Wednesday 8th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me of the position in Wales. That of course reflects the fact that, again, this is a concern not just of nationalist parties, but of the parties that support the devolved settlements but perhaps do not wish to go as far as independence.

The SDLP’s new clause 46 requires regional equality, environmental and economic impact assessments of any proposed future relationship or free trade agreement. Again, that is eminently sensible. It is similar to Plaid Cymru’s new clause 16, which is looking for a UK-wide economic impact assessment. Again, those are matters that I would have thought any MP who cares about the outcome of these negotiations and the future of their constituents’ livelihoods would be well advised to support.

I will conclude by saying that we need to take account in these proceedings of the different positions of the devolved nations. What I say and will continue to say to the Government is that if they continue to act as if there is no difference between the wishes of the electorate in England and the wishes of the electorate in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, they will do so at their peril, and the Union that they say they care about so much will be further undermined by that behaviour.

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

I rise to support new clauses 10 and 29, on which we will be seeking a vote today. These should absolutely be no-brainers.

New clause 10 is about the Erasmus programme. For students, young people, those in training and staff who work in the education sector, the Erasmus scheme has been absolutely incredible. I wonder how many of us on these Benches have used that programme ourselves, or have had our children or others in our family do so. From 2014 to the end of this year alone, €1 billion has been allocated to support the UK as part of Erasmus+. New clause 10 would only require the Government to seek—to do what they say they want to do, but let us be sure—to negotiate continuing full membership of the future Erasmus education and youth programme.

We could secure access to the programme through negotiations, but we would be an associated third country and that would never be as good as the programme we are part of now. However, at least with new clause 10 this Parliament would be instructing the Government that, as part of the next phase, that is something we absolutely want.

Let us remind ourselves what Erasmus does. It allows our young people to go abroad to European universities, to learn new languages, to meet new people, to put down some roots abroad and to build the international understanding that, in my view, is a big part of what it means to be British.

[Jim Shannon]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this matter to the Committee for consideration. Today I had the opportunity to meet representatives from the Russell Group, which encompasses 24 universities across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Erasmus scheme was one of the schemes they mentioned. They intimated how good the scheme was and how important it was, and stressed the opportunity that it brings. I want to support the hon. Lady in what she has said. When we have universities with the capacity and strength of membership that we have across all four regions, it indicates to me that the Erasmus scheme is a good scheme and needs to be retained.

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Member very much for his intervention; he makes the point beautifully. It is such a no-brainer: this is something that we should want to keep.

When people who have used the scheme return and apply their skills, the economy is boosted. The scheme increases their chances of getting a job and increases their confidence and sense of independence—and Brexit puts all that under threat. If full access to the scheme is not negotiated, it is those from the poorer families who will suffer. Those from well-off families will be able to study abroad if they want; their parents could pay the fees. The Erasmus scheme gives those from poorer backgrounds the ability to do that in a way that simply was not available before it came to fruition.

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Lady is making some excellent points on the reasons why we should keep Erasmus. Pollokshields Primary in my constituency is one of the very few state primary schools that participate in the exchange programme, and it broadens the horizons of children from a Scottish Pakistani background by twinning with a school, Colegio Hernández, in Spain. So horizons are being broadened in all kinds of different ways under the scheme. It would be such a shame to lose it.

[Layla Moran]

That is another reason why we need to keep it, and I will simply say this: while Brexit suggests to those abroad that Britain might be not quite as international-facing as it was before, every time I meet a young person—particularly during the most recent election campaign—they point to things like Erasmus as the older generation pulling up the drawbridge to the opportunities that we had, and that they wish they had for their future. It would be such a shame for us to conclude this debate this week without a firm assurance from the Government that they want to keep that programme, and that there is nothing that they would love more than to see that written in the Bill itself; I do not understand why they would not want to do that.

The same goes for Horizon 2020, so I will broaden what I am saying slightly. As we know, the productivity gap is one of the biggest crises in our country and Horizon 2020 is another example of the best of European co-operation. Between 2007 and 2013 the UK received €8.8 billion on research and development and innovation from the EU. When, over the past few years, I have raised this in the House, I have heard Ministers say from the Dispatch Box, “We will replace the money.”

