Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill

Simon Hoare Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Lady has raised an important point. That court judgment in June 2018 held us all to account for what we were doing about human rights. It was simply because the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission was not a direct victim of that policy that the policy could not be enacted. We learnt today that Sarah Ewart, an incredibly brave woman, is continuing the court process, because there is no other form of redress and remedy at present.

As the Government have previously said, these are matters on which the Assembly, were it to be functioning, should be able to act; but, as we said at the start, the Bill constitutes a recognition that the Assembly is not functioning, and is unlikely to be functioning soon. What, then—this is the human question—do women like Sarah Ewart do? What, then, do people who love each other do when their politicians fail them? What do the public do? The new clause asks that question in a way that none of us can ignore. It asks the Secretary of State to take on the responsibility of reporting on what she will do.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Stella Creasy]

I will happily give way, but I do want to make some progress, because I know that other Members want to speak.

[Simon Hoare]

Surely, in those circumstances, one just changes the politicians through the ballot box.

[Stella Creasy]

With respect, I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has read the legislation on which we are voting today, because it constitutes a recognition that there will not be an election in Northern Ireland any time soon to make that possible. So I repeat my question to him: what do the women do who need that help now, who deserve that respect and equality when it comes to control over their own bodies, and who might be in that dreadful position that involves a fatal foetal abnormality? What do they do now?

What those women do now is look to this place to be able to assist them. They look to the Secretary of State, and to the piece of legislation that she is creating, and they can look to the new clause to hear the call from this place that we will not ignore them. We will hold ourselves to account, and will hold Secretaries of State to account, for the incompatibility in human rights that the continued existence of those two pieces of legislation represents in their lives. That is what this incredibly reasonable new clause does. It does not create a new law, but it does not shy away from recognising the impact of those existing laws either. In that sense, it is entirely within the spirit of the Good Friday agreement.

Twenty years ago, our predecessors in this House, alongside their colleagues from the Irish Government, swore to uphold the human rights of the Northern Irish communities. They swore in the Good Friday agreement to make sure that there was an equivalency of rights. Every single month that passes, that promise comes into stark relief, because when we look at the Republic where same-sex marriage is legal and look at that historic referendum this year when abortion became legal in the Republic, we can see that that request not to have different rights is becoming tested.

The Good Friday agreement also required this House and UK politicians to act alongside their Irish counterparts, and that is what this new clause can do, while respecting our shared desire to see the Assembly up and running. So it is a very simple amendment, and I am sorry that it has come to this point and the Secretary of State does not feel able to accept it, and I am proud that it has cross-party support, because that respects and recognises that upholding human rights cannot be something we simply talk about doing abroad but do not recognise on our own doorstep.

I also think there has to be some honesty here. There are some Members of this House who do not believe that women anywhere should have bodily autonomy; there are some Members of this House who do not believe we should be able to marry the person we love. But I make a simple plea to those people: “Be honest with the people of Northern Ireland that your objection is that, and do not use devolution as a decoy for a denial of their human rights.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her comments about amendment 22 and simply urge her to continue to pursue the creation of pensions for the 500 people who are suffering from severe physical injuries as a result of the conflict.

I also rise to support new clause 7, and I will be brief because the situation is simple for me. I have defended and promoted devolution for a decade, but I never thought it would be used as a means of abrogating responsibility for the human rights of anyone within the United Kingdom. It is astonishing that my daughter, who lives in Scotland, could perhaps take up a job in Northern Ireland and then lose the rights that she was born with in the United Kingdom. That cannot be acceptable to anyone in this House, but there are people within the UK who do not have the rights that those of us who sit here today enjoy. New clause 7 would help to put that right, and we should support it.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I had not intended to speak, but I listened to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and with great attention to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) who, as the Secretary of State said, argued her case with fluidity, passion and an exemplary understanding of the issues, referring back to the ten-minute rule Bill speech of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson). Irrespective of what side of the abortion debate line one might find oneself falling, nobody will doubt the passion that the issue evokes or the concern that is expressed.

