The Reverend Norman Hamilton has worked on the interface in north Belfast for 20 years, and hundreds of clergy and ordinary people—doctors, nurses and lawyers—all signed, from all sides of the community. They wanted one thing: to be respected as people and to allowed to make their own law on this amendment. That shows how concerned people are about this matter.
My amendment would not prevent legal change on either abortion or same-sex marriage. It would simply have the effect of restoring some constitutional integrity to Northern Ireland. It requires that there should be a consultation with the people of Northern Ireland, as there would be with any legal change on either issue in Northern Ireland, and most importantly that the views of the currently elected Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly be recorded for or against any regulations and that the regulations should not be laid before Parliament if they do not receive majority support from those Assembly Members. One thing I have not done is to introduce anything resembling a petition of concern, about which I think the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, spoke earlier. The legislation could pass by a simple majority.
One thing I noticed this afternoon was that the unborn child was largely absent from the debate. When mentioned, there was in some quarters a rolling of eyes and expressions of contempt. Yet it has to be said that abortion is about killing babies—real babies. Without Amendment 23, the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill will go down in British constitutional history as one of its blackest moments of all times, when constitutional due process was completely swept aside because of the conviction of parliamentarians, none of whom represents Northern Ireland, that the end justifies the means. That is never a good place to be. We have heard it said that it does not really matter at all if Northern Ireland’s MPs voted against this, because it is a matter of human rights and if you want to be in the UK you have to accept abortion as a
human right. There is no human right to abortion, and I think that is slightly contemptuous of Northern Ireland’s MPs.
The Member for Walthamstow, who introduced new Clause 10 in the Commons, said this morning that this is an attempt by the DUP to hold us all to ransom. At this late hour, I perhaps need to assure noble Lords that I am not a member of the DUP. I am a Cross-Bencher and, as far as I can remember, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, is not a member of the DUP either. This is something that a cross-party group of 16,000 people are asking us not to do. This is the truest cross-community co-operation from all sectors of our community, from all sides, all places in our beautiful country. We have agreement that we do not want abortion railroaded through in the Bill. I ask noble Lords to at least grant Northern Ireland MLAs the courtesy, the respect and dignity of their roles as elected members and allow them to present their views on this matter. I ask noble Lords to give the people of Northern Ireland the same respect and provide for consultation. I beg to move.