I will make the following point through the voice of a constituent who is a professor of chemistry at Oxford University, so I hope we will concede that he probably knows. It is not just about the money, he says:

“It’s important for Ministers to recognise that access to EU funding only plays a part and is certainly not the full sum of UK scientists’ concerns. Science is indeed Humboldt’s “country without borders”; in 2018, over half of all scientific research papers published from the UK acknowledged international collaboration through author addresses, and well over 30% of all publications involved one or more EU countries.”

That says it all; I hear it over and over again. If we want to attract the best, a visa will not help; they need to know that they will be absolutely welcome in our country, and that they are welcome for those research opportunities. We are already seeing it in our institutions—not just Oxford University but Oxford Brookes as well, and in the number of professors and others who are coming to me and saying, “I tried to put in for a certain grant; it is not being accepted any more because of the uncertainty this is causing.” If new clause 10 were part of the Bill, it would give them the certainty they need to be part of that collaboration from now—and, believe me, when those people go and they go to the other European universities that will have them, that is where they will put down roots and that is where they are more likely to stay. We cannot afford to lose those people. I know the Government want to keep the best and the brightest; well, these are they, and they are saying that they are leaving.

Finally, I shall speak to new clause 29, which is about that level playing field. I shall obviously support the Labour Front Bench in the Division, when it comes, because that level playing field and its effect on workers’ rights is incredibly important, but I will continue to stress that it is not just about workers’ rights; it is also about environmental standards, and that is the bit that I am seriously concerned about.

The best feature of the election campaign we have just had was that the environment was, apparently, at the top of all political parties’ agenda; we kept hearing from the Government that they wanted to supersede the level playing field arrangements when it came to environmental standards, and that is brilliant. All the level playing field is actually is a minimum standard; why would we not want to keep it?

The same goes for workers’ rights. The same goes for anything else when it comes to that level playing field. The problem, as we have heard before, is that removing it and deregulating opens the door to lower standards. We talk about America. It is not just about America, but let’s face it, we know that that is where the Government are looking to their next trade deal.

I want to be clear about what the problem is. The environment Bill, which the Government say will replace EU legislation, does not operate on the stronger precautionary principle to which the EU’s environmental standards currently operate. We are in a climate emergency. We cannot help but be moved—I am sure we all are—by the images coming out of Australia. We need to ensure that those minimum standards are the absolute minimum. My worry is that in a post-Brexit world we will be looking for trade deals with other countries who would much prefer it if we lowered our standards. That would open the door to our compromising in this area, when I heard time and time again that there was no appetite across the country for any kind of compromise.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Lady is making a very powerful case. Does she agree that not only non-regression but dynamic alignment is vital? EU legislation is constantly modified. For example, the REACH legislation has been updated 38 times since it first came into law in 2006. If we are to avoid the risk of so-called zombie legislation—EU legislation brought across to the UK statute book but not updated—we need dynamic alignment, too.

[Layla Moran]

Absolutely. I thank the hon. Lady for her point and commend her for her tireless work on this issue. I think the broad consensus across the House is that we must now take the environmental crisis seriously. As the science progresses and as we understand where the technologies are going, we must stay close to our nearest neighbours. That matters when it comes to the environment and to biodiversity. We have to make sure that we do that. I ask us all, as a sign to ensure we stay within that level playing field and within programmes such as Horizon and Erasmus, to vote for new clauses 10 and 29.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman. It should not be beyond the wit of man to create some sort of process and a mechanism to do this, but, to date, it has been beyond the wit of the men and women in this place and in Northern Ireland to do so. That is because of the thorny issue of how we define a victim in Northern Ireland. I understand that that is a complex area from which there would be many ramifications, but we really must legislate on this.

