Opinion

John Manley: Brandon Lewis move on abortion forces the debate Stormont wanted to avoid

Brandon Lewis will lay new regulations at Westminster directing the Department of Health to commission abortion services. Picture by Brian Lawless/PA Wire
Brandon Lewis will lay new regulations at Westminster directing the Department of Health to commission abortion services. Picture by Brian Lawless/PA Wire Brandon Lewis will lay new regulations at Westminster directing the Department of Health to commission abortion services. Picture by Brian Lawless/PA Wire

EVEN when it comes to the most mundane matters, the Stormont administration acts in a sluggish, indecisive and dysfunctional manner.

It can just about manage to run the north’s everyday public services, a role largely carried out by civil servants. But as the pandemic has highlighted, it is difficult to secure consensus among ministers on any issue that isn’t routine or removes them from their comfort zone. Therefore, any expectation that the executive would deal promptly and responsibly with an issue as emotive and divisive as abortion is naively misplaced.

In the year since Westminster moved to fill the vacuum in women’s healthcare that left the north out of step with all other parts of these islands, there has been a inconspicuous silence from all the main parties. This has corresponded with a piecemeal and inconsistent rollout of abortion services across the north, with the problem still being exported to Britain on an unacceptable scale.

The ambiguity around whether commissioning abortion services is a devolved or reserved matter, and whether it is solely the responsibility of Stormont Health Minister Robin Swann to initiate a policy change, has given cover to inaction from all sides, though what is abundantly clear is that the DUP, along with many MLAs of all hues, is content for this uncertainty to prevail.

Maintaining the status quo was not an option but for the sake of political expediency less significant matters were given greater priority with Stormont kicking yet another can down an increasingly cluttered road.

The British government’s intervention, which comes as it and the devolved administration face legal action from the Human Rights Commission over the delay in acting, has elicited conflicting responses. Anti-abortion unionists are unhappy that their sovereign government is seeking to apply the law consistently throughout the union, while pro-choice nationalists are uneasy with Westminster imposing measures to which they are largely sympathetic. Notably, it is an issue that doesn’t break down along traditional lines and one that unites those with very different constitutional outlooks.

However, what has been demonstrated by the varying responses to the news that Secretary of State Brandon Lewis will next week lay new regulations at Westminster directing the Department of Health to commission abortion services is that failing to address the matter is nobody’s interests.

Mr Lewis is not noted for his decisiveness but overnight he has shaken Stormont out of its complacency and forced a public debate that most appeared happy to avoid.