Three Cabinet ministers back Labour MPs' bid for Northern Ireland abortion laws shake-up
4 min read
Three Cabinet ministers have heaped fresh pressure on Theresa May by backing a bid by Labour MPs to overhaul Northern Ireland's strict anti-abortion laws.
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt and Business Secretary Greg Clark were among the 45 Tories who voted in favour of an amendment by Stella Creasy and Conor McGinn calling on the Government to do more to explain how the region's abortion laws are compatible with human rights.
MPs backed the amendment to the Northern Ireland Bill by 207 to 117 votes.
Northern Ireland has been without a devolved government since 2017 after power-sharing collapsed over a botched energy scheme.
The Government in Westminster used today's bill to hand officials more power to run services in the absence of ministers - but the amendment put forward by the pair of Labour MPs also seeks to beef up oversight of human rights there following a string of controversial legal cases.
It orders ministers to do more to explain how the region can continue to enforce a Victorian-era law banning abortion as well as a ban on same-sex marriage.
In a sign of the difficult position the issue puts Mrs May in, the staunchly anti-abortion Democratic Unionist Party that gives the Prime Minster her majority in the House of Commons spoke out against the change.
The DUP's Sir Jeffrey Donaldson warned that Westminster had already given Stormont “the power to legislate on these areas of life”.
“The point of devolution is that the people of Northern Ireland have the right to legislate for laws that affect their lives,” he said. “That is the point of devolution and it’s the same in Scotland, it’s the same in Wales. That is why we have devolution.
“So when I hear members of this House saying to me, a member from Northern Ireland, that when I talk about having different laws in my part of the United Kingdom, that somehow that about creating a border in the Irish Sea - it isn’t.
“It’s about respecting the principle that this House agreed that Northern Ireland has a right to make its own laws in its own legislature as part of this United Kingdom.”
But, urging the Commons to get behind the bid, Ms Creasy said tough laws on abortion were having a “human impact”, with 28 women a week forced to make a “lonely, frightening and difficult” journey to the mainland to seek terminations.
“People in Northern Ireland need to hear now that their rights are not going to be the casualty of the chaos that we’re seeing right now in Northern Ireland,” Ms Creasy said.
She added: “I hope in setting out how it doesn’t set out a new law, but it does recognise accountability and responsibility, it will find favour across this House, because I say the people of Northern Ireland, whose rights have been such a political football for so long, need and deserve nothing less from all of us.”
'INCOMPATIBLE'
Other members of the Government who supported the amendment included Defence Minister Stuart Andrew, Equalities Minister Victoria Atkins, Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt, Sports Minister Tracey Crouch, Health Minister Caroline Dinenage, Housing Minister Kit Malthouse, Education Minister Anne Milton and Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes.
The move was also backed by Government whips Mike Freer and Andrew Stephenson.
Although MPs are traditionally given a free vote on abortion issues, the scale of the Conservative backing for an opposition amendment is significant.
The amendment calls on Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley to "issue guidance to senior officers of all Northern Ireland departments" telling them how to proceed given the "incompatibility of the human rights of the people of Northern Ireland with the continued enforcement" of bans on both abortion and gay marriage.
While the vote will add to the pressure on ministers to overhaul Northern Ireland's abortion laws in the absence of a devolved government, it marked a toning down of a planned move by Ms Creasy to fully scrap the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act which criminalises abortion there.
Earlier in the day Commons managers ruled that such a move would have been outside the scope of the law being debated.
The vote marked the second attempt this week to pile pressure on the Government over Northern Ireland's abortion laws.
On Tuesday MPs voted by 208 to 123 in favour of a largely-symbolic Ten Minute Rule Bill by Labour MP Diana Johnson looking to overhaul the region's abortion rules.
Significantly, that bid won the backing of five ministers, including International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt and Sports Minister Tracey Crouch.
PoliticsHome Newsletters
PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe
