Crime and Policing Bill

Harriet Cross Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

In recent weeks and months in this House, we have become familiar with votes of conscience. The amendments that I shall speak to—new clauses 1, 20 and 106—are also matters of conscience. Although I am responding for his Majesty’s official Opposition, Conservative Members will have free votes, so the views that I express will be my own, and I fully recognise that there may be Conservative colleagues who disagree with me.

I recognise that the hon. Members for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) tabled new clauses 1 and 20 with the very best of intent. I have no doubt that all Members who signed them did so with the objective of supporting and safeguarding the rights of women, and I can unequivocally say that I share those aims, as do my hon. Friends the Members for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), and for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who have also spoken. However, I do not believe that new clauses 1 or 20 achieve the safeguarding of women that Members seek.

Views on abortion do not have to be absolutist. Being pro-choice is not incompatible with being pro-life when the foetus is at a stage at which it is inherently viable. Believing that women should have autonomy over their bodies does not negate the need for a system that safeguards women from physical and emotional harm. As we have heard, new clause 1 would ensure that pregnant women were not criminalised for accessing an abortion during their pregnancy. It would, however, retain the law relating to the provision of abortion in healthcare settings as it stands. Effectively, a woman in England and Wales would legally be able to abort an unborn child by her own means up to the moment prior to a natural birth, but a healthcare professional would be breaking the law if they tried to help her do so outside the 24-week limit.

[Sir John Hayes]

There is a calumny at the heart of this, which is that these new clauses are compatible with the ’67 Act. When breaching an Act of this Parliament ceases to be unlawful, it loses its force and therefore its purpose, and that calumny cannot be allowed to stand on the record.

[Harriet Cross]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention.

On the one hand, abortion would be decriminalised for women; on the other, restrictions on her ability to access that same procedure in a safe, controlled and supportive setting would remain. We must be careful not to create a law that has unintended and potentially harmful consequences, especially for those it is designed to help, and especially when those who are likely to rely on it are likely to be in a state of stress or distress.

New clause 1 raises many questions. Is it tenable to legalise all but full-term abortions in England and Wales, but not in other parts of the UK? What would be the legal implications if a woman in Gretna travelled 10 miles across the border to Carlisle to have an abortion after the 24-week limit that is in place in Scotland? Under new clause 1, how do we monitor such abortions that occur outside a healthcare setting? How do we ensure that mothers’ physical and mental health is protected and supported? And what happens to the once-delivered foetus, if the abortion is outside a healthcare setting?

As we have heard, new clause 20 goes further than new clause 1 in many respects, so many of the same concerns apply. New clause 106 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham would mandate an in-person consultation before a pregnant woman was prescribed medication to terminate a pregnancy. This new clause is not about making abortions harder to access. An abortion should, of course, be readily available to those who need and want it, and of course abortion medication should be easily accessible during the appropriate stages of pregnancy, but this new clause is about the safety of the mother and the unborn child.

Face-to-face appointments are commonplace for patients with a wide range of medications and conditions, particularly when new medications are being prescribed. A private, in-person consultation allows a doctor to be as sure as they can be that the woman is acting of her own informed free will, and ensures that her mental state is assessed and understood. It also reduces as much as possible the likelihood of medication being misused or abused.

Telemedicine, while it has its place, can never be a replacement for the patient-doctor relationship developed during face-to-face appointments. It has serious shortcomings. There have been many cases where abortion medicine has been misused following telemedicine, and there have been many more hospitalisations of women following the use of telemedicine. However, I stress that not all of these cases will be down to misuse; we should all be aware of that. New clause 106 does not attempt to restrict access to abortions, and I would not support it if it did. Instead, it would act as an important safeguard to protect women from emotional trauma and physical harm.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)]

Let me begin by emphasising that all women in England and Wales can access safe, regulated abortions on the NHS under our current laws. I also recognise and respect that there are strongly held views across the House on this highly sensitive issue, and I welcome the considered and informed debate we have had today.

The Government maintain a neutral stance on changing the criminal law on abortion in England and Wales. We maintain that it is for Parliament to decide the circumstances under which abortion should take place, and will allow Members to vote according to their moral, ethical or religious beliefs. If it is the will of the House that the criminal law on abortion should change, whether by our exempting pregnant women from the offences or otherwise, the Government would not stand in the way of such change. However, we must ensure coherence between the statute book and any legislation proposed.

It will be helpful if I first set out the relevant law. As hon. Members will know, in England and Wales, the criminal offences relating to abortion must be read in conjunction with the provisions of the Abortion Act 1967, which provide exemptions to the criminal offences. The Act defines the circumstances in which abortions or terminations can legally take place. Section 58 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 is the offence of administering drugs or using instruments to procure an abortion. It is an offence for a pregnant woman to unlawfully take a drug or use instruments with the intent of procuring her own miscarriage. It is also an offence for another person who has the intent of procuring the miscarriage of a woman, whether or not she is pregnant, to unlawfully administer drugs or use instruments with that intent. It is also an offence under section 59 of the 1861 Act for a person to supply or procure drugs, poison or an instrument that was intended to be used to procure a miscarriage.

The Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 deals with acts in the later stages of pregnancies, including late-term abortions in England and Wales. Under section 1 of the 1929 Act, it is an offence for any person to intentionally destroy the life of a child before it is born, if it is capable of being born alive, unless it can be proved that the act was done in good faith and only to preserve the life of the woman.

Turning to the amendments, the purpose of new clause 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), is to disapply criminal offences relating to abortion from a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy at any gestation. This means that it would never be a criminal offence for a pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy, regardless of the number of weeks of gestation, including beyond the 24 weeks.