Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 General Committees

[Mrs Miller]

Again, I thank the hon. Gentleman, and we will not fall out over this, but I will gently remind him that it has been widely accepted that the reason the case was not accepted either in Northern Ireland or in the Supreme Court just over the road was because of a technical error in the drafting of the legislation when the standing of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission was drawn up.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It may be important for the record that we recognise that there have been many human rights cases involving abortion, Northern Ireland and the ECHR, and other cases have indeed ruled that there are breaches that need to be addressed, but they recognised that this Parliament was seeking to act. If, for completeness, we are to recognise that, yes, some rulings have been dismissed on technicalities, there have been others, for example, where the court has ordered compensation to be paid to women who have suffered injustices as a result of the law, and it is therefore right that we act to address it.

[Mrs Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, and I think the Minister needs in his summing-up to give some assurances to hon. Members here today that there will be clarity for people in Northern Ireland and that we will not continue to have this fear culture, bringing a lack of clarity for women, doctors and medics on the ground, not knowing whether the law that has been passed here is, as we have said it is today, the law of the land. He has to make that crystal clear.

To echo what the Minister said earlier, to paint this as a liberalisation of abortion law is not consistent with my reading of what is being put forward. Introducing the 12-week limit is consistent with the Republic of Ireland, and given the cross-border issues, I am sure the Minister thought carefully when he put that provision in place. The remainder of the changes are more or less consistent with the rest of the Abortion Act 1967, as it applies in England and Wales, and consistent with the regulations surrounding the use of medical abortion pills, particularly that women now have the option to take a second pill as part of the treatment at home. It is crucial that we communicate these details to women who will be trying to navigate something that is, perhaps, being obscured to them in the way it is being reported.

I echo the tributes made by the hon. Member for Bristol South to the women who have had the courage to bring cases, to speak out to Select Committees, including the Select Committee on Women and Equalities, which I chaired at that time, and to talk about their experiences, to ensure that people knew in full about the suffering they had gone through.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, as we debate these important regulations. This is an opportunity for this House to come together an uphold the human rights of all UK citizens. I start my contribution by paying tribute to the work that many have done to get us to this point. I thank the Minister, who has been patient and diligent and listened to all sides of the debate on this matter before arriving at these regulations. I also thank the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South, who has been an incredibly diligent and thoughtful advocate for the importance of getting these regulations right. I thank my colleague and hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North, who has been a stalwart campaigner for the right of a woman to have the equal right of a man to choose what happens to her body—unfortunately, this is still a contested issue in 2020. I thank the former Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who gave a brilliant speech earlier today about the things she heard and the work that Committee did.

Above all, I thank the many voices from Northern Ireland who have been able to be heard over the past couple of years, in this place and outside, as a result of us as a Parliament taking on something that, for years, people have said was too difficult to deal with. This has been a difficult debate, and I recognise there are strongly held opinions on all sides of the House about this matter, but because we put it in the “too difficult” box, we have denied the voices of thousands of women in Northern Ireland who have been speaking about their human rights. That has changed over the past couple of years, and I pay tribute in particular to the Alliance for Choice, the London Irish Abortion Rights Campaign, Amnesty International and Together for Yes, as well as women such as Sarah Jane Ewart, who have been incredibly powerful and brave in telling their story about the consequences of this legislation.

These regulations are needed because almost a year ago, this House recognised that it was important to repeal sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which put having an abortion in the same category as child-stealing and using gunpowder to blow this place up. However, repealing those sections was only 50% of treating every single woman in the UK as an equal citizen. We need these regulations to clarify what the provision of abortion in Northern Ireland is. I stand with the hon. Member for North Down, who is very welcome in this place and has clearly stated the simple truth that not regulating for abortion—banning abortion—does not stop it happening, but means that it happens in an unsafe manner. It puts lives at risk.

We know that for generations, Northern Ireland has been exporting its need for abortion to the rest of the United Kingdom. We know women who have had to make that horrific journey under horrific circumstances: not just Sarah Jane Ewart, but thousands of women who have had to travel, if they can at all, because they do not want to continue an unwanted pregnancy. At the heart of this regulation is a very simple question: do we have the right to force a woman to continue an unwanted pregnancy? If we say yes, then of course, we can stand up to those human rights organisations that have told us countless times over the years that we are torturing our own citizens—that is how they have described deciding for somebody else what happens to their body, in this most graphic way. That is why it is right that this place acted, and it is why I must respectfully disagree with the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings when he says that this is somehow illegal.

