It is a genuine pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), and I agree with every word he said.
I will be proud to vote today for new clause 1 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), who is now leaving the Chamber. He made an incredibly powerful speech. I also support amendment 9.
I rise to address new clause 10 with great reluctance, because none of us wanted the governance of Northern Ireland to be in this position today. We all want to speak up for the importance of devolution but, as my hon. Friend said, human rights delayed are human rights denied. New clause 1, new clause 10 and amendment 9 all speak to the human rights challenges. I understand the concerns of the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) about it being the thin end of the wedge, but I see this as a temporary way of dealing with something that this place is centrally about: protecting the human rights of every UK citizen.
Those of us who are strong defenders of devolution and human rights tread carefully. Section 26 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 charges this place with upholding our international obligations for the whole United Kingdom, even when the Assembly is sitting. As we have now not had an Assembly for two years, and as it is unlikely the Assembly will have sat for three years at this rate, it is even more important that we ask what our obligations are so that we do not see human rights denied.
The Women and Equalities Committee has been very powerful in stating that on those two specific issues, especially in the past couple of years, our country has been censured for what is happening in Northern Ireland. Members will know that I am a passionate defender of women’s rights, and I believe powerfully that we will never have true freedom if women do not have the same control over their bodies as men. If we say to women that we will force them to continue an unwanted pregnancy, they will always be second-class citizens compared with their male counterparts. That is exactly what we are saying to our fellow UK citizens in Northern Ireland. As the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs said, these amendments are about equality. They are about treating every UK citizen equally; in Northern Ireland there are no such rights.
The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) talked powerfully of fatal foetal abnormalities. I cannot imagine what it is like for somebody who so desperately
wants a baby to discover that their baby will not live. All our hearts have gone out to Sarah Ewart, but those court cases were not just about fatal foetal abnormalities; they were about sexual violence, too.
We are not living up to our obligations to protect the rights of the women of Northern Ireland—those 1 million women are UK citizens. If we do not act on these issues and find a way, in the absence of an Assembly, however temporary, to deal with this issue, it will not only be Sarah Ewart who has to go to court. We will be in the invidious position of rape victims having to go to court to have their rights upheld. That is torture, which is why the UN Committee against Torture censured our country and said that how we treat the women of Northern Ireland is torturous.
That is why it is right that we find a way through. I am very conscious of the words of the Women and Equalities Committee, which said that the Government need to set out a clear framework and timeline for addressing the breaches of women’s rights in Northern Ireland, which have been identified by CEDAW, if there is no Government in Northern Ireland to take action.