Offences Against the Person Act 1861

Debate between Owen Smith and Emma Little Pengelly

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. Devolution necessarily means that there will be differences between the jurisdictions of the United Kingdom, but it should not mean that people in any one part of the UK should have a diminished set of rights. That is what we are dealing with in Northern Ireland.

I became utterly convinced of this case when I led a delegation of Labour MPs to Northern Ireland earlier this year to hear directly from the women of Northern Ireland about their experiences. One of the women who spoke to us has been mentioned several times in today’s debate. Sarah Ewart has become a great champion for the cause of reform in Northern Ireland, and her story is typical. At 19 weeks, she was diagnosed as having a foetus with anencephaly, a fatal neural tube defect. The baby was never going to live. She was unaware of the circumstances and went to her GP to ask for an abortion, only to be told that she could not have one. She ended up spending over £2,500 to come to England and undergo a not terribly satisfactory procedure, and being traumatised in the process. She is one of hundreds of women undertaking that journey, and one of thousands who have contemplated seeking, or have sought, medication on the internet to bring about an early termination. That cannot be right in 2018 in any part of the United Kingdom. It cannot be right that we endure circumstances in which the Victorian practice of backstreet abortions is growing in part of the United Kingdom. That should simply be unacceptable.

I want briefly to talk about the politics of this. Hon. Members from Northern Ireland have spoken with knowledge of their communities, but I do not think that we have heard a completely full account of where public opinion lies in Northern Ireland, or of the political situation there. One of the parties in Northern Ireland has changed its view recently—Sinn Féin has moved its position—and other political parties, notably the Ulster Unionist party, have previously stated that this would be a matter of conscience, were there to be a vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly. So it is not black and white that there is political opposition to this across the board in Northern Ireland. Nor is it right to say that there is public opposition, because some of the most recent polls have shown that up to 75% of people in Northern Ireland, of all faiths and none, believe that there should be decriminalisation there.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

I am afraid that I will not give way.

I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State say that Conservative Members will have free vote if the matter comes before the House, so I hope that it comes before the House at the earliest opportunity and I look forward to voting with Conservative Members to change the law for Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Bill

Debate between Owen Smith and Emma Little Pengelly

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the intervention, and let me answer it and the point made by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). She makes my point for me. She asks what the Executive decided in respect of the HIAI and the answer is we do not know. We know that they said they thought they ought to implement its findings in full—they said that just before the Assembly went down—so we have some clarity on that. Crucially, we do not know what the Executive would have decided in respect of the regional rate and we do not know whether the Assembly would have decided to change the terms of the cap on the RHI, yet we are legislating in this place, in this Bill, to change those things, without any knowledge of what the Assembly would have done. So it precisely relevant to the business at hand—

[Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

I will give way in a moment. It is precisely relevant to the business at hand that we could be legislating under the same terms on these two issues but are choosing not to do so for some reason, be it political expediency, timeliness or the fact there are less pressing financial reasons for doing so. Those people who are here today—there are people who were injured by either side in the troubles—having been in paralysis, having lost limbs or having lost livelihoods for a long, long time now, are in need of our support.

I know that the Secretary of State wishes to give that support, so I cannot understand, and do not think she has yet explained to the House, why it is not a moral imperative—and a financial imperative for those people—to introduce legislation to implement a pension for the severely injured and to enact at the very least the relatively minor compensation arrangements that Sir Anthony Hart agreed under the HIAI.

The Secretary of State has the extra £1 billion that she managed to find for the Democratic Unionist party under the confidence and supply agreement, and part of that money could be allocated either to the victims of historical institutional abuse or to those who have suffered injury as a result of the troubles. That would be time well spent in the House, and nobody would reject or resent it. I do not believe for a moment that it would undermine either the Secretary of State’s efforts to get the peace process and the talks back on track, the Sewel convention or our desire to get the Assembly back up and running.

Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill

Debate between Owen Smith and Emma Little Pengelly

2nd reading: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I welcome those words. I was sure that the Secretary of State would reflect on those events.

The Bill does in itself reflect the instability in Northern Ireland and the fact that reconciliation is required. We should remind ourselves, too, that it is actually the seventh year of suspension in the 18 years of the Assembly. It is a measure of some of the problems that we face that we are still in suspension now after 14 months. Other recent comments that have been made in respect of commemorations remind us, too, of the desperate need that we still have for true reconciliation between communities. Although the peace is robust—I know that we all feel that—the reconciliation is still all too fragile.

Notwithstanding the fact that we are discussing a set of technical measures today—it is not formally a budget, as the Secretary of State has explained to us—there are lots of questions to be asked. I hope to pose some of them, including questions about the form of the Bill—what is in it, what is not in it and what should be in it—reflecting some of the comments that have already been made by right hon. and hon. Members.

The first is about the form of the Bill. The Secretary of State said, “We have done something different this year.” She has not done what her predecessor did, which is rely on section 59 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to provide 95% of budgets. We have moved to what is in effect a version of the budget and the estimates process that we have for the rest of the United Kingdom at traditional points in the year. The Secretary of State has partially explained why she has done that—because it is an emergency measure—but I still do not completely understand why we have gone down that route. That prompts the question whether this is a further staging post on that famous glide path to direct rule. If that was in the Government’s mind when they went down this route, I urge them to think harder about how they redouble their efforts to try to get things back up and running.