Finally, on the victim’s pension, I want to pay tribute to the work of the WAVE group in Northern Ireland, which has been quite brilliant in supporting the victims of the troubles and in pressing the case for a pension. It is doing great work, and I know that the Secretary of State is a great fan of all that it has done. I also wish to pay tribute to Sir Anthony Hart, who, I was shocked to learn in the Chamber today, died just this morning. Sir Anthony was a very distinguished judge who took on a very difficult task in 2012 on behalf of the Assembly to undertake a review into the historical abuse in 22 homes run by the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland and Barnardo’s in Northern Ireland between 1922 and the 1990s. It was the biggest such inquiry ever undertaken in the UK, and it found that there had been grievous abuse of boys and girls in these homes over a very long period, and he found—he undertook harrowing work—that there should be compensation to the tune of £7,000 to £100,000 paid out to those victims. Sir Anthony died this morning with his work unfinished, with the legislation not passed either by the Assembly or by this place, and that is a badge of shame for politicians in Northern Ireland and in this place. We desperately need to act on this, too, because those victims deserve it; they deserve Northern Ireland’s politicians to do it, but if those politicians cannot, they deserve us in this place to take our responsibility and to legislate here.

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith). I rise to speak in support of new clauses 1 and 10, and the string of amendments, especially amendment 9, which is a very important compromise amendment when it comes to what we are trying to do today. I will start with the issue of equal marriage.

It will not have escaped us all that it was London Pride just this weekend, and we had a message from the Prime Minister to the LGBTQI+ community across the UK, in which she said:

“I will only be your Prime Minister for a few more weeks. But I will be your ally for the rest of my life.”

As other hon. Members have mentioned, an ally is not simply someone who stands up and says, “I’m with you.” An ally is someone who stands up and does something. In successive Prime Minister’s questions, we keep hearing the word “legacy”, and what a legacy this would be for the Prime Minister. When she was Home Secretary, she helped—pushed by my dear friend Baroness Featherstone, the former Member for Hornsey and Wood Green—to put through the equal marriage legislation, and she could be the Prime Minister who allows that legislation to apply across the UK. I sincerely hope that is where we get to today.

I hear the worries about our having to take these decisions, but the fact is that there is no devolved legislature for us to supersede right now; the Northern Ireland Assembly has not sat for two years. I contacted Members of that body this morning to say, “We’re doing this. Is there any particular message that you would like me to send to my fellow Members of Parliament?” Stephen Farry—an MLA for our sister party, Alliance—said that he would obviously much prefer it if MLAs were able to implement such measures themselves, but wanted to convey the following message: “Don’t be frightened”. They are behind what we are trying to do. We forget that the democratically elected Northern Irish MPs who sit here, very rightly expressing the views of their constituents, represent just one of many parties in Northern Ireland, the majority of which support equal marriage, as was shown in the vote in 2015. The Alliance party has been challenging and requesting reform of the petition of concern for a while because of the outcome of the 2015 vote, so it is worth reminding ourselves that we should be—in this case, anyway—pushing at an open door. And we can see it ourselves; 76% of people in Northern Ireland want equal marriage.

I was grateful to be able to visit Belfast and speak to students at Lagan College. It is all a bit of a mess there right now, but the families of some of those students would normally have voted for the DUP. The students said that they were embarrassed that Northern Ireland did not have equal marriage and that they would much rather see it brought in. They did not understand how society had moved so far in one direction, yet Northern Ireland was lagging behind.

Interestingly, Barnardo’s has come out for equal marriage, as has the Children’s Commissioner for Northern Ireland—and so have the businesses I have spoken to; they told me that Northern Ireland not yet having equal marriage sent a message to the workers they were trying to attract: “This is a slightly odd place.” That is not at all a reflection of what Belfast is actually like. Northern Ireland needs to move with the times. It is entirely right that this place does what Northern Ireland had already asked for before the power-sharing arrangements broke down, and it is for that reason that I am proud to be a co-sponsor of new clause 1.

I turn to the thornier issue of abortion. No one here can fail to be moved by what we have heard—not just by Sarah Ewart’s story, but by all the others too. Until I became an MP, I did not realise that there was this extraordinary discrepancy between the law on abortion in Northern Ireland and in the rest of the UK. I simply did not know, because in the UK media, in general, this kind of thing is not really spoken about. So one of the very first things I did when I was elected was to sign the amendment that allows Northern Irish women to access abortion in the UK. We know that that is not enough—that such provision needs to be closer to home.

