BBC Funding
Debate between Nadine Dorries and Kate Green(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Ms Dorries
That is something we are keeping under review. In today’s age, should we really continue with a licence fee paid by individuals with the potential threat of bailiffs or criminal prosecution? That is an important question and it will be part of the discussion.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The establishment of the BBC in Salford, neighbouring my constituency, has created many excellent jobs for my constituents and has been an important economic and cultural driver of success in the north-west, but that is not what I want to ask the Secretary of State about. What guarantees can she give to the BBC’s world-class salaried orchestras? I have had the great privilege of attending the BBC Philharmonic’s concerts as its guest.
Ms Dorries
The BBC, as I have said, will continue to receive billions of pounds-worth of funding, and it will continue to meet its mission and core purpose, but I cannot dictate how it spends its money and I do not have editorial control. It is up to the BBC to decide how it spends its licence fee settlement.
Induced Abortion
Debate between Nadine Dorries and Kate Green(12 years, 1 month ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Nadine Dorries
Later in my speech, I will address the evidence for that.
After the forthcoming debate allocated by the Backbench Business Committee, if there is a positive vote, if the debate is strongly attended and if Parliament expresses a strong feeling, that will send a strong message to the Government to bring the 1967 Act back to the House.
In 1990, the 1967 Act was amended to reduce the upper limit from 28 weeks to 24 weeks. I hope there will be a fuller debate in May, but in the meantime, following today’s debate, I will write to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists guideline committee, enclosing a copy of the Hansard of our speeches today, and ask it to look again. 1990 was a long time ago. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) said, things have progressed and science has moved on.
If the RCOG guidelines committee advised, based on the evidence available at the time, that the upper limit should be 24 weeks—
Kate Green
The hon. Lady implies—perhaps I misinterpret her—that the RCOG has not considered the guidelines since 1990. In fact, its most recent report was published in 2010, and it still says that foetal viability is very low up to 24 weeks. In fact, at 20 weeks it is 0%.
Nadine Dorries
I will address that point in a moment. I will not give way any more, as I know that lots of people want to speak.
I want to make it clear that my proposal to reduce the upper limit does not include babies with foetal abnormalities or, sadly, disabilities. That is a discussion to be held, as I have said, between parents and doctors. Abortion is available up until birth for foetal abnormalities. My proposal applies to abortions for social reasons.
A study by the Centre for Sexual Health Research at the university of Southampton and the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the university of Kent found that 41% of women who have second-trimester abortions do so because they were not sure about having an abortion and took a while to make up their mind to ask for one. I believe that one positive effect of reducing the limit to 20 weeks might be to focus the mind slightly sooner than 23 weeks. Because abortion is available until 24 weeks, there is a laxity, as people have a prolonged period to make up their mind. The research says that women took a long time to make up their mind. Maybe reducing the upper limit will help.
It is clear to me that we cannot allow the present situation in our hospitals to continue. In one room in a hospital, there might be a premature poorly baby born at 22 or 23 weeks at whom the NHS will throw everything it has to help it survive. In another room in the same hospital, a healthy baby will be aborted at 24 weeks. Dr Max Pemberton recently wrote in The Daily Telegraph that
“many doctors are uncomfortable with the current cut-off point. It is not something we openly discuss, because we know it is a highly emotive area. But privately, many doctors will express discomfort that the current legislation is inherently illogical and inconsistent. Any doctor who has found themselves in the neonatal intensive care unit of a hospital will be acutely aware of it. In the same hospital where doctors are trying to save a premature baby born at, say, 23 weeks, a woman down the corridor is legally allowed to undergo a late-stage abortion on a foetus of the same gestation. So on the one hand we throw considerable money and resources to try to save a baby’s life, while on the other we sanction its destruction.”
I have consistently made that argument for the past seven years. The medical profession cannot make two arguments. Doctors cannot say that a poorly baby’s life is worth trying to save from 20 or 21 weeks onwards while stating at the same time that there is no chance of life up to 24 weeks, so it is okay to abort up until that point. There is an inconsistency in retaining 24 weeks. Should there be a case to say that doctors should not try to save the life of a poorly baby born before 24 weeks’ gestation? Can hon. Members imagine the uproar if we said, “Okay, the RCOG has said that viability is 24 weeks, so we really shouldn’t be saving premature babies before 24 weeks”? We should say, “No, the point of viability is 24 weeks, so we should stop. Wipe out the neonatal units, wipe out the premature units. Viability is not consistent before 24 weeks.”
Doctors cannot have it both ways. They cannot say in the NHS, “We try to save babies from 20 weeks because they are viable,” and then say, “We abort at 24 weeks because they are not.” The two arguments cannot stand. That is an anomaly, and it must end.
Health and Social Care (Re-committed) Bill
Debate between Nadine Dorries and Kate Green(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Nadine Dorries
I want to finish this point, and then I will give way.
The counsellor would be completely impartial, give no advice or direction and be entirely independent, so if the woman had been through the process and then continued to abortion, she would do so knowing that she had talked through her options with somebody.
Nadine Dorries
I want to finish this point, and then I will give way. I know that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) wants to intervene, and I will take an intervention from the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) first, in a moment.
There is a huge disparity in the figures, and the freedom of information request shows an even bigger disparity. Marie Stopes had told me—I hope I get this right—that the proportion of women who go to the organisation and do not proceed to termination is about 15%, although I do not know what freedom of information requests would show about those figures. The fact is that abortion providers are saying that 20% or 15% of women do not proceed to abortion, although freedom of information requests show that the figure is 8%, as was shown in the press this week. I have no idea why there is that disparity, or why they would say that the figure is 20% when it is not.
Nadine Dorries
No, I will not give way again.
Those members of staff are themselves not necessarily happy with the guidelines and the way in which they are forced to operate. I speak to people at abortion clinics across the UK who would like the guidelines to change because they do not necessarily feel that women receive the counselling that they should receive because it is not offered but has to be asked for.
Kate Green
Where in the hon. Lady’s amendment is there a guarantee of the quality of counselling that women would receive from such organisations?
Nadine Dorries
I hope that the quality of counselling is determined by the professional bodies by which the counsellor is accredited—they determine the standard of counselling. It does not matter whether counselling is for an abortion, for cosmetic surgery, or for anything else—it has a defined manner in which it is delivered, which is that advice is not given, that influence is not asserted, and that it is totally impartial. Any counsellor who is trained as such and accredited by a professional body delivers counselling in that manner.
Let me return to the mental health issue and the e-mails that I receive on a daily basis. One of the problems—