NHS Staff Pay

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to do so. Work-life balance is something that we need to handle a lot better. I think we have been slow to recognise that today’s NHS staff are likely to live in households in which both partners are working and that juggling life and work has therefore become much more complex than it was 30 or 40 years ago. The reform of the increments system means that there will be more focus on training and skills, which will be much more motivating for NHS staff, so I hope that my hon. Friend’s wife is pleased.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s change of heart in awarding a pay rise to our hard-working NHS staff. May I pursue the point made by the Chair of the Health Committee, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston)? Our Committee’s report emphasised that continuing professional development was key to the retention of nurses. It was not clear to me from what the Secretary of State said whether money would be ring-fenced—sadly, the amount has been cut—to ensure that nurses can access CPD not only in the NHS, but in social care settings.

[Mr Hunt]

I recognise that there have been pressures on the CPD budget, and that is because we have made increasing the number of nurse training places our main priority. We have increased that by 25%, which has meant that difficult decisions have had to be made about other parts of the budget. I can reassure the hon. Lady, however, that I think that CPD will continue to have a vital role, and we will need to return to the issue.

Mental Health Services: Children and Young People

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine]

As I have said, the overall budget is the money we have promised in the Green Paper, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The Green Paper has at its heart a focus on prevention and significant support—in early years, through schools and, as the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) mentioned, through higher education—to prevent issues from snowballing in the first place.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

With the understaffing of mental health services and the recent Health Select Committee report on the nursing shortage, does the Minister accept that the Government’s decision to remove nursing bursaries, which has particularly affected the number of students training to be mental health nurses, was a mistake?

[Steve Brine]

No, I do not accept that it was a mistake. We need to increase the number of people coming into nursing, and we were turning away far too many who wanted to come into it. The workforce is obviously a huge challenge across the NHS, in primary care—my area—in secondary care and, of course, in mental health, which is why the Secretary of State has said we will create 21,000 new posts by 2021 to support one of the biggest expansions in mental health services in Europe.

Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

That is the right question to ask. I suggested in the statement that we might need a patients’ champion whose job would be to collect the experiences and views of patients who think that they may have suffered as a result of medicine or medical devices. However, we want Baroness Cumberlege to look at the issue in much more detail. The central point is that if we are to avoid the agonies experienced by my hon. Friend’s constituents, the patient’s voice needs to be as strong as the clinician’s in discussions about the efficacy of medicines or medical devices. That clearly has not been happening to date, but I think that we are moving away from the paternalist system that has operated in the past, and the review will constitute a further step in that direction.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will know the phrase

“the patronising disposition of unaccountable power”,

which applied in the Hillsborough families’ fight to get justice, and applies, it seems to me, in what has happened to the groups affected by today’s statement. Will the Secretary of State explain why Baroness Cumberlege’s report will not come straight to Parliament, so it can make a decision about how patients can get justice quicker than has happened in many cases such as the ones we are discussing today?

[Mr Hunt]

Those words about the patronising disposition of unaccountable power came from Bishop James Jones, who has made an extraordinary contribution as a voice for people whose voices have been ignored for too long. The House will have every opportunity to debate Baroness Cumberlege’s report. The Government will decide their actions and we will put them to the House, which will have every opportunity to listen, make suggestions for improvements, and to become involved at every stage of the process as we take this forward.

NHS Winter Crisis

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

We all knew this was going to be a difficult winter for the NHS, but I just wondered whether the Minister felt that his Department had helped the situation by delaying the announcement of additional funds until the November Budget, with most trusts not receiving that money until December. That meant that my trust, for example, had to make plans without knowing whether it would get additional funding and that it was taking a risk.

[Stephen Barclay]

The Labour party seems to have moved from complaining about the amount of money to complaining that it was not delivered early enough. The hon. Lady’s trust received £3.4 million of additional money, but, as Sir Bruce Keogh has made clear, the point is that preparation for winter this year began much earlier than normal and was far better advanced than has been the case before. That is what the medical director of the NHS has said about how we prepared for winter this year.

Patient Transport Services: Northern Lincolnshire

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for that intervention. This is the problem. In many ways, it is nice that Thames Ambulance Service have met him. The correspondence that I have repeatedly sent them, chased by their official complaints procedure, by their chief executive, has not been responded to. So constituents who have not had a response have come to me, and I have then gone to Thames Ambulance Service, which has not responded to me. The service has not got any better. I will cite a few of the examples that my constituents have given, which are similar to my hon. Friend’s experience.

