My Lords, I rise to speak to the amendment in my name and that of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, the noble Lord, Lord Hay, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who cannot be with us tonight. This Bill had such a simple purpose: to allow the Secretary of State not to call an election and extend the time for agreement to be reached between the parties. That was all it had to do. I guess that was why the Government fast-tracked it. The consequence is that we do not have the usual time for consideration and now the Bill has been extended in a way which is unacceptable and which has the potential to do massive damage to the talks and any prospect of getting the Northern Ireland Assembly up and running.
The Bill has two odd sets of amendments—the ones which we discussed at length earlier this afternoon about Brexit, no deal and the Prorogation of Parliament, and those to do with abortion, neither of which should be in the Bill—and then it has the Christmas tree effect. I do not say that in a pejorative way. These are all very real issues which may need to be dealt with by a Northern Ireland Government.
It has been a curious debate. We have heard the Minister say that we cannot deal with medical schools at Ulster University, Magee, and that we cannot deal with a no-deal Brexit, but we are here to deal with this very sensitive issue in Northern Ireland. I have listened carefully, but I do not feel that there is an understanding of Northern Ireland. We are in a very delicate place. We all agree that we want our Assembly back, but this Bill, if passed in its current form, would also have the capacity to prevent that. We cannot underestimate the fragility of the Northern Ireland situation. I am always reminded that peace agreements last, on average, for 15 years. We have had our 15 years, and a few more. We are in a very difficult place. I know that Brexit is important, but, as I said in your Lordships’ House three years ago, the border and all that goes with it has the capacity to undermine everything, and that would be very dangerous indeed.
Part of this Government’s credibility rests on the extent to which they are regarded in the conduct of these talks as an honest broker. The Government’s
response to these amendments does not seem to respect their obligations under the Good Friday agreement and other issues. It seeks to make a profound change in our law at a time when Northern Ireland is engaged in negotiation. It seems very odd that the Government, who are not charged with the conduct of these negotiations and who have seen attempts to kill police officers and others, who have seen the bombs and the ongoing bubbling of terrorist activity, are not a little more cautious in their outlook. The Minister spoke earlier of the need for clear space and safe space for the negotiations. I do not think that is happening here today.
It does not matter what one thinks about abortion and same-sex marriage or whether the law should change. Nobody doubts the sensitivity of these issues for those affected by them, but the clerks in another place advised that these issues fell outside the remit of the Bill. Each of these amendments represents a huge issue which should be the subject of a Bill in its own right, subject to prior consultation and then careful and measured consideration, with scope for amending the legislation. None of this has happened. There are options for everything that is being suggested here. There is a variety of different laws across Europe, even in the context of abortion. In many states, it is only permitted up to 12 weeks, with very rare exceptions; it is not necessarily the liberal law that the United Kingdom has.
The clause as drafted is, of course, unworkable. The Secretary of State has no power in the Northern Ireland Act to make the regulations requested by the amendment. Moreover, the law must be capable of being understood, yet what is proposed here is not clear. The Northern Ireland Attorney-General has spoken publicly about the difficulties generated by this clause, which is vague and goes beyond the Abortion Act 1967. Neither the Northern Ireland Assembly nor any Minister has the power to repeal the Offences against the Person Act by regulation; it is just nonsense. Also, based on this Bill, it is not clear what legislation or directions would say. We do not usually legislate for what we do not know.
The Government have said that they will make it work. Are they going to amend the Northern Ireland Act? What is going to happen? Parliamentary rules cannot be set aside without risking damage to our constitutional arrangements. To make matters worse, these amendments were accepted in relation to a Bill that is subject to a fast-tracking procedure that, even without these far-reaching and completely out-of-scope provisions, but simply on the basis of the Bill’s original purpose as introduced, must attract the attention—perhaps the censure—of the Constitution Committee, which last week reported that Northern Ireland Bills should not be fast-tracked unless they are really urgent. There is time to get this Bill right, and to get our talks back in action.
