Ms Stella Creasy
MP for Walthamstow · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“I thank the Foreign Secretary for his clear-sighted commitment not only to talk about a two-state solution, but to actually try to act to achieve it, as the only foundation of a safe Israel and a free Palestine.”
“Could he reassure the House that we will not acquiesce and bend to such pressure, and that the only action that could ever be acceptable to us to make us contemplate reversing this ban would be a halt on the E1 development and a permanent end to settler violence?”
“I start by paying tribute to the new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), for all the work she did on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on these issues. I know that she will do a brilliant job in this role.”
“I do not really understand the technology, but I know that he does, and I understand and share his fear accordingly. We come here today to debate this Bill because we all know that trust is a bygone issue in our politics.”
“We would welcome her having that conversation, which might be more illuminating than whether she is concerned about Zach Goldmsith’s leaflets. I add my support to the amendments tabled by my hon.”
“From today, if we do not take a stand with this Bill to tackle the ways that money has infiltrated our politics, the risk is that they will think we are acting in the interests of our own back pockets.”
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“One of the critical issues is how women will know how to access these services. Ministers have said that they hope that services will be available on the ground within the next 90 days, particularly services for between 10 weeks and 12 weeks. We know that access to pills is patchy, but access to medical procedures is non-existent. If women are seeking information about those services and how to access them, under this legislation, what powers will the Government have and what action will they take to make sure that those women are getting information about the right services—the actual abortion services—if they make that choice? Finally, I want to make a plea to the Minister: there is still a stigma, as I know he understands.”
“We know that there are travel difficulties within Northern Ireland, so it is not enough to say to women, “The service that you might need does exist, but it is in a particular location.” We absolutely want to see those services start, but ultimately, when we talk about a safe, legal and local service, it really does need to be local, just as we seek similar provision for our constituents here in England, Wales and Scotland. Another issue we have seen, which I hope this funding can help address, is that there are very clear reports that some are using the online nature of seeking guidance about where services are to cause harm. What I mean is that some people are using advertising, particularly on things like Google, to encourage women to go to services that are not about abortion, but are trying to deter women from having an abortion.”
“I recognise that there is a challenge with staffing and that we are asking Ministers to move quickly, although some of us might reflect that, in three years, it is not unrealistic to have asked for priority to be given to training and recruitment, because the direction of travel that I was told was coming by previous Secretaries of State should have been translated across. Will he set out how the Government will ensure that the service will be properly staffed not just in one or two locations but across Northern Ireland?”
“Those services include healthcare and—let us be clear—abortion is healthcare. Those who have sought to threaten that have not protected devolution; they have simply harmed women, and in particular women from refugee and minority community backgrounds who have been the least able to take advantage of an ability to travel in the United Kingdom. Previous Ministers have told me that, even under those powers, one of the operational actions is for women to continue to travel. I hope the Minister will recognise that that is not a satisfactory response, particularly when dealing with incredibly tragic cases in which, frankly, travelling creates a health risk. Will he set out how that will be dealt with?”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I know that he was frustrated by it. That is why I am speaking today. We have seen the frustration, and for three years women in Northern Ireland have seen multiple letters traded between Departments but little change. It is worth reflecting that even during the pandemic, women from Northern Ireland were still travelling to England and Wales, with 161 doing so in 2021 compared with 371 in 2020. It is welcome to hear what Ministers have to say. We helped to give those women a voice in 2019, and through the Bill we want to see those women given delivery in 2022. I have some specific questions that I hope the Minister will be able to address. The Government have powers in the Bill to direct commissioning. We recognise that public services need to continue.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I am very interested to hear what she has to say next. It is not the Opposition who are bringing forward a Bill of Rights, or claiming to do so—I am sure we will get into the issue of whether or not the legislation presented does represent that—but the concept of a Bill of Rights has been brought into British politics. It is absolutely right that we discuss what should be enshrined in that legislation and whether that includes a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion, which many of us feel is a human rights issue. It is that piece of legislation—I know she is about to start the debate —that means we need to have this conversation.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. Could he clarify something for me? He talks passionately about the human right of freedom of speech, and I agree with him; I feel very strongly about defending it, and I notice that this Bill of Rights talks about protecting that right from interference. Can he explain how that is different from interfering in somebody’s womb, which is what the human right to have an abortion would address? Why is it that this legislation is right to protect one right, but not to protect another right? Why is it right that this legislation would bring in judges and give direction to courts on one issue, but not another issue?”