These experiences are being wrought on very vulnerable people. I want to go through a number of examples from my constituency. I will not name patients.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this evening’s debate. In Hull, we were also covered by Thames Ambulance Service. They are already under a contract performance notice because of their failure to do what their contract says they should. A constituent—a cancer patient—contacted me just today to tell me about being left, being forgotten, not being able to get to chemotherapy sessions, not being able to get to radiotherapy sessions. That constituent had seen people who had had to wait up to four hours for a journey back to Scarborough or Lincolnshire, in a waiting area with only upright chairs, when all one would want to do at that stage is sleep. It is totally unacceptable and the service does not seem to have improved, despite that contract performance notice.

[Andrew Percy]

It is saddening that the same experiences are happening just across the river in the city of Hull as well. This appears to be a consistent theme wherever this company provides ambulance transport services. Unfortunately, the hon. Lady describes an experience that many of my constituents have shared.

In fairness to the north Lincolnshire clinical commissioning group, it has, through the scrutiny processes at North Lincolnshire Council, effectively put the company on notice and informed it that the service is not good enough. Despite that, the improvements have not happened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Dinenage]

I completely understand why the hon. Lady is articulating that; every one of these incidents is absolutely unacceptable and in many cases very distressing. The issue with devolving such clinical decisions to local areas, however, is that we have to allow the CCG to take the necessary steps to ensure the service is put back on to a better footing.

[Diana Johnson]

This is not just one CCG; it involves more than one. I have already mentioned the fact that Hull contracts with Thames Ambulance Service. Does the Minister really think that this business—it is a profit- making business—is fit for purpose?

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that point. I am aware that similar problems have been identified with the same provider in other parts of Yorkshire and the east midlands. Improvements must of course be made, which is why commissioners are working to oversee and manage the necessary improvements and trying to achieve the level of performance that is required.

Turning to the particular issues affecting northern Lincolnshire, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole and other hon. Members across the House are absolutely right to point out the problems with the services commissioned in and around their constituencies. I have read some of the cases today, including some distressing cases involving patients with conditions such as dementia and cancer experiencing long delays with their transport. Such delays are clearly a source of incredible distress for people who are already facing a very difficult time in their lives. Many of them may be very vulnerable, and we are absolutely clear that this needs to change.

North Lincolnshire CCG awarded a patient transport contract to Thames Ambulance Service in October 2016 following an open procurement process. Issues around the quality of service are acknowledged, and we are aware that people have experienced delays. That is clearly unacceptable. I assure my hon. Friend and other Members that a range of actions is being undertaken to ensure the delivery of an appropriately high-quality service. The CCG is working closely to support Thames Ambulance Service to achieve the required level of performance. It has served a contract notice to the provider based on delivery against key performance indicators, the number of patient complaints, and issues associated with data reporting.

A robust recovery plan has been put in place, and delivery against this is carefully monitored on an ongoing basis. Key actions include the recruitment of six additional staff in north Lincolnshire and the mobilisation of additional vehicles. I understand these staff have recently been trained and deployed. A patient transport co-ordinator has also been employed, working with the hospital to improve the process for patients being discharged. The CCG has also worked with the provider to improve its complaints process, and I am advised that its backlog of complaints has now been cleared.

I hope that my hon. Friend is also reassured by the level of Care Quality Commission engagement with Thames Ambulance Service. In its inspection report of April 2017, the CQC uncovered a number of areas for improvement, ultimately issuing enforcement action against the provider in respect of regulation 17, which covers good governance; regulation 13, covering safeguarding; and regulation 5, which deals with requirements relating to registered managers. The CQC continues to monitor the provider closely to ensure that the required improvements are being made. It is currently undertaking a fresh review of the service and will issue a further report when its latest inspection is complete. We expect this to be published and available online before the end of March. That will be exactly the same for the provider in the constituency of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson).

Finally, I am also advised that the CCG has reviewed the application of the eligibility criteria for patient transport services across the area to ensure that they are being applied evenly. Through this process, it has determined that some patients who have historically accessed these services may no longer be considered eligible. We obviously have to take steps to ensure that the service is more consistent and that the CCG is working with the provider to ensure that affected patients are informed as soon as possible and given helpful advice on how to access alternative services if they are required. I would like to thank my hon. Friend again for bringing these matters to our attention, and I very much hope he is reassured that all appropriate actions are beginning to be taken to restore the delivery of effective patient transport services to his constituents.

Question put and agreed to.

NHS Winter Crisis

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

My right hon. Friend is another consistent campaigner in favour of improving the infrastructure and estate of his hospital. He has invited me to visit; I have seen it and I am well aware that the hospital trust has put in an application for a significant rebuild, which will be considered in the allocation of the next phase of sustainability and transformation plan funding.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Up to 31 December, more than 400 patients had to wait an hour outside the A&E at Hull Royal Infirmary, and a further 1,000 had to wait half an hour. Has the time not come for the Minister to accept that the NHS does not have enough beds and to reverse the policy of cutting beds, which has happened under successive Governments? This Government need to take action now.

