Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008

rose to move, as an amendment to the Motion, to leave out from ““that”” to the end and insert ““this House declines to approve the draft order laid before the House on 30 April because of opposition in Northern Ireland to lowering the age of consent””. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be wondered why a Member of this House should rise to oppose an Order in Council, an instrument normally considered non-controversial. Yet any non-controversial features of this legislation are overshadowed by one extremely contentious provision: the proposal to lower the age of consent for sexual activity in Northern Ireland from 17 to 16. The age of consent in the criminal law is a powerful expression of what a society believes is best for its young people. Northern Ireland has chosen to set that age at 17 since 1950 and today most of its politicians and the majority of its people want to keep it at 17. Noble Lords may know that the Merits Committee drew the special attention of the House to the order in its 19th report, which was published on 13 May, noting that the Assembly and other consultees were broadly in favour of the legislation but opposed the lowering of the age of sexual consent from 17 to 16. I shall elaborate. According to normal consultative procedure, the legislation was scrutinised by an ad hoc committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly. After receiving written and oral evidence from interested bodies, the committee presented a report to the Assembly. The report included the statement that, "““the Committee strongly recommends that there be no change to the current age of consent of 17””." In February, the Assembly voted unanimously to submit the report to the Secretary of State as a report of the Assembly. No Division was required. Shortly after that vote, the MLAs tabled a no day named motion calling on the Secretary of State to retain the age of consent at 17. To date, it has been signed by 57 MLAs from across the political spectrum, unionists and nationalists alike. That makes it the best supported no day named motion of the current Assembly and the only one to achieve an overall majority of Members. It is clear that the Assembly would never have passed legislation lowering the age of consent. Stormont’s position reflects that of the Northern Ireland populace. A ComRes poll in March found that 73 per cent of Northern Ireland’s citizens, including 80 per cent of Protestants and 72 per cent of Roman Catholics, opposed any reduction in the age of consent. Such widespread opposition was reflected in public comments from church representatives, the Northern Ireland rape crisis centre, the Province’s biggest youth organisations, the Boys’ Brigade and the Girls’ Brigade, and Love for Life, a relationship and sexual education project that delivers programmes to more than 20,000 young people annually. The Northern Ireland Office’s analysis of the public consultation reveals a similar pattern. Of 369 responses received, only seven specifically supported the age of consent proposal; 346 responses specifically opposed it. The Government have put forward such a controversial provision in a statutory instrument that cannot be amended, leaving us with no choice but to reject the order. I shall test the opinion of the House at the conclusion of this debate. It is right to ask the Government to think again on such an important issue. Even now, it would not be difficult to withdraw the order, amend it and relay it before Parliament. There are precedents for this House rejecting statutory instruments—for example, the Greater London Authority (Election Expenses) Order 2000 and the Gambling (Geographical Distribution of Casino Premises Licences) Order 2007. Let me at this point respond to a question that has been raised: is there not a contradiction between an age of consent set at 17 and allowing marriage at 16? No. Marriage is clearly a special institution. This has never caused a problem in the past 58 years. When Stormont raised the age of consent to 17 in 1950, it included an exception for married couples. It is crucial that marriage at the age of 16 or 17 in Northern Ireland can take place only with parental consent. The unique status of marriage is demonstrated by the fact that several other provisions in the order—for example, the abuse of trust laws—include exceptions for married couples. To date, the Northern Ireland Office has offered only the scantiest justification for lowering the age of consent. The only reason offered to the Stormont committee and the Merits Committee was consistency across the United Kingdom. The logic of that argument is contrary to the principle of devolution. We are left asking why the Government continue to support devolution if they believe that the laws in every part of the United Kingdom must always be the same. In laws covering, for example, abortion, employment, public order and alcohol licensing, Northern Ireland has long differed from the rest of the United Kingdom. Moreover, the Northern Ireland Office has not provided evidence of any legal difficulty caused by the inconsistency of the age of consent. Ministers have attempted to justify the policy by citing the need for clarity in the minds of young people. By calling for clarity, Ministers appear to believe that there is widespread confusion among Northern Ireland’s young people because the age of consent is 16 elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The fear has also been expressed that a legal age of consent of 17 deters young people from seeking sexual health advice because they feel that they will be criminalised in some way. How can Northern Ireland’s young people be deterred from seeking sexual health advice under the age of 17 if they are all confused by the law and think that the age of consent is 16 anyway? In fact, any teenager from Northern Ireland or elsewhere will not have to look too far to find that the age of consent in the Province is 17. Just about every teenage website offering sexual health advice spells out the law and its implications in unmistakable terms. Moreover, the basic framework of the laws governing sexual activity is routinely spelt out in school classes in Northern Ireland. The age of consent renders sexual activity with a person below that age a criminal offence. A young person under the age of 17 in Northern Ireland has only to prove in a criminal trial that an incident of undesired sexual activity took place to establish a criminal act. They do not have to prove under cross-examination that they did not consent. That is crucial. We all recognise that young people can be vulnerable to manipulation in sexual matters and may well grant apparent consent to intercourse only to recognise the manipulation later and regret the act. Other elements of the draft order, such as Articles 38 to 42, acknowledge that by extending further legal practices to 17 year-olds, such as protections from sexual exploitation for the purposes of prostitution and pornography. In its drive for legal uniformity, the Northern Ireland Office seems to have forgotten that Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom to share a land border with another state. The age of consent in the Republic of Ireland is 17. That is relevant to any debate about the age in the north. Let us not deceive ourselves. Sexual predators of whatever age living in the Republic would certainly perceive a lower age of consent across the border as a signal that 16 year-olds there are fair game. Any law restricting the behaviour of young people is intended to protect them from the possible unintended consequences of their actions, whether that restriction relates to driving, smoking, bearing knives or having sex. Regardless of the Government’s intention, lowering the age of consent will act as an encouragement to young people to engage in sexual activity at a younger age. If the driving age limit were lowered from 17 to 16, we can be sure that many more 16 year-olds would take to the roads. Just because some young people already engage in sex at ages younger than the age of consent does not mean that the law has no positive effect. Some young people also break the law in relation to smoking and alcohol, but we knowledge the necessity of such laws for deterring the majority. Comparing sexual behaviour in Northern Ireland with that in the rest of the United Kingdom clearly shows the value of Northern Ireland’s current age of consent. Only 15 per cent of young people in Northern Ireland engage in sex before 16, compared with 28 per cent in Great Britain. I do not suggest that Northern Ireland’s higher age is solely responsible for the lower rates of teenage sex, but in terms of legislation affecting teenage sexual behaviour it is the single most obvious difference between the two areas. By encouraging young people to delay engaging in sex until 17, Northern Ireland’s current age of consent benefits them. They are safer. The statistics bear that out. The rate of conception among 16 year-old girls in England and Wales is almost two and a half times higher than that in Northern Ireland. The rate of sexually transmitted infection among under-16s is also two and a half times higher in England and Wales than in Northern Ireland. The Government may be unable to see any correlation between the age of consent and the prevalence of sexual diseases among young people, but the people of Northern Ireland certainly do. The proposal in the order to lower the age of consent in Northern Ireland is extremely unpopular. This is not isolated posturing from obscure and self-appointed guardians of public morals; this is comprehensive opposition from every field and strata of society and, most significantly, from across the political and religious divide. I beg to move. Moved, as an amendment to the Motion, to leave out from ““that”” to the end and insert ““this House declines to approve the draft order laid before the House on 30 April because of opposition in Northern Ireland to lowering the age of consent””.—(Lord Morrow.)