“Some of us agree with Winston Churchill that that is quite a good thing and we should uphold it. Indeed, I believe that that is the Government’s current view. Let us also put to bed the idea that passing a Bill of Rights—or a Bill clarifying where rights are being determined—would somehow mean that a particular right would be subject to judicial intervention and other rights would not. All rights set out in this piece of legislation would be subject to the courts, just like freedom of speech and the rights of those people seeking asylum in our country. Abortion would be no different in this legislation. It would simply be another right where we clarified where the balance of rights—”
“Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) will regale us with his stories about the American constitution—I am sure that he is more of a scholar on that than I am—but that sets out a series of rights. This Bill does not do that. As the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) very clearly stated, it sets out which place of law should be supreme. That is a different argument from that on whether there are laws to protect our rights. Let us be very clear: we are talking not about a Bill of Rights, but about a Bill of clarity about where rights rest and who has the right to interpret them. I wish to disappoint the right hon. Member for Gainsborough: we are still part of the European Court of Human Rights. We might have left the European Union but the European Court of Human Rights still applies in the UK.”
“When we talk about having a human right to abortion, the alternative is not no abortion—it is unsafe abortion. There is no pro-life perspective on this. There are only those who recognise the need to ensure safe access in order to save lives by preventing those unsafe abortions, and those who are more comfortable with the risks that may come from not offering such a service. Secondly, let me provide some clarification. I do not believe that the Government have put before us—perhaps the Minister will tell us whether alternative wording will be brought forward—a Bill of Rights, because it does not lay out a set of rights. I am sure that the right hon.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I hope that this important debate will generate light, not heat—perhaps in the past we have had too few such debates. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) in setting that out so powerfully and making that argument. I also congratulate Caitlin on her incredibly powerful petition, which I think reflects the growing view—indeed, it is the majority view among women in this country—that in the 21st century, their right to healthcare needs to be not just protected but clarified. Let me start by stating something that it is important for us all to recognise. When you ban abortion, you don’t stop abortion; you simply stop access to safe abortion.”
“They have to secure the support of two doctors who have to act in good faith to agree that a woman should have an abortion because the alternative would cause her mental distress or a physical threat to her life. That is not a right.”
“Member for Gainsborough when he says that this should be a parliamentary matter. That is exactly what the petition is calling on us to do, as are those conversations about whether or not the Bill should include that. I simply say to the right hon. Gentleman that I do not know who in this place he means to be a hijacker, but I have never believed that the role of the Opposition is to sit on the sidelines for five years, cheering on the Government’s work. The role of the Opposition is to make progress on the issues that we are concerned about. If we can make progress on this very issue, I wager it will make a difference in many ways that he has not yet realised. We do not have the right to an abortion. Even those women seeking abortions do not have a right to an abortion.”
“I disagree with the hon. Lady, and I invite her to talk to campaigners in my community who feel very passionately about where the line about the right to religious freedom is drawn, or the right to freedom of speech. Those are not uncontested subjects. We all passionately believe that human rights are important, but how they are applied and what they mean in practice can often be a very different thing. I argue that a woman’s right to choose is something that the majority of people in this country—multiple public opinion surveys now back this up—believe should be a right for women. Right now, it is not a right for women. A woman does not have the right to choose to have an abortion in this country—we need to be very clear about that, because that is where this debate is coming from. It is also why I agree with the right hon.”