[Mr Dunne]

I indicated in my opening remarks that this Government have taken action. We have freed up the number of beds available through the DToC procedure, with an increase of 1,100 in the run-up to winter. We have also, as a result of the extra money we have been given, including the several million pounds given to the hon. Lady’s area, provided an additional 2,700 winter beds. The procedure for future bed closures has been made very clear by NHS England: it will not happen unless acceptable alternative community provision is available in the area.

Social Care

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. If I may, I will suggest to my hon. Friends in the Department for Education that they respond to him on those points.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

May I say how nice it is to see my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) back in her rightful place on the Front Bench? I endorse what the Chair of the Health Committee, the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), has said to the Minister. Does the Minister regret that the Chancellor failed to mention social care at all in the Budget?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I think we are in danger of getting into a false debate. When I talk about social care, I do not talk about it to the exclusion of health but automatically include it. When people talk about the failure of the Chancellor to mention social care, the reality is that more money was made available to the NHS, which will benefit the social care system.

Maternity Safety Strategy

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As he knows, because he has spoken so movingly on this subject many times, there is absolutely nothing we can do to make up for the searing loss of losing a loved one—a baby. It is the worst thing any parent can go through. We can at least give them the commitment that we will learn. If we are honest, we do not do so at the moment, because we sometimes wait 10 years for a court case to be settled, and even then it is not always clear to me that the lessons of what happened are properly learned around the system. This statement is an attempt to change that.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s approach to more openness and transparency in the NHS around baby deaths. However, he will remember signing a letter in May 2016, along with the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the then Secretary of State for Justice, on an independent inquiry into the baby ashes scandal in Hull. That inquiry has never happened and parents still do not have the answers about what happened in the NHS and Hull City Council in respect of their babies’ ashes. Will the Secretary of State recommit to that independent inquiry going ahead with his permission?

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to recommit to that. I apologise to the hon. Lady and her constituents for the delay. I will look into what happened right away.

Oral Answers to Questions

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Philip Dunne)]

I am aware that the performance of the East Midlands ambulance service is not what local residents or we would like at present. The strategy that is being adopted is to introduce a new ambulance response programme, and EMAS has an ongoing consultation with staff on introducing new working models to bring that into effect.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The Minister has just said that pharmacies are a critical part of our primary care infrastructure. Does he therefore share my concern that Lloyds Pharmacy has announced 190 branch closures across England due to funding cuts exacerbated by rising drug costs and cash-flow problems? At least two of those are in Hull. Why can 30% of pharmacies in the Health Secretary’s constituency get remedial help under the pharmacy access scheme but only 1.3% of pharmacies in Hull get that help?

[Steve Brine]

The simple answer is that it is because it is a rural constituency. On the Lloyds Pharmacy announcement, when I first heard that news my thought was not to play any politics with it but for the staff who will be affected by it. As I said at the all-party parliamentary group on pharmacy, chaired by the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Sir Kevin Barron), Lloyds has made a commercial decision. We do not yet know which pharmacies within its portfolio will close, but we do know that 40% of pharmacies are within a 10-minute walk of two or more others.

Abortion Act 1967: 50th Anniversary

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Fifty years ago, the noble Lord Steel and thousands of brave campaigners brought about a momentous change in women’s reproductive rights. It is hard to overstate the benefits that their campaign brought to women. Abortion has gone from being a leading cause of maternal mortality, shockingly responsible for 14% of maternal deaths—a fact that organisations such as the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children do not address when they call for the abolition of the 1967 Act—to being the most common medical or surgical procedure in the UK, one that a third of women will have had by the time they reach 45. We used to be a country where an estimated 87,000 to 100,000 illegal abortions took place every year and where unwanted pregnancies changed the lives of desperate women. Now, 200,000 women a year can access safe, free and legal services on the NHS.

The 1967 Act was a landmark piece of legislation. For a time, it made Britain one of the world leaders in reproductive rights, when this Parliament introduced a humane piece of law. I am disappointed that no Minister from the Department of Health or the Government Equalities Office has attended any of the events marking the enactment of this piece of legislation. I am also disappointed that Ministers have chosen to award funding raised from the tampon tax to Life, which argues for restricting women’s choices on reproductive rights, when so many wonderful charities could have benefited and used the money to empower women and support their choices.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. When I debated with the pro-life charity Life on the radio recently, I was told that if a women it was helping went on to decide to have a termination, it would withdraw support, including housing, from that women. Does she agree that that is incredibly concerning?

