Abortion in Northern Ireland

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the provision of abortion in Northern Ireland.

On Monday we made the Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2021, and we laid them before Parliament on Tuesday. We have taken that important step because women and girls are still unable to access high-quality abortion and post-abortion care in Northern Ireland, in all the circumstances that they are entitled to under the law made by Parliament in the absence of the Northern Ireland Executive, and reconfirmed in the regulations laid last March.

This is about ensuring compliance with the legal duties that Parliament imposed on me in mid-2019. The legal duties on me as Secretary of State are clear: I must ensure that the recommendations in a specific report by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women are implemented in Northern Ireland. We are not seeking to open the Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020, which were approved by a significant majority in Parliament last year. Those regulations delivered a CEDAW-compliant legal framework, ensuring that the health and safety of women and girls, and clarity and certainty for the healthcare profession, remain paramount, while also remaining sensitive to the circumstances in Northern Ireland.

This is not about new laws; this is about ensuring that the existing law is acted on and delivered. As I am sure many right hon. and hon. Members will agree, at the heart of this matter are women and girls who have been, and continue to be, denied the same rights as women in the rest of the UK. Women and girls are entitled to safe, local healthcare. Indeed, during the pandemic, that has been even more crucial. The law changed more than a year ago, and abortion services should now be available as a healthcare service in Northern Ireland, so that women and girls can safely access local services. This is not a new issue or a surprise for the Executive.

Following the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 receiving Royal Assent and section 9 duties coming into effect, we engaged with all Northern Ireland parties on this matter, and we continue to engage. We have always sought to deliver in a way that respects the devolution settlement, by putting in place a legal framework, and recognising that healthcare is devolved and therefore service provision should be delivered and overseen locally by the Department of Health, as well as by health bodies with the relevant legal powers, policy and operational expertise to do so.

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. Will the Secretary of State confirm to the House that paragraphs 85 and 86 of the CEDAW report are not legally binding on the United Kingdom, and do not constitute international obligations, as confirmed in the explanatory notes to the 2021 regulations, therefore undermining the whole premise for forcing a change in Northern Ireland’s abortion law in 2019? Can the Secretary of State also confirm that according to the devolution settlement established by the Belfast agreement, access to abortion services is a devolved issue and this action represents a breach of the Belfast agreement? Furthermore, can he confirm that his sole legal basis for intervention in this area is section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, and that during the passage of that Bill, which was opposed by every Northern Ireland MP who took their seat, it was made clear that the only reason Parliament was interfering in this issue was that there was no sitting Assembly at that time?

Will the Secretary of State explain why he has chosen to take action to use his powers in relation to abortion under section 9 but has failed to act in his duties in relation to the Executive’s failure to introduce payments for victims, under section 10 of the same Act? I know that the Secretary of State shares my support for the Union, but does he not understand that at the heart of the devolution settlement must be a respect for areas that have been determined to be for the devolved authorities? There is still time for him to think again before he takes action that will undermine and further destabilise the devolved institutions. It is time for the Government to recognise the error of their ways, repeal section 9 and restore Northern Ireland’s life-affirming laws.

I recognise the hon. Lady’s consistent position on this, the strength of feeling on this issue and the contributions she has made in previous debates and conversations in this House, and indeed in the conversations she has had with me and with the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker).

It is important to be clear that Parliament stepped in. Parliament placed me under this legal obligation during a period of no functioning devolved Government in Northern Ireland. Even though the Executive and the Assembly have now been in place for more than a year, those legal duties do not fall, and have not fallen, away.

I appreciate the points the hon. Lady made about comparisons with payments to victims, but I should point out that that matter is being progressed by the Executive; it is being delivered on, that scheme will open shortly and victims will be paid. I share the frustration of a number of Members in this House that the Department of Finance and the Executive have not yet allocated the moneys that the Department of Justice needs to move forward with that, and I hope that they will move on with that. However, that scheme is actually being progressed by the Executive, and the victims will be able to apply shortly.

We have been clear, and we have conveyed the message to the Health Minister and his Department throughout, that it is crucial that abortion, as a fundamental healthcare service, is delivered and overseen locally by the Department of Health. That ensures that it is delivered in a sustainable way and becomes embedded in the health and social care system in Northern Ireland in the long term.

I fully appreciate that abortion is an extremely emotive subject, but we must not lose sight of the women and girls in Northern Ireland who are absolutely at the heart of this matter. It is unacceptable that there are women and girls in part of the UK who cannot access these fundamental rights, as they can elsewhere in the UK. Even though the law was changed some 12 months ago, services have not been commissioned yet, and that leaves many women and girls in vulnerable positions.

The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) has done the House a service by raising this issue. Her predecessor gave the House his advice on relationships before he left.

The choice is between compassion and politics. I put it to the Secretary of State that the key point is this: if there is going to be an abortion, it should be legal, safe, early and local. There has been too much delay. Let us put first the interests of women and girls. Going south or coming east is not the answer. Let us get on with it. I hope he understands he will have support from most people in Northern Ireland.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have to make sure that people are getting access to the right healthcare. It is a legal obligation on us following the Parliament vote, but he is right that we need to make sure people get the right healthcare at the right time and in the right way, and do not have to go through the challenges they face at the moment.

I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) for raising this important issue. We respect the dearly held convictions of all those who make their case today, but it is important to remember how we reached this point. The existing laws, according to the United Nations, amounted to a “grave and systematic” violation of women’s rights in Northern Ireland. This Parliament had and still has a duty to act to uphold those rights.