If we are not dealing with a straightforward budget today and if these measures are allocating only 45% of the spending for 2018-19, we will have to have, as the Secretary of State has said, another budget Bill before the summer, which equally makes the point that this is a pretty poor substitute for the sort of scrutiny, intelligence and direction that we would have if we had a Stormont Executive and Assembly setting and scrutinising a budget. Some of the confusion that we have heard about today over the differences between allocations and appropriations and schedules 3 and 4 and about whether we are allowing for spending on the historical institutional abuse inquiry this year is because, effectively, what we have is a piece of cut and paste legislation here. If we read the schedule, it is pretty much exactly, word for word, the same schedule with the same description of the objectives and tasks facing the individual Departments in Northern Ireland as we had in the Northern Ireland Budget Act 2017.

[Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)]

Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that the lists in that document cover the scope of each Department—the vires of the Department? Therefore, we will not see any significant change in that year by year, because that is the scope, the limits and the vires of those Departments in which they can spend. That does not change in this document.

[Owen Smith]

That is precisely right; that is the point that I was coming on to. I was going to say that this is a poor substitute for a proper budget process. What we do not have today is any real insight into how the money will be spent, or where the priorities lie beyond those broad headings. We have had some confusion around HIA funding today. Clearly, there is an implication that 45% of the money for the HIA is available to the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to deal with in this coming year, so some clarity on that would be helpful. I will come on to the HIA in a little more detail later. This is a poor substitute. I think that we can all see that we should have better scrutiny, transparency and accountability, but we can only have that if we get the Executive back up and running, because this place cannot properly form a substitute for Stormont.

All this places Northern Ireland’s excellent, hard-working and diligent civil servants in a very invidious position. They are taking responsibility for providing services and are making increasingly autonomous decisions about services without really having a political master to serve, or a political backstop to watch their back if there is a crisis in any of the services that they are providing. We can all see that that is not a situation that we would wish to place civil servants in, and it is not a situation that can continue ad infinitum. I know that the Secretary of State is mindful of that, and I hope that it is one of the things that will spur the Department on to redouble its efforts in this matter—and indeed spur the parties on to try to find the wherewithal to build trust between one another, because they, too, will be effectively leaving those civil servants to carry the can unless we are able to get an Executive back up and running.

Three areas of public expenditure are not included in the budget today or are only referred to obliquely in the case of the HIA that could be included in the budget and could have been dealt with more fully today and in the coming months. The first is the HIA inquiry conducted by Sir Anthony Hart that several right hon. and hon. Members have already mentioned today. The inquiry reported before the Executive collapsed, recommending that the hundreds of men and women who survived historical abuse in some 20 institutions in Northern Ireland should be commemorated and, crucially, compensated for the abuse that they experienced.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that clarification, but she has effectively doubled down on what she said earlier, and that is not good enough. These people have waited long enough. I think that the report came before the Assembly collapsed, and there is widespread political support across the piece that compensation ought to be paid. I therefore hope that, notwithstanding the complications and the sense that we would in some respect be rescinding a measure of devolution, we should find it in this place to legislate and provide the resources. That is the view of the Labour party, and I am sure that the Secretary of State will reflect on that.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

I just want to provide some clarity. The report from Judge Hart, who headed up the inquiry, actually came just a very short time after the collapse. In fact, we raised this point with Sinn Féin. We established the inquiry with Sinn Féin, who knew that the report was coming, and we wanted to hold on to get the report and make the correct decisions before the collapse of the Assembly.

[Owen Smith]

The hon. Lady is right. I think that the report came a matter of days after the Executive collapsed. But that does not change my point, which is that there is widespread political support for action. David Sterling clearly thinks that it would be acceptable for us to legislate in this place. I have put on the record that the Labour party thinks that it would be acceptable for us to legislate in this place and that we think that the Secretary of State should do so.

The second area of omission that I wish to bring to the attention of the House is the legacy of the troubles. I know that the Secretary of State is reflecting on this and that it was part of the discussion between the parties in the recent talks that have unfortunately stalled. In the light of the failure of the talks, will the Secretary of State say a little more about whether and how she might bring forward resources and legislation on dealing with the legacy of the past?

Armed Forces Covenant: Northern Ireland

Debate between Owen Smith and Emma Little Pengelly

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I can say with equal clarity to the right hon. Gentleman that the leader of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland is wrong in that regard, because the armed forces covenant has been adopted in Northern Ireland and should be implemented. The Opposition are clear about that.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

Will the shadow Secretary of State give way?

[Owen Smith]

I will give way one more time and then draw my remarks to a conclusion.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

I feel the need to say strongly that the armed forces covenant has not been formally adopted in Northern Ireland. I was a special adviser in the First Minister’s office, working with Executive colleagues, and I sat down with and repeatedly asked Sinn Féin for the covenant to go on the Executive’s agenda and for it to be agreed. Sinn Féin refused time and again, not for any logical reason and not on the basis of equality, but due to its historical opposition to the British armed forces. I sat there and had those conversations. The armed forces covenant has not been formally adopted in Northern Ireland.

[Owen Smith]

The point is that this is clearly a politicised and, at some level, a political issue. Clearly, points are being scored on both sides of the divide in Northern Ireland. The key point I want to make is that the Government’s view, which we share, is that—