These regulations stem from that moment last year when we recognised our human rights obligations as a United Kingdom, and expressly said that devolution does not deny those rights to some women in the United Kingdom. Indeed, in that moment we were sticking to article 27 of the Vienna convention, which states that a party to a treaty

“may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty”

and paragraph 39 of CEDAW’s general recommendation on the core obligations of states, which says that states cannot use their delegated powers to absolve themselves of responsibility to all women. It is clear that for too long, this place has denied its responsibility to the women of Northern Ireland, and today’s regulations put that right. They do so in a sensitive and CEDAW-compliant manner, so that we treat the women of Northern Ireland with the respect we would wish for all women.

We are required to follow the ECHR, and it is right that this place deals with this issue, because it is our law—the Offences Against the Person Act 1861—that created these challenges in the first place. Whatever legislation the Northern Ireland Assembly wishes to bring forward on this matter, which it can do, it could not take action without dealing with that Act, so it is right that this place seeks to act—

[Sir John Hayes]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Stella Creasy]

I will, but I want to make reasonable progress, to allow the Minister time to answer some of the questions. I give way happily.

[Sir John Hayes]

I want to be clear about this. When the hon. Lady spoke on this subject in the House before the last election, she said clearly that the reason she was advocating what she was, was the absence of Stormont; were Stormont sitting, she would not do so. Now, she is making a completely contradictory argument, that Stormont should never have had the powers at all. If she thought that then, why did she not say so?

[Stella Creasy]

I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman appears to have listened to what I said in the House. If we are honest, in debates, it sometimes feels that that is not always the case for those on opposing sides. If he listened to what I said then—and what I say now—it was that devolution did not absolve us of our responsibility. Indeed, the requirements of the European Court of Human Rights cross-cut to Northern Ireland as part of the Good Friday agreement.

The right hon. Gentleman says that we have always devolved this but, I genuinely suggest to him, the absence of legislation on Northern Ireland was in 1967. That was before the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which enshrined the responsibility of this place to uphold the human rights of the people in Northern Ireland, leading to the creation of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which sought to address this issue but, as we discussed, was not able to do so because of a technicality. Does he want to suggest that there is a clear demarcation? Furthermore, I have not yet heard him advocate that other forms of human rights such as on torture should also be delegated to Northern Ireland. We do not do that; we recognise that some rights are universal and that, collectively, we have a responsibility to uphold them.

My point last year was that for too long, because of the absence of the Assembly, this issue had not been addressed. I ask those who today say that we should not agree to the regulations, if not these regulations, where is the alternative? Now that the Assembly is up and running, it can come up with alternative proposals. As yet, it has not.

The risk is twofold: first, the continuation of the abuse of the human rights of the women of Northern Ireland, whereby they are forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy because there is no safe, legal and local service for them; and, secondly, in the absence of regulation, now that we have repealed sections 58 and 59—I agree with Government Members who made this point—there is a gap, a lacuna, in what services are provided that needs to be addressed.

If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to advocate devolution, he should advocate what CEDAW-compliant regulations the Northern Ireland Assembly should be coming up with, so that we may navigate this terrain of being part of the United Kingdom, of upholding our human rights obligations and of recognising the role of local institutions in identifying how those regulations are provided. He should not be saying simply, “Put it back in the ‘Too Difficult’ box—let’s not go there.”

Having said all that, it is important for us to look at the legislation, at the regulations before us, and I am sure that the Chair wishes me to do so. The regulations implement what polls in Northern Ireland have been telling us for some time: the vast majority of people do not consider this to be a criminal matter but a medical one, requiring medical regulation, which is what the regulations do. That is the view of both the MLAs and the broader public. However, there is common ground to be found: we need to find a medical way of moving forward.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I, too, pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend last summer to ensure that we are here today to discuss the regulations. Specifically, with the repeal of sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 as relating to Northern Ireland, we are left with England and Wales still covered by that Victorian law that could send women to prison for life. I wondered whether she would care to comment. Having repealed those sections, the use of regulation to establish a framework for an abortion law that works for the 2020s and beyond is not beyond the wit of man or woman any more. The Abortion Act 1967 should also now be considered ripe for reform, in line with the reforms that we are seeing in Northern Ireland.

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend knows that she has my full support as she makes the argument that our constituents in Hull and Walthamstow should also be treated with dignity. I am always mindful that abortion is the only medical procedure in which we deny the patient the opportunity to consent. Were we to apply the same rules to having a vasectomy, for example—that somehow two doctors should decide for people whether they were entitled to have such a procedure—I suggest gently that some in Committee would be equally affronted by the denial of their rights to make a choice about their own body. They would not want to be forced to continue something that they did not wish to do.

