My Lords, I have listened carefully to this debate, and I would like to correct a couple of misapprehensions. Abortion services are available in Northern Ireland, and they are funded. There were 1,345 funded abortions in Northern Ireland, and there have been no instances in which people have
been refused abortion in the way described by the Minister. More importantly, support services are also available. We do need more resources; we always need more resources.
Noble Lords have identified the important issues here as the protection of life and our constitutional settlement in Northern Ireland. To revert to the Minister’s last point, where Parliament has legislated, it can, using its sovereign powers, change the law. This matter of the CEDAW recommendations is not a matter of our international human rights obligations, and is therefore devolved. It is therefore a matter that the Northern Ireland Assembly can change.
I thank noble Lords for their thoughtful and considered contributions to the debate. I thank those who recognised the current situation and spoke to encourage the work of the Assembly. I also thank the noble and learned Lords, Lord Mackay and Lord Hope, and other noble Lords for their clear articulation of the nature of our constitutional devolution settlement, which is the product of the Good Friday agreement, which is under threat as we talk today. We have had people, particularly in the loyalist community, withdrawing their support from the Good Friday agreement.