The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) gave women in Northern Ireland a right to a safe, local abortion. Parliament made its will clear. No longer will we ask women to use unsafe, unregulated services or to make a heartbreaking journey across the Irish sea to seek an abortion in Britain. That was why the vote on that amendment tabled by my hon. Friend passed overwhelmingly. It was the clear will of this House.

Nineteen months on from that vote, it is extraordinary that women and girls are still being denied safe, local services. We know of more than 100 women who have been denied access to services, leaving them in the desperate situation of travelling alone across the Irish sea or accessing unregulated medicine online. The cycle of inaction must end, so I urge Ministers in Northern Ireland to commission these vital services.

The cross-party letter supporting the Secretary of State’s decision to step in demonstrates the continued strength of feeling across the House. The Government will have our full support when the regulations come before the House for a vote, but I would be grateful if the Secretary of State could provide a date for when that is likely to be. Can he also outline the deadline for when he intends to use the powers contained within the regulations if services have not been commissioned in Northern Ireland? Will it be before the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission takes him to court in May?

The hon. Lady has strongly and powerfully outlined the importance of why we all hope that the Minister of Health in the Northern Ireland Executive will move forward and commission services in a way that is right and appropriate in Northern Ireland, using that local knowledge and expertise and making it, as I said in my opening remarks, sustainable. She has strongly outlined the cross-party support for that, and I know that colleagues on the Government Benches have argued strongly for this in the past as well. The House showed, through the size of the vote last year, a strong will to see this healthcare properly provided, as it rightly should be across the UK so that people can get the support and care that they need close to home and locally. I appreciate her comments and her support for that.

May I ask my right hon. Friend how many women and girls, during the pandemic, have had to make that awful journey across to England, Wales or Scotland to have an abortion?

My right hon. Friend highlights the point that the simple answer is too many. To be frank, any single case is one too many, particularly if we think about the circumstances through the pandemic, and I outlined a couple of harrowing examples a few moments ago. Having to travel across to mainland Great Britain without the network of family support that one would normally hope to have when going through this kind of procedure with medical support is just a harrowing thought, and some of the stories are just too emotive to do justice to or to outline here today. We have to ensure that that does not continue and that people can get the support they need close to home, locally in Northern Ireland.

I thank the Secretary of State for his efforts to uphold the human rights of all women in the United Kingdom. The Department of Health in Northern Ireland has said that, because this is a new service, it will need additional funding to provide it. Will the Secretary of State confirm that his officials have spoken to the Department of Health and that the funding will be provided, so cost will not be a barrier to ensuring that the women and girls of Northern Ireland can access abortion should they wish to do so?

We are talking to the Department of Health all the time, and we will obviously continue to—I myself have spoken to the Minister of Health consistently. This is something that the Department has the funding for. There is a substantial block grant for the Executive to make their decisions, and we got that £900 million uplift in the spending review just last year. The Department of Finance outlined just a few weeks ago the underspend on last year, so there is no issue with money. At the moment, there is obviously a substantial cost for people who are having to travel from Northern Ireland to mainland Great Britain, in a way that is financially inappropriate, let alone unjustifiable morally and in healthcare terms.

So this is something that the Northern Ireland Executive can provide and that the Department of Health should be moving on with. We will continue to work with them to ensure that that is done, giving them whatever support we can, but, ultimately, I think we would all much rather see this being provided and worked through by the Department of Health locally in Northern Ireland than this Parliament having to take the action we are taking now.

Does the Minister agree that if this House is to help preserve the Union and respect the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland, we should refrain from imposing unwanted primary legislation on this part of the UK? After all, poll after poll shows that Northern Irish voters are against the liberalisation of abortion laws.

On this occasion, Parliament stepped in on human rights grounds to ensure that women and girls have equal treatment and equal access to important healthcare services available to women and girls living in other parts of the United Kingdom. We also need to be clear that this is not something we have unilaterally imposed on Northern Ireland. We undertook a public consultation on the regulations in late 2019, which included engagement with, and carefully listening to the views of, the Northern Ireland political parties, medical professionals, women’s groups, civil society, religious organisations, service providers and women with lived experience. It is now crucial that the Department of Health in Northern Ireland takes responsibility for commissioning abortion services in line with the legislative framework that is in place.

This week, the all-party parliamentary group on sexual and reproductive health, which I co-chair, along with the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the president of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare and the chair of the Northern Ireland regional FSRH, wrote a letter supporting the Secretary of State’s actions. Clinicians are frustrated by the continued failure to commission abortion services in Northern Ireland and cannot see any legitimate reason for the delay in commissioning services, which are governed by regulations. What message does the Secretary of State want to send today to clinicians in Northern Ireland?

I appreciate all the right hon. Lady’s comments. There are two clear messages. First, I thank all those medical professionals for the work they have been endeavouring to deliver; as I say, there has been some provision on the ground since April last year, with around 1,100 women and girls looked after. Secondly, however, we recognise the need to ensure that, while Parliament considers these regulations, we work with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland to commission these services in the way that it should have been doing in the first place, rather than our having to take action here in this Parliament.

Yesterday, the Women and Equalities Committee heard from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission on this subject. We heard harrowing stories, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has pointed out, including of women forced to take overnight ferries to the United Kingdom for a termination having to return the same day, because of course, during the pandemic, no hotels were open for them to stay in. I know he takes this duty seriously and that we are discussing this today because of the failure to commission safe services locally. I thank him for the action he is taking, but also ask that he uses every endeavour to make sure that services are commissioned swiftly, so no more women have to make those journeys.