131 Peers have either spoken against the assisted suicide Bill in the House of Lords or signed amendments because of concerns with the Bill, highlighting the extent to which legislation is flawed.
This number includes Peers appointed to the House of Lords because of their expertise in relevant areas, including a former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and President of the British Medical Association, the former Chief Executive of NHS England, a leading Professor of palliative medicine, Peers living with disabilities, and legal experts, including a former Attorney General and the former President of the Family Division of the High Court.
This large number of Peers have been subjecting the assisted suicide Bill to extensive scrutiny due to what opponents of the Bill have said are dangerous flaws and a lack of adequate safeguards within the Bill.
Assisted suicide campaigners claim seven Peers “blocking” the assisted suicide Bill
Despite it being clear that a large number of Peers have already shown opposition to the Bill through 131 Peers speaking against it or signing amendments because of concerns with the Bill, assisted suicide campaigners have attempted to present opposition as coming from a small group of seven “shameless” Peers who they claim are “blocking” the Bill.
This appears to be campaigning spin from the assisted suicide lobby to attempt to build support for bypassing the House of Lords using the Parliament Acts, rather than it being the reality of the situation in the House of Lords.
Using the Parliament Acts to force the assisted suicide Bill into law in the next session would be profoundly irregular, and would also misrepresent the extensive scrutiny that has been given to the Bill by Peers.
The Parliament Acts have never been used with regard to a Private Members’ Bill, and it would be unprecedented for them to be invoked for a Private Members’ Bill that passed the Commons by a narrow margin, with fewer than 50% of MPs voting for it at Third Reading, and which was not in the Government’s manifesto.
It is very common for Private Members’ Bills to fall because of insufficient parliamentary time. Forcing through the assisted suicide Bill using the Parliament Acts would set a precedent that future Governments could bypass the House of Lords in passing legislation by encouraging MPs to take on non-manifesto commitments as Private Members’ Bills.
Contrary to misleading claims that the House of Lords has been filibustering the Bill, Peers have provided scrutiny that was not possible in the House of Commons. There was insufficient time at Report Stage in the Commons for many amendments to be debated.
When accusations of filibustering first arose before Christmas, Sir David Beamish, former Clerk of the Parliaments, confirmed the legitimacy of scrutiny that had taken place thus far, telling the Hansard Society podcast, “so far we haven’t seen anything look like filibustering”.
Expert Committees in Parliament agree that the Lords can reject the Bill
Suggestions that the House of Lords must return the Bill to the Commons are also incorrect, given that it is a Private Members’ Bill that was not a manifesto commitment.
The House of Lords Constitution Committee has confirmed this, explaining that “[i]t is constitutionally appropriate for the House to scrutinise the Bill and, if so minded, vote to amend, or reject it”.
The Hansard Society has similarly confirmed that “[t]he House of Lords has the authority to reject, delay, or otherwise block the assisted dying bill”. In its lead article on 12 January, The Times newspaper stated, “There would be nothing constitutionally untoward about Ms Leadbeater’s bill running aground in the Lords”.
Opponents of the bill have highlighted that extensive scrutiny of the assisted suicide Bill has been necessary in the House of Lords because the Bill’s sponsor in the House of Commons, Kim Leadbeater, repeatedly ignored amendments that were tabled at Committee and Report stages. The sponsor of the Bill in the House of Lords, Lord Falconer, has also consistently failed to bring forward amendments to meet the concerns of professional bodies who would be tasked with implementing the Bill and of groups representing vulnerable people who would be put at risk by it.
The House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has also drawn attention to what it argues are many gaps in the Bill, which it claims leave important issues unresolved and delegates too many responsibilities to secondary legislation.
Its report was highly critical of the Bill, stating that, on a number of these delegated powers, “there is insufficient detail or principle evident for proper Parliamentary scrutiny of the underlying policy”. It expressed concern about “a highly inappropriate formulation that gives sweeping, unspecified and unjustified powers to the Government while removing Parliament’s scrutiny role for provision that should be in primary legislation”.
A leader in the Times newspaper also rebutted accusations that the House of Lords has been acting inappropriately, saying, “The bill’s present difficulties are a direct consequence of its shoddy drafting and conceptual flaws… many of the peers’ amendments address glaring oversights in the legal text. They concern safeguards for the mentally unwell, financially vulnerable and others who might be coerced into ending their lives… As it stands, Ms Leadbeater’s bill provides nothing like adequate protections. It is the Lords’ constitutional role to fix these failings as best they can… Peers are [being] portrayed as obstructionist for simply performing their legitimate constitutional role… The democratic mandate enjoyed by assisted dying legislation is… dubious… Scrutiny by the revising chamber is not an optional extra. If a bad bill cannot survive normal procedural processes, it should die a natural death”.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “The assisted suicide Bill is fatally flawed, and attempts to force it into law through mechanisms like the Parliament Acts would be entirely unjustifiable”.
“This new analysis reveals that 131 Peers have shown opposition to the Bill through speaking against it or signing amendments because of concerns with the Bill”.
“This shows that the claim from assisted suicide campaigners that opposition to the Bill in the Lords is basically limited to a small group of seven Peers, is simply not true”.
“Claims that the House of Lords has a constitutional obligation to pass this Bill are also untrue, and should be treated as such. The scrutiny that is being given to the Bill is well deserved, and if the Bill runs out of time as a result, then it would be its own fault”.