--- Later in debate ---

[Eddie Hughes]

My memory might be vague, but my recollection is that the Northern Ireland Assembly itself voted on this issue in 2016. That feels very recent consideration, regardless of that poll and its validity.

[Layla Moran]

That is the point—at the moment, the legislation cannot be pushed through. The Assembly voted and was then unable to do anything about it. Given the human rights abuses that have been identified by the Court, and given that this place has the power to uphold our international human rights obligations, it is entirely right that we take this issue on. That vote was in 2016, but the High Court rulings are recent, and we know that one is coming down the line that will probably end up putting this to bed.

I genuinely think that amendment 9 is a good compromise, with its sunset clause that makes the provision disappear as soon as power-sharing can resume. To those who say that we absolutely should not do this and that no one wants us to do so, I say that that is not true. If they cannot go as far as to support new clause 10, I suggest that they consider amendment 9, which does have that sunset clause and simply gives the Government the right to find a way through. That, surely, we can all support.

[Lady Hermon]

The hon. Lady is of course absolutely right. We do not have a functioning Assembly. We have not had one since January 2017 and there is no prospect of it any time soon. It is absolutely unacceptable that last year over 1,000 women had to leave Northern Ireland, their homeland, to seek an abortion in England, Wales or Scotland. That cannot be right. It should be done closer to home—that is, it should be made available. It is not compulsory; it is about making it available. It is entirely a woman’s choice.

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Lady deeply for her intervention, and for her tireless work on this issue.

In the end, this comes down to what is the right thing to do. We have polls that point in two different directions and voices here from different parts of the spectrum, but the question is what would we want for our own constituents—what is the right thing to do? It is surely wrong, particularly in cases of fatal foetal abnormality, rape, incest—things for which I did not realise women could not get abortions for anywhere in the western civilised world—that even in our own United Kingdom there are women who have to travel hundreds of miles to another country altogether, across the water, to access such provision.

We have an immense opportunity to right some really, really awful wrongs. I think that most people in this country would consider this a no-brainer. It should have already happened, but it has not because of process. Please let us not allow process to get in the way of doing what is right.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (John Penrose)]

This has been a difficult debate because it has laid bare some fundamental differences in approach. It has been, predominantly, a respectful debate between people who have strongly held and highly principled views on opposite sides of some very important and tricky cultural issues, but it has laid bare some fundamental differences of opinion and divisions in our society, in the Chamber and in parts of Northern Ireland at the very least.

There have been some barnstorming speeches, including from my good friend, my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), whose speech was outstanding, and the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Ged Killen), who made a passionate argument. I will not embarrass Members by going through them all, but I mentioned others when concluding the Second Reading debate. We also heard some rather quieter but equally respectful and careful comments and arguments from people such as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who gave a measured and careful exposition of why he and his constituents feel the way they do, and my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who spoke in a similar vein. It illustrates the care with which everybody has had to approach these issues. I am grateful for all the contributions that Members have made.

This is an important Bill, and we need to get it right; that was made clear on Second Reading yesterday. I will attempt to take the amendments in this group in a sensible order and will be glad to give way when Members wish to probe the Government’s position further.

In opening my remarks, I want to make clear the Government’s view that many, if not most, of the amendments before the Committee relate to devolved matters. As many Members have said this afternoon, those devolved issues should rightly be the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Our constitutional settlement for Northern Ireland is based on the fact that Parliament has devolved responsibility for these matters to local politicians. While Parliament retains its sovereignty in relation to these areas, we must tread extremely carefully.

However, the Northern Ireland Assembly is not sitting and has not been sitting for more than two years. That is a source of huge frustration not only to those of us here today, but to people in Northern Ireland and the country at large. That frustration is starting to boil over. Patience is wearing thin, and people are increasingly unwilling to wait much longer. The result is the long list of amendments before us, which would expand and lengthen in a whole range of areas a simple, straightforward Bill that only seeks to change two dates—that is all it seeks to do.

