Crime and Policing Bill

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 16th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, this is a very large Bill—as my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier said, it is too large—but for present purposes, I am going to focus exclusively on Clause 191, the clause that allows a mother to abort an unborn child right up to the moment of birth. This clause is wrong in principle and should be removed from the Bill. Your Lordships will note that this provision was incorporated into the Bill late during the parliamentary process, on Report. The debate lasted for some two hours. So far as I am aware, there was no pre-statutory consultation.

I have always taken a very libertarian view on abortion. I am a strong supporter of the 1967 Act. I agree that abortion raises serious issues of morals and faith, but I have always taken the view that that is a matter for the mother and, on the whole, not for Parliament. However, Clause 191 goes far too far. I find it very difficult to distinguish in principle between a child who has just been born and a child who is about to be born. If the child were killed immediately after birth, its killing would be an act of homicide; so, I suggest, is the killing of an unborn child immediately before its birth. There is very little distinction in principle.

Of course the law and common sense have always recognised that some acts of homicide are lawful. For example, reasonable defence is lawful; so, for example, is abortion when the health of the mother is at risk, long after the 24 or 26 weeks. But such is not the case here. The arguments advanced have relied very largely on the distress of vulnerable mothers—mothers who, incidentally, could have had an earlier abortion under the provisions of the 1967 Act.

I accept, of course, that there may be very distressing cases, and I hope that the prosecution authorities would consider carefully in any individual case whether the public interest required prosecution—very often not. I also hope that if a prosecution occurs and leads to a conviction, the sentencing judge will give serious consideration to the mitigating factors and impose as lenient a sentence as possible. But these considerations are not the same as decriminalising an act of homicide. Society as a whole, and Parliament as an institution, have a duty of care to an unborn child capable of being born alive. It is an obligation which reflects the value that we place on human life. This clause, if passed, would flout that obligation, and I do not think we should allow that to happen.