[Diana Johnson]

Yes, that is incredibly concerning and I think it is a really bad decision of the Government to award money from the tampon tax to that organisation.

As this House tonight rightly marks the milestone of the Abortion Act, we should also reflect on whether the Act is still fit for purpose. The Abortion Act was never intended to be the end of the campaign for women’s reproductive rights. That point was put succinctly by the late Madeleine Simms, a former campaigner at the Abortion Law Reform Association and one of the architects of the original law. She said:

“The 1967 Abortion Act was a half-way house. It handed the abortion decision to the medical profession. The next stage is to hand this very personal decision to the woman herself.”

I want to turn to why the abortion law needs reforming. Britain’s abortion laws are governed not just by that 50-year-old Act, but by the 88-year-old Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 and the 156-year-old Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Taken together, this is the oldest legal framework for any healthcare procedure in the UK. It is a framework that, astonishingly, still treats the act of abortion as inherently criminal and punishable by life imprisonment. As I have mentioned, one third of women, and the healthcare professionals who support them, are stigmatised by these laws. As Madeleine Simms highlighted, the 1967 Act did not give women authority over their own abortions; it merely handed that authority to the medical profession, subject to the consent of two doctors. No other medical procedure requires the sign-off of two doctors, and nor does that requirement exist in most other countries in which abortion is legal.

While other healthcare areas have moved towards more patient-centred provision, with a better doctor-patient relationship, the provisions of the 1967 Act are, despite the best efforts of healthcare professionals, holding back similar progress in reproductive healthcare. Furthermore, as Professor Lesley Regan of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said:

“No other medical procedure in the UK is so out of step with clinical and technological developments”.

Since 2014, the majority of abortions in England and Wales have been carried out medically, using pills. The 1967 Act was not designed with medical abortions in mind; it was passed when the overwhelming majority of abortions were carried out through surgical techniques.

I regret the fact that, in the 50 years since the Abortion Act was passed, Parliament has mostly shied away from debating issues such as those I have just set out. In March, the House of Commons heard the First Reading of my ten-minute rule Bill on the decriminalisation of abortion in England and Wales. In the 50 years before I introduced the Bill, previous MPs had introduced 11 Bills to amend our abortion laws—seven were private Members’ Bills and four were, like mine, ten-minute rule Bills. All 11 attempted to restrict abortion in some way; not a single one was about improving provision or better supporting women. It seems peculiar that for a procedure so common—one that affects a third of women—the overwhelming parliamentary focus has been on ways to restrict the practice. Had this procedure affected a third of men, it is hard to imagine that we would have debated it in the same way.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does she agree that parliamentary opinion on this matter is massively out of step with public opinion? The vast majority of people in this country favour safe and legal abortion.

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, although the House did give my ten-minute rule Bill to decriminalise abortion its First Reading. It will be interesting to see the result if it is debated again in the new Parliament.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am very impressed by the hon. Lady, as she knows because I spoke to her before the debate to ask to intervene. She knows my opinion on these matters. I understand that she is going to bring some things forward, which would be a help, but at the same time we are meant to believe that abortion is somehow an expression of women’s rights, but, on the contrary, some of us believe that it is so often the means by which vulnerable young women are themselves destroyed by the sorrow it can naturally engender. Even when abortion itself does not cause the destruction of women, their mistreatment by the industry that provides abortion daily in this country clearly can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson]

Clearly, 50 years ago Parliament took the view that it was going to allow abortions to take place in certain circumstances. It is right and proper that there is strict regulation around abortion. When I discussed decriminalisation earlier in the year, I talked about decriminalising, not deregulating. All providers have to provide the highest-quality care to women.

Successive British Governments have failed to act to improve abortion provision. They have sometimes hidden behind the false pretext that issues of provision are issues of conscience, thereby setting the issue aside as too difficult to tackle. In the months before and since I introduced my ten-minute rule Bill, yet more compelling evidence has demonstrated the need for long overdue changes to our abortion laws. Women, including desperate victims of domestic abuse, are increasingly ill-served by our current laws and criminalised for buying abortion pills online.

Waiting times for abortion services appear to be on the rise. Recently, figures obtained by investigative journalists at “The Debrief” showed that in 76% of the clinical commissioning groups and NHS trusts they surveyed, average abortion waiting times in 2016 were higher than they were in 2013. The Family Planning Association tells women that they should have to wait only 10 working days for an abortion, but a quarter of CCGs and trusts have average waiting times longer than that. In my local CCG in Hull, waiting times have jumped 6.7 days in just a year—one of the highest jumps identified.