First, there are amendments on issues of conscience—same-sex marriage and abortion—on which there are traditionally free votes in Parliament. I would like to take this opportunity to confirm that my party does not intend to break that important principle today. These votes will be up to everyone’s individual consciences, and I think I am right in saying that I have heard that from a number of other parties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Thank you, Dame Rosie; it is a pleasure to participate in this debate and to raise with the Committee, at this stage, potential amendments to the legislation that I think are capable of improving it for Northern Ireland, as well as for our country as a whole.

I was a little bit startled when I read a tweet by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) in which she, first, described the amendments as “Shameful”, which is of course a matter of her opinion, and secondly, went on to say that I had no interest in Northern Ireland. All I can say is that, having been in the House for 22 years, I have acted as a spokesman on Northern Ireland matters when we were in opposition; I served for six years, I think, on the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body; I was chair of the Conservative Back-Bench committee on Northern Ireland in my early years in the House; I participate actively in the British-Irish Association annual conference; and I try to make myself as frequent a visitor to Northern Ireland as I can, sometimes to give talks and lectures, or, indeed, to visit people, and on a number of occasions I have been there on holiday. Whatever my views may be and however much my hon. Friend may think that they are erroneous, I can absolutely assure her that I have Northern Ireland at heart. I am a Unionist and it matters to me very much indeed.

The position on the amendments is fairly straightforward. There is provision in the Bill for a report to be made to the House on how progress is being made on setting up the Executive. I greatly welcome this measure. I apologise to my hon. Friend for the fact that I was not able to be present for the debate yesterday, but it was a debate on a principle that I entirely supported. However, the measure on the report does not go far enough. Quite apart from anything else, we are at the eleventh hour when it comes to the possibility of setting up an Executive, which I believe is massively desirable for the interests of the people of Northern Ireland. It therefore seems to me to be extremely desirable for Members to provide some further impetus and scrutiny for that process, which is why I chose in amendments 14, 15, 16 and 17, along with my right hon. and hon. Friends who support the amendments, to try to move and accelerate the process forward.

For example, amendment 14 would mean that, rather than the report coming back on 21 October, it would come back on 4 September. In addition, I chose to try to make provision for the close monitoring of the process thereafter by the House, by ensuring with amendment 15 that the Secretary of State would make

“a further report under subsection 1 on or before 9 October 2019”,

which is when we come back from the conference recess, and

“at least every fourteen calendar days thereafter until either an Executive is formed or until 18 December 2019, whichever is the sooner.”

Amendment 16 is consequential to that.

Amendment 17 would provide that, in addition to what I have outlined, and so that the House may have an opportunity to indicate how it feels the direction of travel should go and to encourage the Government in their endeavours, there are opportunities within

“two sitting days beginning with the day on which a report under this section is published”

for

“a motion to the effect that the House of Commons has approved that report to be moved”.

There is a similar provision for the House of Lords, which their lordships will of course wish to consider in due course. I believe the amendments provide a sensible package that can help to facilitate the setting up of a Northern Ireland Executive, which I dearly want to see.

It has been raised with me, and I entirely accept, that Brexit also features in this matter, and so it should. Brexit threatens Northern Ireland more than almost any other part of the United Kingdom. It threatens it economically; it threatens it in terms of its security; and it threatens it in terms of its cohesion. For all those reasons, we should as a House—particularly, I might add, those of us who consider ourselves to be Unionists—be exceptionally troubled by the current direction of travel. In particular, I cannot escape the fact that I have listened with astonishment to a number of references from people who may be holding high office in the near future, one of whom appears to think that proroguing Parliament to achieve Brexit is an acceptable form of activity for the leader of the Executive, when in fact it is a constitutional enormity and a gross undermining of democracy.

