Offences Against the Person Act 1861

Debate between Maria Miller and Joanna Cherry

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I will come to that issue in the short time that I have left.

I commend the hon. Member for Walthamstow for bringing this issue before us today, but the House must understand—and she made this clearer today than during her intervention yesterday—that repealing sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 would have profound impacts for the whole United Kingdom. I am not saying that those changes could not be strongly argued for, but I believe that today’s debate is about the situation facing women in Northern Ireland. We need to make sure that we are focusing on that in particular, because although decriminalisation is an option—the hon. Lady is right—it is not the only option for improving the situation for women in Northern Ireland. I want to draw on three particular issues.

First, is there a disconnect between public opinion and the policies being pursued in Northern Ireland? What progress has been made on the ground and what action, if any, can the Government take to make sure that, if progress is lacking, things can be done to rectify that? When I read the research—I also read the consultation, which was extensive and thorough—I thought that a strong argument could be made for a call for change to be inherent in the community in Northern Ireland. I do not represent that community; as I look at Northern Ireland Members, I hope that in their contributions they will explain why there is an apparent difference between the public opinion being offered to us and the approach being taken to date by the devolved Administration. I deliberately tread carefully and respectfully on this matter. I truly believe that we should not start any changes here that would make people feel disfranchised as part of this process.

Secondly, we have to recognise that a great deal of progress has already been made; there has not been much detail about that so far in this debate. There was the consultation in 2014 and the report in 2015 mentioned

“a pressing need”

for

“change to the criminal law…to provide for lawful termination of pregnancy…in…clearly defined circumstances”.

That has already been called for. In 2016, legislation was introduced by the then Minister for Justice to bring about some of those changes. In 2018, just last month, a report from a working group on fatal foetal abnormalities again recommended that change should come in.

Change is called for. What can we do today to try to make sure that the absence of an Executive and an Assembly does not stand in the way? There are clearly opportunities with the case that is going through the Supreme Court, and I hope that the Minister is able to share with us more about the Government’s feelings on that. Perhaps the Minister can also talk about the action that can be taken in the absence of an Executive, to continue the deliberations and the important detailed work needed in this place.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Miller]

I will not, if the hon. and learned Lady will forgive me.

I simply do not believe that no action will be taken when the Northern Ireland Assembly is formed again, but if none is, what can the Government do to ensure that there are no potential breaches of international conventions such as the ones I have already talked about?

This place legislated to devolve powers on abortion to Northern Ireland. We cannot ride roughshod over that, and we have a responsibility to uphold the law. Equally, the lack of a functioning Assembly hampers progress. Westminster has a right to disagree with the Assembly and the actions that it has taken, and this debate should be a vigorous exploration of all those arguments. But we have clear international responsibilities to outlaw discrimination against women. We need to make sure that we, as Westminster parliamentarians, are doing for that for women in the four corners of the United Kingdom.

Scheduling of Parliamentary Business

Debate between Maria Miller and Joanna Cherry

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair), who delivered a superb maiden speech. It is a great pleasure to see her in her place today, and I look forward to hearing further such contributions from her in the months and years to come. It really was a fantastic start to her parliamentary career.

I fear that today’s debate has been something of a missed opportunity. No institution, let alone Parliament, should be set in aspic. We need a strong parliamentary institution, and if that is what it is, it should evolve. It should have adult conversations about the way it conducts itself. There are strong arguments for change in the way the parliamentary business is scheduled, but I am afraid that the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) did not make them, and nor indeed did the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart).

That is a great shame, because debate on improvements in this place, including improvements to scheduling, is what our constituents would expect us to cover, despite what some hon. Members were implying earlier. That should be what we discuss, and the focus should be on what would make us more productive and what would reduce the costs of Parliament, which are still considerable and not to be ignored. Perhaps the Opposition should have focused this opportunity on areas where real change is needed—change that has already been recommended by publications such as “The Good Parliament” report and in the work of the all-party group on women in Parliament.

I want to focus briefly on three of those changes, which I hope those on the Opposition Front Bench and, indeed, the Leader of the House will consider in a little more detail.

First, I should like a Division hour to be introduced. That would give all of us parliamentarians an awful lot more certainty about how we can plan our days. At present, we suffer from the archaic system of voting at the end of debates, and Members are very uncertain about when the votes may come, particularly during the Report stages of Bills. Division hours, which are common in the European and Scottish Parliaments, might give us the extra productivity that we now expect regularly from our constituents when they are going about their everyday work.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The right hon. Lady makes an excellent suggestion. Does she agree that we should also get rid of the antiquated system of walking through the Lobbies to vote, and follow other modern European Parliaments such as the Scottish Parliament by introducing a press-button system for Members who are present?

[Mrs Miller]

We shall have to agree to disagree, because I think that going through the Division Lobby is one way in which Members of Parliament can talk to each other. It can be cohesive. We can talk to Ministers about the policies that they are developing, for instance. I do not support the idea of electronic or remote voting; I think that the present system creates more of a team within Parliament.

I do not support the idea that a vote at the end of every day, sometimes in the wee small hours of the morning, gives anyone the edge. It gives no one the edge. It feels as if we were re-enacting the D-day landings, and trying to adopt guerrilla tactics, which, in my 12 years of being in Parliament, have never worked. They have never changed the outcome of a debate, or the outcome of a vote. I urge the Government to think about how they can modernise that aspect of our parliamentary schedule—which brings me to my next point.

I am reliably told by some Members who have been here much longer than I have that late sittings are an integral part of parliamentary life. I know that they are not as late as they have been in past generations, but we are still regularly here until 10 pm, as we will be tonight. We may not mind that, which is absolutely fine, but there are consequences. The late votes that we decided to have cost the taxpayer £5 million over the last five years, and those were staff costs alone: the additional costs of policing and security must at least double the amount. At what point will we, as a Parliament, realise that sitting until 10 pm, or voting at 10 pm, on a Monday is not an integral part of the work that we do? When will we realise that we could change that, and save taxpayers money? We could also improve the quality of life of the staff who work here, which we currently seem to disregard when we make decisions about the scheduling of our sitting hours.