“I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman raises that question, because he need not look far for an exact example of what does happen we have a human right to an abortion. Let us be clear: it is women in England, Scotland and Wales in this nation state who do not have the right to an abortion. Women in Northern Ireland do. We now have legislation on our statute book that directly gives women in Northern Ireland a human right to an abortion, which means—”
“Let me preface my statement by saying that just because we have a human right to abortion in Northern Ireland does not mean, as yet, that we have satisfactory legal, local and safe abortion services. Those who are hostile to abortion have used their position to prevent access. However, what is different and so powerful about having that human rights approach is that it is the Secretary of State who has to drive change in Northern Ireland, because he has to defend the human rights of women in Northern Ireland as a reflection of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women protocol.”
“Well, there was an Act. The right hon. Gentleman is shouting—I guess he missed out on the debates we had on this issue in 2019, when this place did indeed pass legislation. That is a very interesting mechanism for this Bill of Rights. It is why this Bill could be the right vehicle and why a human rights perspective is important. Those of us who believe the time has come to say that abortion is healthcare and to remove the criminal element recognise that removing the criminal element requires us to replace it with an alternative foundation for those rights. Those of us who believe we should make abortion a human right in this country argue that a human rights perspective should be that alternative. We see Northern Ireland, where that has now happened, as an opportunity to learn from that.”
“I will happily give way, but before I do, I will just clarify for the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) that changing the foundation of that legislation would not change the regulations as to whether sex-selective abortion would ever be legal or the time limits. It would simply be about the fundamental principle. Right now, his female constituents do not have a right to an abortion. They may be able to go and request one, but somebody else makes that decision.”
“I wager that he would not find that acceptable if it was perhaps about having a vasectomy.”
“Gentleman would not want to be on the side of arguing that a piece of legislation that put abortion at the same level as setting fire to this place or indeed murder would be the right way forward. Right now, the penalty under that legislation is lifetime imprisonment. There may be some people who are comfortable with that, but many of us, who believe that when a woman is seeking healthcare, she deserves our support, compassion and tolerance, are not. For those of us who believe that we should be equals under the law, the question is whether the hon. Gentleman would accept being denied the basic right to decide what happens to his body in a particular circumstance, and for that decision to be taken by two other people who could give him that option only if they agreed that he would go mad or lose his life if he did not have it.”
“I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that if he is dealing with families where that is a possibility, prosecuting a woman who is being asked to have a sex-selective abortion, rather than supporting her or recognising what is happening, is not the way forward. The cases set out so powerfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower show why decriminalisation is a very live issue. Although it is the 21st century, this country is still prosecuting women for having miscarriages and threatening them with investigation for a healthcare issue. Rather than recognising what other pressures might be in their lives and supporting them, we are criminalising those women, as women were criminalised in the 1800s with the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. I wager that the hon.”
“Belgium, Denmark and Sweden are also considering constitutional amendments—”
“However, it opens the door to a conversation about what rights women in this country should have. If the Government are determined that nobody from Europe should interfere with somebody’s freedom of speech, why do they deny the role of protecting women’s wombs from being interfered with and why not let women choose for themselves whether or not to have an abortion? We would not be unique in making that choice; countless nations around the world already do it. Indeed, in the current criminal basis for abortion access, we are behind other countries such as Russia, Australia, South Africa, Vietnam, Germany and Argentina. Countries such as Canada have explicitly classified abortion as a human right; lawmakers in France have just agreed to write it into their constitution.”
“The hon. Gentleman suggests that difficult cases are the unique preserve of abortion provision; there are difficult cases when it comes to freedom of speech and people’s motivation. What I do recognise is that right now there are women on trial for having a miscarriage or potentially being accused of seeking an abortion perhaps when they were further along in their pregnancy than they realised, and it is not right to see these cases as criminal matters when we are talking about a healthcare provision, in which case what we need to do is set out an alternative foundation for the law. Many of us recognise that the Bill of Rights is not a good piece of legislation and that the things that it does will not achieve the outcomes that the Government hope for.”