I freely admit that one of the purposes of these amendments is to try to ensure that this extraordinary threat of really an unprecedented character made against this House that we should be prorogued can be banged on the head. Furthermore, the fact that we should be sitting in October to consider these grave matters in relation to Northern Ireland is, in my view, a good reason why these amendments should be supported. I am mindful of the fact that a further amendment, new clause 14, has, for perfectly understandable reasons, not been selected at this stage of the proceedings because of the nature of its scope. It would have effectively provided—I want to make this point very briefly—that Prorogation could not take place, because when these statements and motions should be made and passed, the House would have to be sitting. That is desirable, because as we approach the crisis that is impending on 31 October, if this House wishes to approve a no-deal Brexit, then so be it, but it should be here to do just that, and not pushed into the margins, as some have suggested in this entirely unconstitutional fashion.

[Layla Moran]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. I pay tribute to him for bringing forward these amendments, but is there not a sense of irony here? This Bill is meant to bring back the ability to debate laws in Northern Ireland, yet at the same time this place faces being shut down by whoever becomes Prime Minister. There is a huge irony here. If nothing else, this place should be safeguarding democracy, and I thank him for his amendments, because that is what they will do.

[Mr Grieve]

I agree with the hon. Lady. The process of debate is the process by which we continuously moderate each other’s opinions, and by listening to each other, we grow in understanding of the points of view of the other and come to sensible decisions. Heaven knows, if I have tried to do anything during this Brexit process it is to try to encourage a sound process, to prevent catastrophic cliff-edge moments and to enable this House to make reasoned decisions. What this House then decides to do is a matter for the House, but the idea that we can or should be excluded from the process, as some seem to be willing to threaten, is an enormity. Our democracy will not survive such an assault, and it is incumbent on every single one of us to take action to ensure that that does not happen.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

Perhaps it is best if I write to the Chair of the Select Committee with specific details, although I want to be clear that we have put in a specific reference to decisions taken since the Executive collapsed because we do not want those decisions that have already been taken to be challenged on the basis that once the Bill is in place there is more cover for civil servants. We want to ensure that the decisions that have already been taken are not undone.

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

I had the privilege of visiting Lagan College, an integrated school in Belfast, and I would like to take this opportunity to convey to the Secretary of State people’s deep frustration that Stormont is not functioning and their deep frustration about how Stormont functions. Same-sex marriage is an example of a policy that Stormont voted in favour of but was then blocked by a petition of concern. As part of bringing the parties back around the table, is the petition of concern something that the Secretary of State will be encouraging them all to look at again?

[Karen Bradley]

At the moment I need to get this legislation through, then I can bring the parties together. The hon. Lady is right that the petition of concern was discussed during the last talks process. What I cannot say is what will be discussed in the next talks process.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I shall speak to new clause 7, which is about equal rights in Northern Ireland. I hope that Members across the House who have already supported the new clause will recognise that it is an incredibly reasonable request to put to the Secretary of State, about an incredibly important issue for the House, and indeed for many people in Northern Ireland.

I do not intend to speak for long, because many others wish to get in. I simply want to set out three important points about this reasonable new clause—first, how it respects devolution; secondly, why it addresses issues that cannot simply be left any longer; and thirdly, how we believe it has relevancy to this House and the obligations of Members of this House as part of the Good Friday agreement.

The new clause requests the Secretary of State’s acts to be held to account because of what the Bill does—it recognises that since March 2017, we have not had an Assembly in Northern Ireland. [Interruption.] January 2017; I apologise to the Secretary of State. It has been too long for residents of Northern Ireland not to have a functioning Government, and it has an impact on their lives. The Bill recognises that resolving the dysfunctions behind that is far ahead of us at the moment, and so gives powers to the Secretary of State and to the civil servants to exercise the functions of Government. [Interruption.] It does give power to the Secretary of State because it gives her guidance powers; I believe those are quite powerful, and the new clause speaks to those powers.

For avoidance of doubt, the new clause would not create a new law in Northern Ireland, but it would recognise that there are thousands of people in Northern Ireland whose lives, right now, are affected by two key human rights issues; and they are indeed human rights issues, because they are issues on which our courts are currently discussing, ruling and indeed appealing. They refer in particular to a person’s right to marry who they love, and also to the right of women to have bodily autonomy—to make the choice, if they so wish, not to continue with an unwanted pregnancy. Both of these have been subject to court action, because we recognise that in Northern Ireland they have different rules.