I am mindful of time and what the Minister has said. I will press him on a number of issues, because it is right that, now we have made this choice to uphold the human rights of women in Northern Ireland, we should ensure that the regulations can be enacted in real time, so that women no longer have to wait. The Minister himself said that the reality is still that people have to travel. There have been thousands of such women, since it was required in 2017 that women in Northern Ireland at least be allowed to come to the NHS in England and Wales, and not be charged despite being UK citizens paying taxes towards the costs of those services. I am conscious that the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings was slightly confused when he talked about home user abortion. In England and Wales people can now take both pills at home. It is important that we recognise that we have made some progress in trusting women to make choices over their own bodies.

If the bodies in Northern Ireland continue to refuse to commission for any gestation at all, as they are doing at the moment, does that count as a breach of the regulations? Will the Minister answer that explicit question for us? It is untenable, those decisions have been taken, and the regulations having been brought in, for women to be required to travel, when that is not an option for many of them. It is not just because of cost. They might be in abusive relationships or have other childcare commitments. That is not the safe, legal and local service that the House overwhelmingly voted to extend to all women in the United Kingdom. Is what I mentioned therefore considered a breach of the CEDAW determination that the previous situation in Northern Ireland was

“violence against women that may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”?

Any form of regulation, I suspect, would not find favour with Members from some parties who are present today, because it would allow women to make the choice to have an abortion. However, if the regulation is not commissioned, what does the Minister expect to do to make sure that we are CEDAW-compliant, and what is the timescale for that? How long, essentially, are we to ask women in Northern Ireland to continue to wait before their rights are upheld? The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings talked about asking for time to regulate. Frankly, the Northern Ireland Assembly now has the time to regulate, but it shows no sign of doing so. Without that, and with the determination not to commission, there are no regulations in force, with the possibility of being in breach.

The regulations say that it should be possible to get an abortion in Northern Ireland under 12 weeks without any grounds. Are we in breach of those regulations at the moment? At the moment, it is possible only for some women under 10 weeks to get access to a service. At 10 weeks and one day they cannot, because the service is not being commissioned. The Minister talked about a good faith defence for medics. Will he clarify what sorts of cases he believes that is intended to safeguard against, so that we can understand better the scenarios he believes possible?

Finally, we talked about the 12-to-24-week provisions and the fact that it is possible to have an abortion in Northern Ireland if doctors say that there is a risk to physical or mental health. That is not a provision available to women in Northern Ireland at the moment. It has not been commissioned. It is a very rare occurrence. Most abortions take place before 10 weeks and the women have made that choice. When abortions happen later it is usually because of horrifically tragic circumstances such as those that Sarah Jane Ewart pointed out, when it is discovered that a child will die at birth. If we do not pass the regulations we are asking women to be in that position, and requiring them to continue and give birth to a baby they know will die. I do not think anyone in the Room would want that to happen, so we must regulate. There must be provisions so that in the horrific circumstance when women who go for a sonogram are told their baby will not live we are with them rather than judging them; offering them support to make the choice they want to make—not to continue the torture—rather than telling them there is no alternative. Will the Minister clarify whether there is an appeals process and, if so, what it might be, for women denied an abortion between 12 and 24 weeks because two doctors refuse it?

I stand with the right hon. Member for Basingstoke who talked about the importance of information. Above all, now that we have reached this point—having had the difficult conversation and heard the voices, and having been given the opportunity to get the legislation right and get the regulations—a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy would be a travesty. People in Northern Ireland deserve respect and to understand what services they are entitled to. Will the Minister clarify information processes? What information will there be for people whose doctors decide that they do not want to take part in the process and how will we make sure that they are not forced by delay in service delivery to wait for a later stage of pregnancy? Three years ago, we made a promise to the women of Northern Ireland when we first started this conversation and first looked at their right to be able to travel here that we were not done. If we are honest, we are not done yet with these regulations. We are much further down that road, but there is still much more work to be done.

I know the Minister recognises that and wants to see this through. It is important today that we vote for these regulations and get further along that road, but it is also important that we do not give up on ensuring that what we talk about in this place—those rights, that equality of being able to manage our own bodies and our own choices—is extended to all our citizens.

I thank the Minister for the work he has done. I will be voting for these regulations, and I recommit myself to working with those woman and men on the ground in Northern Ireland, to help to ensure that their voices continue to be heard in this process, until we are all truly, equally able to exercise our own rights. Surely that is the best of human rights, and that is the best of democracy.