“I will just finish my sentence, if I may. I am desperate to hear what the right hon. Gentleman has to say, but I want to be very clear that this is a debate that is happening around the world. Roe v. Wade was the spark that reaffirmed that that fire needed to burn, because many of us have known that, even though we have access to abortion in this country, that access is not secure; it can be challenged. Indeed, I have spent 12 years in this place listening to people chipping away at that access and using the fact that abortion is not a legal right to do so. The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and I are on different sides of this debate. I would love to hear why he believes he has a right to choose for a woman what happens to her body.”
“I did not say that it was restrictive; I said that it was patchy, because it is patchy. What we understand is that those who live in rural areas find it much harder to find the two doctors required to secure an abortion, and that is one of the reasons why many of us have fought for telemedicine to help with that process and to ensure that during the pandemic women’s rights were not left behind. The right hon. Gentleman misses a fundamental point—a woman should be able to choose what happens to her body. If we have a Bill of Rights, surely it sets out those most fundamental basic rights.”
“Will the Minister clarify why the sauce is good for the goose, but not for the gander? Why do we have a piece of legislation that will set limits on interference in free speech and on deportations, but the Government can somehow say it would be wrong for the courts to be involved in upholding a woman’s right to choose?”
“Wade caused shockwaves, but it also highlighted the fact that that right was written into the legislation in terms of liberty and privacy, not as a basic human right. Including abortion in our legislation, as set out in the petition, would write it in as a basic human right. Many of us do not agree with the Government’s piece of legislation; nevertheless, we will not be deterred from seeing how we can make progress to defend and uphold these rights, because what Roe v. Wade teaches us is that we cannot be complacent. Indeed, when we have a Government who, as part of an international conference, chose to remove a commitment to the human rights of women around the developing world to access sexual and reproductive services, I know that that concern is merited.”
“It sets a foundation that is based in healthcare, not criminal legislation, and—crucially, for many of us—in equality. Were we to say that the right hon. Member could not have basic bodily autonomy, I would venture that he would be as furious and concerned about what that meant for him as we are about what it means for women. The previous Justice Secretary and the current Justice Secretary have both argued that we do not need to include the right to abortion in the Bill of Rights because that right is settled, but Conservative Members have just shown that it is not; this is a very live debate. It is absolutely right that our constituents have an opportunity to lobby us and that Parliament has an opportunity to look at where we can make progress. The decision to overturn Roe v.”
“On this side, I hope to hand that decision to a very accountable woman, because I trust women to make the right choices for their own bodies. When the right hon. Member says “we”, I hope he is not talking about men, because the majority of men and women across this country recognise that they should trust each other to make these very difficult, sensitive decisions, and not deny women that basic human right. If the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) wishes to look at the example of Northern Ireland—from what he says, I suspect he has not done so yet—he will see that adding a human rights foundation to the legislation does not remove any of the regulations around time limits, any of the importance placed on medical professionals or any of the safety requirements, nor does it introduce sex selection.”
“That does not mean that we would not have controls on how abortion is accessed or that there would not be a right to discussion about time limits; it means that there would not be criminal prosecutions—not just of the women, but of the doctors and medical people involved—and that the legislation would come from a healthcare perspective. We do not have these debates when it comes to vasectomies or ankle injuries, yet somehow when it comes to a woman’s body we have determined, as the right hon. Member for New Forest West has said, that Parliament should be involved.”
“I recognise the debate that the hon. Gentleman is trying to tempt me into. I have no problem with our existing legislation, except the fact that it is rooted in a criminal foundation. For me, decriminalisation is of paramount importance and urgency. My point is simply that when we remove the criminal foundation from which all abortion legislation follows, we create a lacuna. I am arguing that entering human rights into that lacuna, as we have done in Northern Ireland, is the right thing to do, because I wish my constituents in Walthamstow to have the same rights as women in Belfast; and right now they do not. The Bill of Rights—and, I would wager, this petition—is about the 21st century and how those rights are exercised.”