The number of abortion pills seized by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency posted to addresses in Britain has risen seventy-fivefold, from just five in 2013 to 375 in 2016. From November 2016 to February 2017, Women on Web, an international organisation that prescribes abortion pills in countries where abortion is illegal, monitored the number of British women who sought help on its website. In the space of just four months, the number seeking help had doubled.

Those figures point to this conclusion: there is a rising, and unmet, demand for better abortion provision in this country.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Diana Johnson]

I am going to carry on, because I am conscious of time.

The personal cases of these women are often deeply moving. A recent study of Women on Web’s services, published in September, has provided unprecedented insight into the challenges that British women face in accessing abortion services. Of the women who approached its service, nearly one in five did so because of “controlling circumstances” at home—from abusive partners to intolerant families. As one woman told the service:

“I’m in a controlling relationship, he watches my every move. I’m so scared he will find out, I believe he’s trying to trap me and will hurt me. I can’t breathe. If he finds out, he wouldn’t let me go ahead, then I will be trapped forever. I cannot live my life like this.”

Another said:

“I’m never allowed to go anywhere without my husband or a member of his family escorting me. I don’t have a normal life since getting married. Abortion is against his family’s religion and I’m very worried what would happen if I was caught.”

For many women, making two trips to an abortion clinic, as is currently required, is simply not an option. A range of practical factors—the distance they live from a clinic, delays in accessing support, and childcare and work commitments—prevent them from making those trips. Yet each time these women purchase pills online, they are committing a criminal act, and because Women on Web does not prescribe pills in the UK, they are forced to turn to other providers, some of which may not be legitimate.

We are now in the position where the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Midwives, plus the noble Lord Steel all agree that the law needs to be updated, and that abortion should be decriminalised. It is now time for Parliament to act on this. Shortly, I will be publishing the text of a Bill to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales. I am currently working on the Bill with legal experts and professional healthcare organisations. The Bill will contain the same safeguards and regulations as those that I set out in March this year.

Most importantly, it will take women out of the criminal law altogether. Healthcare professionals who assist in abortions before 24 weeks’ gestation will also be decriminalised, and they will receive further protections after 24 weeks. It will also allow us to make the best possible provision for the women who have early medical abortions. We need to look at the requirement to obtain two doctors’ signatures. We should also ask whether the second abortion pill could not be taken at home should women wish to do so, just as it is in the United States, France, Sweden and, as announced recently, Scotland.

[Fiona Bruce]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Diana Johnson]

I will carry on, because I am conscious that the Minister has to respond.

I want to make the point that decriminalisation will not mean deregulation. The 24-week time limit will not be changed, and the conditions for accessing abortions post-24 weeks will not change either, but I do want to see stronger protection for women from non-consensual abortions—whether by assaulting pregnant women, or deceiving women into taking abortion medication.

I have a few requests for the Minister. It is time that we acknowledged that abortion provision is not a conscience issue. Access to abortion services is a core part of women’s healthcare. It should be debated in a grown-up way, and Health Ministers should be held accountable for the quality of our abortion services. First, will the Department of Health look into the problems that women are facing in accessing abortions? The Department should be regularly assessing the problem of abortion waiting times. It should be looking to identify local areas where there is poor provision. The problems that extremely vulnerable women face in accessing abortion care should also be investigated.

Secondly, what concrete steps will the Government take to improve abortion provision? A court judgment in 2011 established that the Health Secretary could allow home use of the second abortion pill without the need for new legislation. In the light of that and of what has happened in Scotland, what are the Government planning to do? Furthermore, an increasing number of experts have questioned the two doctor requirement for early stage abortion. Will the Minister comment on that?

Thirdly, how will the Government respond to the calls to decriminalise abortion, supported by three professional medical bodies? Will the Government consider acting on these calls? Finally, we must also recognise the situation in a country where the Abortion Act does not apply. In Northern Ireland, abortion is highly restricted and criminal, even in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality. The ongoing Supreme Court case raises the prospect that this may soon go beyond a devolved matter and become a broader human rights matter. What steps are the Government taking for that to be dealt with by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland?

In conclusion, the House should mark the anniversary of the Abortion Act—not just because of what we have achieved, but to look forward to what we need now. In the face of threats to women’s reproductive rights at home and abroad, the answer is not to become timid and to remain defensive. The answer is to be bolder, to go beyond merely defending what we currently have, and to make a positive case for stronger rights and better women-centred provision. The ’67 Act made Britain a world leader in women’s reproductive rights, but it is time that we took the steps now to ensure that, once again, Britain reassumes this world-leading position.