Sign in
☰
People MPsHouse of LordsGovernmentOppositionPartiesCommittees Votes Commons votesLords votesVotes by issueTopicsStats & rankingsParliament in numbers Legislation BillsEarly day motionsPetitions Elections Election resultsConstituenciesWho is my MP? Scotland OverviewMSPsScottish GovernmentVotesBillsMotionsCommitteesConstituencies & regionsElections Search Sign in

Lords division · 28 Apr 2021 · No. 3

Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2021

Then Lord Morrow moved, as an amendment to the motion in the name of Viscount Younger of Leckie, to leave out all the words after “that” and insert “this House declines to approve the Regulations laid before the House on 23 March because (1) rather than expressing the reality of the union between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, they place that union in jeopardy, depending as they do on the power in section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, which was passed despite all of the Members of Parliament representing seats in Northern Ireland who had taken their seats at Westminster voting against amending the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Bill on 9 July 2019 to require the Secretary of State to make regulations to give effect to the recommendations of the report of the Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, published on 6 March 2018; (2) abortion remains devolved and the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive have now been restored for more than a year; (3) rather than welcoming the restoration of devolution, the draft Regulations undermine it to a greater extent than the Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020 as they address devolved policy competencies beyond abortion, including education and health; and (4) the remit of everything in the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 is defined in terms of moving towards the restoration of the Executive which has taken place, so rather than making new regulations as if Stormont was still suspended, and asking Parliament to pass them, Her Majesty’s Government should instead be asking Parliament to repeal section 9.” The House divided:

The Not Contents have it

Majority 338

Contents: 63 Not Contents: 401

At a glance The Not Contents won by a margin of 338 votes. The Government's position was Not Content, and it lost. This was not a whipped vote, so no party line applied.

How the parties voted

Contents

Conservative 23
Crossbench 20
Bishops 6
Non-affiliated 5
Democratic Unionist Party 5
Labour 2
Ulster Unionist Party 1
Lord Speaker 1

Not Contents

Conservative 139
Labour 120
Liberal Democrat 68
Crossbench 50
Non-affiliated 20
Green Party 2
Ulster Unionist Party 1
Plaid Cymru 1

The party breakdowns are our own analysis of the official voting records (recorded votes only; they do not describe the formal whip). How we work this out.

Peers attend divisions ad hoc, so there is no did-not-vote list. Tellers are counted in the Content and Not Content totals, unlike in the Commons.

Every vote

Contents (63)

Not Contents (401)

Source: the official Lords division record.