Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill

Debate between John Hayes and Ian Paisley

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I promise to be brief, as a number of Members have done, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I hope we can get some points across. I am very disappointed that the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), for whom I have a great deal of respect, even though we disagree passionately on this issue, did not want to give way and engage in a debate on some issues, because there are important facts that need to be put on the record. First, it is important to say that no woman has gone to jail in Northern Ireland on the issue that the hon. Lady so passionately raised—it has not happened. It does not happen. Lots of things are on the statute but do not happen. Women are not regularly taken off to jail and imprisoned on these issues in Northern Ireland. It might happen in other parts of the world but it has not happened in Northern Ireland.

The last time the Assembly debated the important and sensitive matter of abortion and abortion rights was in 2016, when 59 of the Members present—an overwhelming majority—did not want to change the legislation in the way that the hon. Lady has argued for and 40 Members did. A considerable difference in opinion existed but a clear majority were against the points that the hon. Lady passionately made and is rightly entitled to hold. Those points are not, however, supported across the community in Northern Ireland.

The one point I did raise with the hon. Lady, directly, in an intervention, was: is the right to terminate an unborn life a European convention right? Terminating the life of an unborn child is not a right, according to the European convention on human rights. People can wave other conventions, decrees and subsections of meetings that have occurred around the world involving other conventions and other groups, but the totem—the one we are all signed up to and the one that will stay in place after we leave the EU—the European convention on human rights, does not uphold this “right” or see the termination of the unborn life as a right.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman will know that our Supreme Court has determined that there is no general right to abortion, and in international law states are given considerable leeway about how they treat such matters. I could not reconcile any of that with a speech from the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). I appreciate her passion, but passion is no substitute for sense.

[Ian Paisley]

The other point I wish to make is about what my constituents in Northern Ireland want. What do the people of Northern Ireland want? It is right and proper to say that the Labour party fought valiantly up to 2003 to get in place an agreement to ensure that the Northern Ireland Assembly would take crucial, key and tough decisions. I must say, there were times when we disagreed with how the Labour party went about it, but ultimately Labour signed off on agreements that allowed for that to happen. I am disappointed that those on the Labour Front Bench have now decided that on certain issues they can have a pick-and-mix approach to what the Assembly should or should not do.

Labour party Front Benchers should be steadfast, at one with and—if it is not too pointed to say this week, as we go into the marching season—in step with the Conservative party and the Government of the day when it comes to making sure that we do not break the established convention, which is that on these issues there is agreement that the Assembly in Northern Ireland should take decisions. The Labour party should not encourage otherwise or diverge from that by saying, “Well, on certain things that are contentious, or that we really like, or on which we are under pressure from our Back Benchers, we will support the notion that Parliament should legislate separately.”

There is a long list of priorities—it has been read out by other Members—many of which would be higher up list for the ordinary folk of Northern Ireland than some of the matters that people will raise tonight and tomorrow. We have to make sure that we have a consistent approach. We could say that we are going to have devolution and put all the energy and passion into that. The hon. Member for Walthamstow should put the same passion she has shown on this issue into encouraging the parties in Northern Ireland to get around the table, to get on with making that agreement and to bring governance back to the Assembly in Northern Ireland, because were that to happen, perhaps some of the pithy matters that have been put on the agenda in this House would be properly discussed and debated, and laws would be either upheld or altered and changed as the case may be—as the Assembly would want.

Let me go back to the question of what my constituents want. In a recent ComRes survey, 64% of the general population of Northern Ireland agreed that changing the law on abortion in Northern Ireland is an issue that should be reserved to the Assembly in Northern Ireland. That 64% is an overwhelming number of people who want the Assembly to take decisions on that matter. That is why I say again that the imperative should be that we encourage the parties, including my own party, to get on with resolving the outstanding issues.

Sixty-six per cent. of women in Northern Ireland, irrespective of social, cultural or political background, want the Assembly to make laws on these issues. They do not want this place to make those laws. More importantly, as other Members have remarked, they do not want this place to rush into making legislative decisions on Northern Ireland on a hop, skip and a prayer approach, which results in really bad law. They want really good decisions to be made and good law to be put in place. They do not want decisions that are rushed and that leave us with bad law, especially on the sensitive issue of the termination of human life.