However, I do say—before anyone starts shouting at me, this may not be the right word to use—that there is a cruelty implicit in new clause 7. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that the Bill’s purpose is not to create new law and that civil servants are not empowered to create new law, the hon. Member for Walthamstow said that her intention is not to ride a coach and horses through or to undermine in any way either the Good Friday agreement or the legitimacy of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe—she is a friend—spoke convincingly and movingly. The cruelty of new clause 7 is that, if it is passed, it will raise a huge amount of hope—although not among everyone in the community of Northern Ireland—but it will not address or deliver on that hope. The cases that she cites would in no way be alleviated or resolved by new clause 7. Those who seek a termination will still have to travel to the mainland, but a huge amount of hope would be raised.

We understand, and the hon. Member for Walthamstow understands, the minutiae of new clause 7. And the Secretary of State, because she is advised by a phalanx of officials, understands what the new clause means in law.

[Anna Soubry]

I am standing up for what I believe.

[Simon Hoare]

Of course that is what this place is for, but my right hon. Friend, in essence, said that all the terrible cases she cited would in some way be stopped or resolved and that people would not have to go through any of these things.

[Anna Soubry]

I absolutely did not say that, although it is obviously something that many of us now seek to do. New clause 7 is the gentlest step forward so that the Secretary of State and her good officials can monitor human rights and see what is happening. This is important work. With great respect to my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), he was not here for the whole debate. He does not know, for example, that the situation in Northern Ireland is such that people cannot even be given basic advice at the moment, such is the onerous nature of the law. We are talking about merely looking at the situation, monitoring it and helping the Secretary of State to fulfil her obligations: no false hopes for anyone.

[Simon Hoare]

My right hon. Friend does not have a unique understanding of what happens in Northern Ireland. Many of us will have been to Northern Ireland, will know people in Northern Ireland and will have heard a variety of experiences and views.

I think we know how the media and social media will deal with this. This will be “Abortion has now been made legal in Northern Ireland.” For many that will be a welcome thing, but for others it will be the worst thing imaginable. Whichever side of the argument we sit on, I am firmly convinced that expectations have been artificially inflated, but I am not convinced by the arguments of the hon. Member for Walthamstow that new clause 7 would not fundamentally undermine the very foundations of devolution, with ramifications for both Scotland and Wales. We should resist this new clause.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

I am aware that time is short, so I will make a couple of short points.

Following on from the previous speeches, I urge everyone in the Committee not to support new clause 7 for a number of good reasons. First, this is a hugely controversial issue. Regardless of what Members think of my views, they must objectively accept that this is a controversial issue in Northern Ireland. This amendment has been tagged on to a Bill during its accelerated passage through the House. The fact I am standing here with just a couple of minutes to make these points emphasises that this is the wrong way to do it. I urge Members, regardless of their views on the substantive issue, to reject new clause 7, so that we can have proper consideration of this issue in this House or in any other more appropriate Chamber.

Secondly, there is the devolution settlement. The termination of pregnancies is presented by some, including in the Committee, as a very black and white issue—we are either supporting women, or we are against women—but the reality is that court cases in every country in the world, including in relation to the European convention on human rights, have found this to be a complex issue that is rightly for democratic institutions in each jurisdiction.

In the UK, termination of pregnancy is very clearly a devolved issue. I accept that there are some complications in relation to the legal cases, and it may be, for the first time, on very narrow grounds of life-limiting conditions—fatal foetal abnormality, and rape and incest, potentially—that this is ruled to be a human rights issue under the European convention on human rights. If that happens, it becomes a more complex issue, not just for the UK, but for all signatories to that convention, because there will be horizontal impacts from that type of decision. But in the first instance the courts have recognised that this is rightly for the relevant democratic body, which in this case is clearly the Northern Ireland Assembly.