Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill [HL]

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 26th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I also speak as a layman and someone who feels it a privilege and refreshing to be able to take part in such a debate, which is non-partisan and features so many experts, leading lawyers and leading medics in this field. It is the House of Lords at its best.

I put on record immediately that I am not with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, on abortion, which I see as justified on social grounds, but I am with her on conscientious objection—indeed, I would go so far as to say that, for me, the recognition of conscientious objection, from village-Hampdens on, is the sign of a civilised society as against a non-civilised society. My presumption always would be in favour of conscientious objection.

The problem, as my noble friend Lady Young said, is that if one agrees, as I do, that the Court of Session was correct and that the current law needs to be extended, where does one draw the line? How does one find some position of defining “participation”? Can it be extended so far as to be ridiculous? There is of course much learning both in respect of participation and of remoteness, but I think that many people would agree that we need to go beyond a very narrow interpretation of grounds of conscientious objection which a number of colleagues here have put on the relevant provision in the 1967 Act. Yes, we should extend it, but we should also, perhaps by amendment in Committee, say how one defines the extent of participation so as not to make it ridiculous.

The importance of freedom of conscience is recognised in many international instruments—I know that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has gone through a number of them—from Articles 1 and 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. For the rest of this week, I have been in Strasbourg sitting on the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee and on the committee responsible for the selection of judges to the court. As the noble Baroness said, our own Equality Act has religion and belief as protected characteristics and includes reference to lack of religion or belief.

Freedom of conscientious objection should surely be not just a wish but relevant in practice. It should be relevant in practice also in the workplace. The European Court of Human Rights has interpreted the convention rights in the case of Eweida v United Kingdom, which was that of the Coptic Christian who wished to wear a cross while working for British Airways. A strong court held in her favour on the basis of her freedom of religion. Some concerns have been expressed both in the Assembly of the Council of Europe and here that the unregulated use of a conscientious objection clause could limit a woman’s right of access to lawful medical care. That would be taking it too far. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, has already mentioned Resolution 1763 passed by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council or Europe in 2010, so I shall not quote what is already on record.

It is surely wrong to deter individuals from entering and remaining in the medical profession, particularly in the case of Doogan, where the circumstances of employment of the two women had changed from the time when they first entered that employment. The question about recruiting and retaining is particularly relevant in the National Health Service, and not just during the current winter crisis. We should be conscious of any deterrent or obstacle which might be put in the way of caring individuals who are inclined to apply for work in the health service. Clearly, the NHS is struggling at the moment to hire and retain GPs. The number of surgeries—which I accept is a wider matter—dropped from about 8,500 a decade ago to 7,500 today. We all want to see a GP when we need to and no additional barriers should be put in place. There must surely be a reasonable way to accommodate conscientious objection, so far as possible, while finding appropriate lines as to how far one can go.

A possible precedent might be the way that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe dealt with the prisoners voting case, the case of Hirst, in 2005. Happily, in December of last year a reasonable accommodation was reached on the “margin of appreciation”, and I applaud David Lidington, the Minister, for his work in that context. Is there not a “margin of appreciation”, or a reasonable accommodation, in these cases, whereby Solomon or the reasonable person can say, “The current law has been construed too narrowly; we need to go further, but we need to draw those lines”? I hope that, perhaps in Committee, perhaps by amendments, we can find a way through this, but I agree that we need a debate on this highly sensitive issue; therefore, for the moment, I support the Bill and the excellent way it was put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan.