Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 — House of Lords, 2020-06-15
Topic: Civil Rights
Kevin Shinkwin (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I rise to speak to my amendment and in support of the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, with specific reference to paragraphs (3) and (4). Many of us will have received an update from our party Whips about today’s business. My update stated unambiguously that, "Even though this is government policy, it will be a free vote." There is no beating about the bush: this is official government policy which we are being asked to support. I think that that bears closer examination. In asking noble Lords to support the fatal amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, I make it clear that while I will not be moving my amendment to a vote, I am asking them, in supporting the noble Baroness, to reject the official policy of the Government and therefore of the Conservative Party because it undeniably promotes and perpetuates disability discrimination As the youngest member of the National Disability Council, which was created some 25 years ago by the then Conservative Government to advise on the implementation of their ground-breaking Disability Discrimination Act, I helped to define in codes of practice what disability discrimination actually looked like. Central to the concept was the premise that there should be evidence of less favourable treatment on account of a human being’s disability. I would be interested to know how my noble friend the Minister thinks denying a human being who has been diagnosed before birth with a non-fatal disability such as mine the equal right to be born is somehow not less favourable treatment I have seen disability discrimination close up and I know what it looks like. That brings me to a report by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. I am sure that my noble friend is familiar with Article 85 of Section VII, on page 21. But just in case he is not, let me remind him of what it says, and incidentally what the Government are deliberately choosing to go against. As the noble Baroness has explained, it states that abortion services should be expanded "without perpetuating stereotypes towards persons with disabilities" No doubt my noble friend will be able to quote back to me Article 62 of Section VI on page 16. If not, let me jog his memory. It states that "the Committee aligns itself with the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the condemnation of sex-selective and disability-selective abortions, both stemming from the need to combat negative stereotypes and prejudices towards women and persons with disabilities." I will be intrigued to hear from my noble friend the Minister how what the Government are pushing through Parliament is compliant with the committee’s recommendations in Articles 85 and 62, which I have just read out. But perhaps I am being stupid; after all, I am only a disabled parliamentarian. Perhaps I am missing something, or perhaps I am not Perhaps the Government could not care less about flouting not only the committee’s instructions but your Lordships’ House’s clear instruction, given almost a year ago today on 17 July 2019, when it amended the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 to implement the recommendations of paragraph 85 of the CEDAW report Why does my noble friend the Minister think CEDAW, your Lordships’ House and, more recently, the Northern Ireland Assembly have all focused on the danger of stereotyping? It is hardly rocket science. The answer lies in two words, which both begin with the letter D: disability discrimination. That is what the Conservative Party claimed to have outlawed when it passed the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, yet here we are a quarter of a century later, with the Conservative Party back in government, asking people to continue to believe that it is against disability discrimination while imposing it on the only part of the United Kingdom that is a safe haven for human beings diagnosed with a disability before birth In conclusion, I implore the Prime Minister to intervene and save the credibility of his promised national disability strategy, which I presume is to counter discrimination. As a proud Conservative, I reject this government policy of disability discrimination and urge all noble Lords to do the same.