“I believe it is a human rights proposal, and I believe that all our constituents would benefit from that perspective and that approach to a healthcare issue. I hope that the Minister will clarify why this piece of legislation is acceptable for some freedoms and some rights, and whether the Government do not believe that a woman has a right to an abortion. If she does have a right to choose an abortion, they need to legislate for it.”
“It does exist in Northern Ireland, and if we trust women in Northern Ireland, we should trust women in England, Scotland and Wales. If we recognise a human right in one part of the United Kingdom, surely we should recognise it in all. I do not wish to be called a hijacker; I think that is slightly disrespectful towards parliamentary democracy. I recognise that there are people here who will never agree with a woman’s right to choose, and I believe they should be honest about that, because it would not matter whether it was a Bill of Rights, this Bill of Rights or any piece of legislation—they would not support it. But for those of us who do support women and who do recognise that the case for decriminalisation is long overdue, we have a responsibility to set out what comes next.”
“The hon. Member should turn the question around. Why does she believe that it is acceptable for men to be able to choose to have a vasectomy, but a woman cannot choose what happens to her own body? Why do we deny women choice over their bodies, but we do not deny men? Forgive me, but I did biology at school, so I know that there are often two people involved in the creation of a baby. Surely we should hold men equally accountable, yet somehow we do not deny men rights to their bodies and bodily autonomy. I will come to a conclusion, because I know that Members who have different views from mine wish to make their points. My point is simply thus: to argue that the Bill of Rights is the wrong vehicle for the right to abortion is to miss the point, because this right does not yet exist for women across Scotland, Wales and England.”
“The Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020 cover precisely those issues, so it is not that enshrining a human rights perspective leads to no regulation; it removes the criminal element of our old regulation and allows us to have these debates.”
“The hon. Gentleman and I have debated this issue in many different ways, and I know he does not mean to sound like he is suggesting that it is okay if a man tells a woman that she has to have the baby but not okay if he supports her choice to have an abortion. That would be the corollary of what he is saying. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that when it comes to legalisation in Northern Ireland, we did not just have decriminalisation and we did not just take away the Offences Against the Person Act 1861? We also brought in laws to regulate how a woman can access an abortion. There is no late-term abortion or sex selection in Northern Ireland.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. Given the train of thought he is coming up with, would he support the right of women to choose to have an abortion were they a victim of rape or incest?”
“He will recognise that people have very strong views about the application of freedom of speech, so much so that this Government have introduced its own Bill on freedom of speech in higher education, for example. Why is it that, when it comes to women’s rights, these matters are considered complicated and can only be dealt with by judges, but when it comes to freedom of speech, for example, we accept that there should be a parliamentary process and a piece of legislation whereby these matters can be resolved?”
“I note that we have not yet had a satisfactory answer to the question posed by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) about why it is acceptable that our constituents in Walthamstow and Basingstoke face a criminal foundation in securing an abortion they do not have a right to, but women in Northern Ireland have a human rights foundation to that healthcare. I just challenge his point that, if we were to include these rights in this Bill of Rights, it would somehow lead to litigation. He will of course note that there is already repeated litigation about abortion rights and the balance of rights around abortion anyway. Why is abortion any different from freedom of speech?”
“I simply ask the Minister to use the clause stand part debate to explain why the 28 pieces of legislation could not have been dealt with in advance of the Bill, given that they stand on the EU withdrawal Act, and to tell us a bit about what will happen to them, to give us an indication of what horrors are to come or perhaps to reassure us. Government Members want to use the term “scaremongering”. I use the term “accountability”. I am looking forward to what the Minister has to say.”