Many thousands of people in Northern Ireland are distressed by this. It is well known and has been said in your Lordships’ House that ComRes polling of Northern Ireland adults shows very clearly that people in Northern Ireland do not want abortion law changed from Westminster. That is the clear view of 64% of people,
rising to 66% of men and 72% of 18 to 32 year-olds. Yet 332 MPs representing seats from outside Northern Ireland saw fit to vote for it, and 100% of Northern Irish MPs in the other place voted against it. Noble Lords should think about that.
Apart from the issues at hand, think of the utterly appalling precedent. The Minister told us last Wednesday that there is more to come. I appreciate this crisis is not of the Government’s making, but they are now engaged, whether they like it or not. Their response can have the effect either of ameliorating or exaggerating the difficulty, with all that means for the union.
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The Bill was presented at a time that was practically difficult for Northern Ireland. Many of you may not know this, but it came to your Lordships’ House on Wednesday 10 July and the amendments did not reach your Lordships’ House until after I went home. I waited for them for a long time on Tuesday 9 July, but they did not come and I eventually gave up and went home. After 10 July, we have a holiday called the Twelfth. Northern Ireland went into Twelfth mode on 11 July and, for the most part, closed down on 12 July. It was a Saturday on 13 July. Today is a public holiday in Northern Ireland. I could not get through to the Northern Ireland Office. I have had contact from people in Northern Ireland telling me they were trying to contact the Secretary of State today. The Minister told us that she had gone back to Northern Ireland, but she was not available to meet anyone. That is because it is a public holiday in Northern Ireland today. Of course, the Twelfth is a time when many are on holiday and our schools are closed, so there is just tomorrow, Tuesday, when the people of Northern Ireland might have a slight chance to speak to someone, and then we move to Wednesday and final sessions. It is remarkable that all this happened during the week when part of Northern Ireland celebrates its culture with the Twelfth, and a good Twelfth it was this year—very good.
Today, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, and I intended to send a letter to the Prime Minister. We wrote it on Friday night and Saturday, and started looking around for support. I am not going to deliver it to the Prime Minister tonight; it is too late to disturb her. But since Saturday afternoon, nearly 16,000 people—it has gone up nearly 1,000 an hour or every time I have stood up—have signed our letter to the Prime Minister asking her to stop this. They come from all sides of the community and every part of Northern Ireland.
I want to give you a feeling of some of the more prominent people who have signed this letter to the Prime Minister. All Members of the House of Lords are allowed to sign; everyone else has to be from Northern Ireland. We have the noble Lords, Lord Rana, Lord Maginnis, Lord Empey, Lord Brennan, Lord McCrea, Lord Morrow, Lord Alton, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames. We have MLAs from all parties: Daniel McCrossan, Sinéad Bradley, Patsy McGlone, Justin McNulty, Robbie Butler, Carla Lockhart, Paul Givan, Arlene Foster—leader of the Democratic Unionists —David Hilditch, Peter Weir, Jonathan Buckley, Mervyn
Storey, William Irwin, Gordon Lyons, Edwin Poots, Keith Buchanan, Thomas Buchanan, Gary Middleton, Michelle McIlveen, Joanne Bunting, Alex Easton and Maurice Bradley. We are into the MPs now: Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Nigel Dodds, the honourable Ian Paisley, Gavin Robinson, Paul Girvan, Jim Shannon, Gregory Campbell and Emma Little Pengelly. The lawyers include the reverend Brett Lockhart QC. There are councillors, such as Anne McCloskey, Peter Martin, Robert Adair and Stephanie Quigley. Then there are academics, such as Dr Esmond Birnie, and bishops such as Bishop Treanor, Bishop Farquhar, Bishop McKeown and Bishop Walsh. There are the doctors: Dr Coulter, Dr Hardy and others. I missed the venerable Robert Miller, who is the archdeacon currently running Derry.