Let us talk about the consequences of those rules. When it comes to abortion, we know that right now in Northern Ireland, if you are raped, and you become pregnant as a result of that attack, and you seek a termination, you could face a longer prison sentence than your attacker. We know too that gay couples in Northern Ireland, when they step off the plane, no longer have their relationship respected in the way that any of us would wish our relationship to be respected. They do not have equal marriage in 2018.

Both of these sets of circumstances come about as a direct result of legislation that was written in this place. First and foremost, sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, and also, because of the Matrimonial Causes (Northern Ireland) Order 1978. So there is a relevancy for us in this House, because legislation written here is having a direct impact on the human rights of people in Northern Ireland today.

[Layla Moran]

Can the hon. Lady confirm something that Northern Ireland Amnesty told me, which is that, yes, powers are theoretically devolved to Northern Ireland, but there is no piece of human rights legislation that has been passed at Stormont; and actually, all changes to human rights law in Northern Ireland have been passed in this place?

[Stella Creasy]

I know that the hon. Lady also feels strongly about this issue. If I may, however, I shall now deal with—in particular—the human rights obligations that I believe we have in this place as a direct result of the Good Friday agreement.

There is a theoretical argument about what those pieces of legislation mean, and there is the human impact of what they mean for people in Northern Ireland.

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[Stella Creasy]

With respect, I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has read the legislation on which we are voting today, because it constitutes a recognition that there will not be an election in Northern Ireland any time soon to make that possible. So I repeat my question to him: what do the women do who need that help now, who deserve that respect and equality when it comes to control over their own bodies, and who might be in that dreadful position that involves a fatal foetal abnormality? What do they do now?

What those women do now is look to this place to be able to assist them. They look to the Secretary of State, and to the piece of legislation that she is creating, and they can look to the new clause to hear the call from this place that we will not ignore them. We will hold ourselves to account, and will hold Secretaries of State to account, for the incompatibility in human rights that the continued existence of those two pieces of legislation represents in their lives. That is what this incredibly reasonable new clause does. It does not create a new law, but it does not shy away from recognising the impact of those existing laws either. In that sense, it is entirely within the spirit of the Good Friday agreement.

Twenty years ago, our predecessors in this House, alongside their colleagues from the Irish Government, swore to uphold the human rights of the Northern Irish communities. They swore in the Good Friday agreement to make sure that there was an equivalency of rights. Every single month that passes, that promise comes into stark relief, because when we look at the Republic where same-sex marriage is legal and look at that historic referendum this year when abortion became legal in the Republic, we can see that that request not to have different rights is becoming tested.

The Good Friday agreement also required this House and UK politicians to act alongside their Irish counterparts, and that is what this new clause can do, while respecting our shared desire to see the Assembly up and running. So it is a very simple amendment, and I am sorry that it has come to this point and the Secretary of State does not feel able to accept it, and I am proud that it has cross-party support, because that respects and recognises that upholding human rights cannot be something we simply talk about doing abroad but do not recognise on our own doorstep.

I also think there has to be some honesty here. There are some Members of this House who do not believe that women anywhere should have bodily autonomy; there are some Members of this House who do not believe we should be able to marry the person we love. But I make a simple plea to those people: “Be honest with the people of Northern Ireland that your objection is that, and do not use devolution as a decoy for a denial of their human rights.”

[Layla Moran]

I say this to be helpful to others in the House. I went to Belfast recently—to Stormont—and I had not appreciated that same-sex marriage has majority support among MLAs and a huge amount of support in terms of public opinion. The reason why it did not pass is because there is a thing called the petition of concern which essentially acts as a veto, so to say that there is not support and the people of Northern Ireland should just change their politicians does not work in this case; it has to be us who take that leap for them.

