When I say these laws are the most up to date I am speaking of the fact that the Northern Ireland Assembly, in a cross-community vote, voted for them. I was a Member of the Assembly at that time, as were both my colleagues. We do not come to this with an ignorant view or without an understanding view. We understand—but is it of any concern to this House that 100,000 children are alive today because of our legislation? Members may turn their heads, look the other way and ask, “What is that to us?”. Maybe it is nothing to them, but it is a lot to the people of Northern Ireland. I sincerely implore your Lordships’ House to take cognisance of that.
6.45 pm
Before I came here, I was always told, “This House is steeped in procedure; we are always procedurally correct”. Are we procedurally correct today? I challenge your Lordships to think on that matter, irrespective of their view on these two divisive issues. Are we procedurally correct? I deduce that no, we are not.
This has already been alluded to as a Christmas tree Bill. The more I listen, look and learn, the more I have to agree. I took a Private Member’s Bill to the Northern Ireland Assembly on human trafficking and exploitation and support for victims. I was able to achieve that only with the cross-community support of that Assembly. When it came to its final stage, as I recall, there was not one detractor of what that Bill was trying to achieve. A very small minority may not have agreed with it entirely, but I was able to accommodate over 100 amendments from all sections of the Assembly. We arrived at a position where, I believe, on that issue, we have good legislation. I ask the House to keep that in mind.
In this context, the best thing would be to amend Clause 9 so that it makes sense in terms of the remit of Section 26 agreed in the other place, or move to delete Clause 9 in its entirety, or, ultimately, pull the Bill, as I believe we should. It is perfectly clear that the Bill before us has been distorted beyond all recognition from its original purpose in a way that is wholly inappropriate, because of a failure to observe constitutional due process with respect to scope in the other place, and the fact that matters that should be the subject of Bills in their own right have been rammed into a Bill subject to fast-tracking, thereby adding insult to injury.
If the Government choose to respond by further violating constitutional due process, casting aside the Sewel convention, we will be looking at a constitutional crisis the likes of which we have not seen in a very long time indeed. In a constitutional democracy such as our own, the end never, ever justifies the means. I say, finally—it is important—that ends, no matter how noble you might deem them to be, are always sullied in a manner that darkens the pretensions of any polity to be constitutional, if they are secured by means that are anything but. The Attorney-General of Northern Ireland has indicated that there are no legal reasons why the matters that this Bill properly seeks to address should not be so addressed in September. So my counsel to the Government is to pull this Bill, at least for now. Failing that, they must delete Clause 9.