Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill [HL]

Lord Elton Excerpts

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

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, to begin, perhaps I should try to allay some of the anxieties of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, by referring her to Clause 1 of the Bill, which restricts its effect to activities under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 and the Abortion Act 1967, so it is not, I think, going to take us into the area of hospices and so on. I will speak very briefly, because so much has been said already, and said well. My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay has set out very clearly most of the reasons why I support this Bill in legal terms, and my noble friend Lady Eaton has set them out in philosophic terms. I would rather turn to the practicalities, as there is a common concern, not limited to those who oppose the Bill in principle, about the extent to which the exemption in the Bill applies.

Two things need to be kept in mind as we start this. The first is to empty our minds of our own views as to the rightness or wrongness of the termination of life. What we are looking at is the rightness or wrongness of requiring people to do things which are absolutely abhorrent to them. The question is, how close to the deed that is done do you have to be before you are right to think that you are in some sense guilty? Therefore, it might be helpful to look at how we apply this test elsewhere. For instance, if there is a burglary and I make arrangements for the burglar to have somebody keep watch while he burgles, or if I arrange a getaway car and delegate the driving duty to somebody else, it would be quite clear in a court, I would have thought, that guilt attached to me because I had made it possible for the burglary to take place.

So the question is, in my mind, at what stage in the administrative and preparatory procedures can a person who is involved in them properly say that, “If I had not done this, that would not have happened”, or “If I had not provided this particular pharmaceutical product, or had not myself been present at a particular time enabling a certain function to take place, it could not have happened”? The definition we must seek in Committee is one which makes clear where the line stops in the administrative and preparatory train—the line below which there is no guilt, where what you are doing is organising the bus service that goes past the house that was burgled and not the car in which the burglar got away. It is a very simple illustration; I hope it is helpful.

I warmly and enthusiastically support the Bill and the intentions of the noble Baroness. I would like to say a lot more about a lot of other contributions, but I think your Lordships really want to bring this to an end, because we are focusing clearly on what the real issues are.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the new chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health in the UK, a position that I have taken over from the noble Baroness, Lady Gould. I place on record my thanks to her for all the work that she has done during her time in that position.

In that capacity, I have had the great privilege of talking to my noble friend Lord Steel. He could not be here today but if he were then, like me, he would seek to vigorously oppose the Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. He would also have picked up the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on his partial quotation from 1967: what my noble friend went on to say was that conscientious objection was written into his Bill but with the proviso that no woman would be denied access to the services that would then become legal. He wanted to say to noble Lords today, had he been present: do not be fooled by this Bill. It would take us straight back to the period of the early 1960s, when practitioners such as the senior registrar in the West Midlands effectively denied women their legal rights.

I often talk to students about the contrasting systems of the US and this country when it comes to discussing and legislating on matters of morality and conscience. I draw a contrast with the US where, such is the level of religiosity in debate that no elected politician can go against the prevailing religious orthodoxy and therefore they do not, and matters of conscience and morality are litigated in the courts. We in the House of Lords do things rather differently: we bring in all shades of religious opinion and debate these matters extensively. I ask them to compare and contrast the two.

I think it is right that we have our system and that we engage in debates such as these. I therefore agree with the right reverend Prelate that it is important that we look at these matters in very informed and deliberative ways. I agree with him that it is perhaps time that we reviewed the 1967 Act; it was written 50 years ago and times have changed. Unlike him, I believe it is now too restrictive and wish to see it liberalised.

I want to address the issue of conscience. I listened very carefully to the speeches by the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, and the noble Lord, Lord Elton. Someone reading our debate today might come away believing that it is only those who object to abortion who are holders of conscience and morality. I do not believe for a moment that is true. I remember talking to Lord Winstanley, a young doctor who helped my noble friend Lord Steel to take—

[Lord Elton]

Would the noble Baroness give way? I made it clear at the beginning that the question of whether you believe an act is right or wrong is absolutely immaterial; what matters is the effect on the person. I attribute no beliefs to anyone.

[Baroness Barker]

The point that I wish to make stems from exactly that. Noble Lords will remember that during the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act there was a proposal that registrars, who are public servants, should, according to their conscience, be permitted to deny services to people who would be married under that Act. The effect of that would have been that were people like me, and in this case the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, to turn up to a register office to register the death of our loved one, we would not be accorded the same treatment and dignity as any other person.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, talked about the United States of America. The Bill is one example of a much larger movement in which people who oppose certain legislation on matters of what I would consider to be social progress use the issue of conscience as a proxy by which to undermine laws which are democratically passed. That is a serious and insidious development, and one that we in this House should strongly resist. This is not about the clarification of conscience, it is about the extension of people’s rights to opt out of provisions of laws which have been carefully considered and agreed in great detail in our democratic institutions.

The impact of the Bill is exactly what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, sought to deny. She said that this is not about restricting access to services. It absolutely is. We already have examples of that. We have examples in the NHS of GPs who refuse to provide access to contraceptive services. There are boroughs in London where there is no provision. What happens in those circumstances? It is poor women and women who do not have the freedom or wherewithal to travel elsewhere to get those services who suffer.

This is a deeply pernicious Bill. I hope that, when we get the opportunity to do so, we will vote against it in such overwhelming numbers that we put an end to the arguments that lie behind it, which I believe are thoroughly disingenuous.

[Lord Elton]

Before the noble Baroness sits down at the end of a powerful and lucid speech, as she is sitting on the Front Bench, is she delivering the line of her party on the Bill or is she speaking personally?

[Baroness Barker]

I make it absolutely clear. As on all other Benches, we have a variety of beliefs on this subject, but what I can say in all clear conscience is that I represent the majority of my colleagues on these Benches.