“Given that the Government are getting rid of the Bauer and Hampshire judgments, thereby affecting the pension rights and protections of our constituents, could the Minister set out what might happen on that one? She was very kind on Tuesday to set out an example of what will happen to one of the 28. It would be incredibly helpful for us as a Committee to understand the impact of the legislation and to perhaps start, if not to allay our concerns—I think Opposition Members are concerned when people’s pension protections are being not just watered down but, frankly, abolished—then to understand what the Government’s intentions are in using these powers.”
“The 28 pieces of legislation are not insubstantial; they could be the way forward for the Minister. Instead of requiring the clause, she could say, “We’re going to look at the 28 and tell you what we’re going to do with them,” so that people can have confidence that we have an administrative process for these pieces of legislation and the suggestion that there has been scaremongering can be put aside. She could say, “Here are 28 examples of what we’re going to do, and the fact that they are rights under section 4 of the EU withdrawal Act helps us to contain them as a piece of work.” The Intellectual Property (Exhaustion of Rights) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 are another of the 28.”
“Rather than assuming that all these pieces of legislation should go at the end of 2023, surely Ministers could commit to reviewing the 28 now and showing us the way ahead—whether some will be retained, amended or indeed abolished. Then the clause would not be required. All of this does make a difference. For example, on Tuesday the Government gave their very first commitment on what will happen to one of the 4,000 pieces of legislation—the Bauer and Hampshire judgments about pensions. To remind Government Members, who may well have constituents coming to them about this, those are the requirements—the pieces of case law—that mean that if a company goes bust, people are entitled to at least 50% of their pension fund. The Government committed on Tuesday to abolishing those pieces of legislation, but they are affected by the clause.”
“Good morning, Sir George. I rise to support the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston. I also think that the debate on the clause sums up some of the practical challenges with the legislation. The retained EU law dashboard has identified just 28 pieces of directly effective retained law under section 4 of the EU withdrawal Act—a mere amuse-bouche of laws that will be affected by the Bill overall. Given that the number is so small in comparison with the at least 2,500 that have been identified, and the possible 4,000, why could the Minister not show us what will happen next? After all, our debates on Tuesday were all about what would happen if we deleted every piece of legislation. There are no guarantees about what would happen next.”
“I rise to ask the Minister to put aside the constant talk about, “Well, if you disagree with this, if you want to ask these questions, it’s cos you didn’t agree with Brexit,” and to do justice to the people of Northern Ireland.”
“My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central is absolutely right. This is not about whether Brexit has happened. We all know that Brexit has happened. We have left the European Union, and, frankly, it reflects an intellectual insecurity about the legislation if that is the only response that the Government can come up with—if they cannot actually engage in defending their proposals but try to take us on to a completely different debate. That matters because millions of people across the country are dealing with the consequences of Brexit on a daily basis, none more so than our friends and family in Northern Ireland.”
“Does my hon. Friend recognise that the Minister did not utter the words “Northern Ireland”, and did not at all address the question of how supremacy will be resolved in Northern Ireland, which follows both EU and UK legislation? I see that she is being given a note, so perhaps she can do us the courtesy of responding to that question.”
“The Government might not listen to Opposition Members, but they might listen to the Office for Environmental Protection, which, after all, they set up. It said: “In making it easier for courts to depart from environmental retained case law, the Bill is likely to lead to uncertainty as it will be unclear whether long-established precedents will continue to be followed. This could result in unnecessary, costly legal proceedings. Consideration should also be given to whether this could also result in a reduction in environmental protection (where protections have been established through case law) and how this will be addressed.” Does my hon. Friend agree that those critical points need to be addressed?”
“Obviously the Bill also enshrines the idea that protections can only be watered down, because it says that nothing can be brought in that increases burdens. Of course, courts are free to set new precedents, but when this Bill is enacted only precedents that reduce protection can be set. That is why the Office for Environmental Protection is concerned.”