[Stella Creasy]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. Sadly, on both issues opinion polls show us that the politicians in Northern Ireland are behind the public consistently; indeed, they are behind their own supporters when it comes to both issues. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) is chuntering from a sedentary position; I understand that he has philosophical objections on some of the issues in this debate, but I hope he will have respect for the people of Northern Ireland and therefore agree that the case should be heard as to why the Secretary of State should be asked to protect their human rights and to be held to account for what is happening.

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[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

Because we have a working group that was set up by the Executive and that has brought forward proposals, this area of the law would have been addressed by now.

[Layla Moran]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

With respect to the hon. Member for North Down, the party that is preventing this issue from being addressed in Northern Ireland is not the Democratic Unionist party; it is Sinn Féin who are preventing the Executive from addressing the report of the working group, which has brought forward proposals in respect of mothers who are expectant with a child who may have a life-limiting condition, so let us get our facts straight.

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[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

That is why we are unable to examine the laws.

[Layla Moran]

Give way!

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

In respect of the proposals before us, it is important that we consider carefully what we are doing. If we really are to be true to our commitment to respect the devolution principle—

[Layla Moran]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

The hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) referred earlier to a border in the Irish sea. Let me address that for a moment.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

What is the point of devolution?

[Layla Moran]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

It was this House that decided that Northern Ireland should have devolved responsibility for abortion and marriage. It was this House that decided to give to the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive the power to legislate on these areas of life. That is the reality. The hon. Member for Walthamstow talked about the decisions of this House—

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Layla Moran]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

In respect of—

Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

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

1. For what reasons the decision was made to publish information about loans and donations given to Northern Ireland political parties dating back to July 2017 rather than 2014.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Karen Bradley)]

The recent publication by the Electoral Commission of donations and loans data for Northern Ireland parties is a positive step that should be welcomed by the whole House. The decision to backdate transparency was taken on the basis of broad support from the majority of political parties in Northern Ireland.

[Layla Moran]

It has recently been revealed that a portion of the largest ever political donation given to a party in Northern Ireland was spent on services linked to Cambridge Analytica. In the light of that, should not the Secretary of State backdate transparency regulations to 2014, so that we can finally have full disclosure about where that cash came from?

[Karen Bradley]

As I say, the decision to backdate to July 2017 was taken due to the broad support of the majority of parties in Northern Ireland. My predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), took time to consult the parties, and July 2017 was the date that they wished to start the transparency from.

Oral Answers to Questions

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

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

Q1. If she will list her official engagements for Wednesday 13 September.

[The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May)]

I am sure that the thoughts of Members across the House remain with all those affected by Hurricane Irma, particularly in our overseas territories. I would like to update the House briefly. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has travelled to the overseas territories to see the recovery work at first hand and assess what more is needed. As I told the House last week, we had a Navy ship pre-positioned in the region and humanitarian experts on the ground to co-ordinate the UK response. Since Thursday Cobra has met regularly to co-ordinate the Government’s response, bringing together military, aid and consular effort, and today I am announcing an additional £25 million to support the recovery effort, further to the £32 million of assistance that I announced last week. We have now deployed over 1,000 military personnel to the region, with an additional 200 to arrive in the next few days, along with over 60 police. More than 40 tonnes of aid has now arrived. I am sure that Members across the House would like to join me in paying tribute to the hard work of the many people, military and civilian, who are doing an incredible job in difficult circumstances.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Layla Moran]

I would like to echo the Prime Minister’s words of sympathy for the families, but especially the children, affected by Hurricane Irma.

Oxford West and Abingdon has a vibrant local economy, but, reliant on the university, science and car industries, it is set to shrink if we leave the single market and the customs union, risking thousands of local jobs. Is it not time that the Prime Minister was frank with people about the dangers of leaving and allowed them a say when we finally know the full facts?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady’s view of what is going to happen when we leave the European Union is not the right one. If she is telling her constituents that, then she needs to think again. She needs to work with the Government to ensure that as we leave the European Union we get the deal that gives us access to the single market and enables us not just to have that access, but to do trade deals around the world and bring prosperity and jobs here to the UK.