Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008

My Lords, the Government’s decision to press ahead with lowering the age of consent in Northern Ireland against the will of both the majority of the elected Members of the Assembly and a substantial majority of the people of the Province seems, if I may say so, frankly colonialist. In their Explanatory Memorandum on the draft order, the Government argue in paragraph 2.1 that the order, "““seeks to … harmonise the body of offences and penalties with the rest of the United Kingdom””." This justification is repeated in paragraph 7.2, which uses slightly different wording. It refers to, "““a unique opportunity to modernize, strengthen and harmonise the body of offences and penalties with the rest of the United Kingdom””." However, the game is given away by paragraph 7.1, which states that, "““the law here should, as far as possible, match that in England and Wales””." England, Wales and Northern Ireland, minus Scotland, do not constitute the United Kingdom. The Government know perfectly well that if a majority of MSPs in the Scottish Parliament voted to raise the age of consent in Scotland to 19 or lower it to 13, Westminster could do nothing about it. The argument of permanent harmonisation right across the United Kingdom simply will not wash, as my noble and learned friend Lord Lloyd of Berwick and the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, pointed out. Incidentally, some noble Lords may be unaware when they talk of harmonisation that every American state is free to set its own age of consent. Students who cross state lines simply have to keep their wits about them and do their homework. The same could apply within the United Kingdom, I suggest. The sudden call for integration and harmonisation is a bit rich when one considers that, about 35 years ago, soon after the beginning of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, a number of distinguished Conservative Members of Parliament, two of whom later paid for it with their lives, together with a majority—not all—of Ulster Unionist MPs, called for total integration of the Province with the rest of the United Kingdom, with the abolition of Stormont and the people of Northern Ireland having exactly the same rights as the people of England, Scotland and Wales. The proposal was fought against tooth and nail all through the 1970s and 1980s, and most of the 1990s, by most of the parliamentary Labour Party with a few honourable exceptions. They argued that Northern Ireland was totally different socially and culturally from the rest of the United Kingdom and should be treated quite differently, and that there should be no question of integration. There we have a certain paradox, do we not? As I understand it, the objections in Northern Ireland to the lowering of the age of consent are based not only on religious and cultural considerations but on considerations both pragmatic and moral at the same time, in that the Province has vastly lower rates of unwanted teenage pregnancies, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, pointed out, and vastly lower rates of teenage venereal disease than in the rest of the United Kingdom. People are understandably anxious to keep it that way. If the proposed change starts to destroy that great achievement—and it is a great achievement given the present Europe-wide moral climate—it will on balance diminish rather than enhance the sum of human happiness. For that reason, together with the considerations of democracy, I shall certainly support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, in the Division Lobby.