Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008

My Lords, first, that is up to the Assembly. Secondly, as far as I am concerned, there is no justification whatsoever for claiming that devolution will occur within a specific period. Until the agreements are reached we do not know; that is the history of Northern Ireland. Until then we continue to govern, as was the case before the current devolution. The Assembly can do what it likes when it has authority, provided that it follows the voting system laid down. It does not just require a simple majority to change things, but a far more complicated system of voting than we have in this House. The 55 per cent referred to would not carry a change. I am not going to make a big point about that, but it is not as simple as that. Frankly, we cannot go by people signing Early Day Motions. I spent so long in the other place signing EDMs that I was challenged to vote for, only to find that I could not for other reasons. It is an expression of an opinion, and I respect that; however, it is not the vote. I will give more details of the support for the Government’s change. I will reiterate what was said in the other place when this order was before it on the reasons to make the change. The Government—particularly my honourable friend the Minister for Criminal Justice, who has much experience in dealing with the issues—have taken careful note of a range of advice and representations on the age of consent. Different organisations have recommended different things depending on their particular experience and engagement with young people. The Government have had to reflect on the balance of that advice to see where we ought to move the legislation and whether we should change it. Given that the starting position was for uniformity unless there were compelling reasons against it, and having received advice from a whole range of organisations that we should reduce the age of consent to 16, the balance of the argument ultimately seemed to point to that change. I fully accept that there is a different legal system in Scotland; I did not seek to make a point about that. It has always been a different system. Nevertheless, the age of consent is 16, and if they wish to change it, they can. The fact is that if Parliament now approves this order, the age of consent will be 16 throughout the UK. I remind noble Lords of the organisations and individuals who have encouraged us to believe that 16 is the right age. Leading childcare organisations such as the NSPCC and Barnardo’s, to which I pay tribute and which do tremendous work in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, have been absolutely clear with us. We take the advice of the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People. We take the advice of the health and social services boards and eight of the 10 trusts in Northern Ireland. These are the social services organisations working with children and their families day in and day out. They tell us absolutely clearly that they believe that 16 is the right age. The police recommend it. All want to provide welfare support, encouragement and education. We are all concerned for vulnerable young people. Those organisations think that keeping 17 as the age of consent is a barrier. We have to take that advice seriously. It is clear that the debate in Northern Ireland has been far from one-sided. We have paid particular attention to those organisations working with children and young people. We have had to take their advice seriously. It would be wrong to dismiss the views of organisations such as the NSPCC and Barnardo’s, but that is not to undermine or to criticise the authentic views of others, as we have heard tonight, which I respect. I add my voice to the concerns we have heard about the message that this change may be sending to young people. It is important that we send the message that we want to avoid confusion in their minds. Having a different age of consent in different parts of the United Kingdom could—could—add to that confusion. We want to make clear that this change does not signal that sex at an earlier age is the right thing—far from it. I made that point in my opening speech. We want the message to go out that young people should seek advice from agencies and counselling organisations without fear of criminalisation. We do not want young people to be deterred from obtaining advice on these important health issues, but this desire in no way signals any intent that more young people should get involved in early sexual activity. As I said earlier, it is important to make a distinction between the ethos of the age of consent and the criminal law. The criminal law seeks only to criminalise the person who has sexual activity with someone under a particular age. It does not, and never did, criminalise the act of giving consent. The young person and their conduct is not the focus of the criminal law; it is the perpetrator. It is important that that point is emphasised. I shall not go into teenage pregnancies in great detail, as they have been discussed. It is true that there are concerns about levels of teenage pregnancy, but there has been a marked improvement in Northern Ireland since 2000 through the teenage pregnancy and parenthood strategy. In 2000, there were 222 pregnancies to under-17s, but in 2007 that figure had fallen to 142. The number is coming down because of the advocacy, education, support and advice being provided by a range of organisations. I propose to noble Lords that the level of teenage pregnancies has nothing whatever to do with the age of consent. The Netherlands has 16 as the age of consent and has the lowest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe. Denmark has the second lowest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe and the age of consent is 15. Therefore, they do not need any lectures from us about marrying the two issues. Teenage pregnancy and the age of consent may come together in the public mind, but they are two entirely separate matters. The quality of the education, advice and support available are important in driving down rates of teenage pregnancies, and we all want to see that. It has not always been easy to give education, support and advice to young people in this country. People have been attacked for doing that.