Campaigners have questioned whether the Government is neutral on the assisted suicide Bill, after it announced its decision to create seven additional sitting Fridays for the Bill in the new year in the House of Lords, in addition to the three sitting Fridays that had already been scheduled.
This is a highly irregular move that raises fresh doubts about the Government’s neutrality on the Private Members’ Bill.
The announcement was made by the Chief Whip in the House of Lords after yesterday’s Budget. There will now be a total of ten further House of Lords sitting Fridays dedicated to the Bill, seven more than originally scheduled. This decision will require Peers to sit every Friday in January after the Christmas recess ends, and on most other Fridays before Easter, including 27 March, when the House was supposed to be in recess.
Former Director of Legislative Affairs at 10 Downing Street, Nikki da Costa, responded to the Government intervention, saying that it “has come out swinging for [the] Assisted Dying Bill, despite saying they’re ‘neutral'”.
“Lords usually sit only one Friday a month”.
“[O]nce again the Government are pushing back recess (this time Easter recess) to create more time for the Bill on 27 March. More ‘neutrality’!”, she added.
Extra time to debate assisted suicide Bill
This is the second time Parliament has effectively been recalled to make extra time for the assisted suicide Bill. In September, the Government announced an additional day for the Bill on a date when Peers had been due to be in recess. The announcement was made while political attention was diverted elsewhere, on the day Angela Rayner resigned and Nigel Farage gave his Reform UK conference speech.
The Government claims to be neutral on the assisted suicide Bill, but is helping create additional time for it.
The highly unusual move means several other important Private Members’ Bills will likely lose out by not receiving adequate time, since preferential treatment is being given to the assisted suicide Bill instead.
Having so many additional sitting Fridays in the Lords during this parliamentary session will likely mean that at least some Peers will be unable to attend a full day of debate. During the first day of Committee stage, Lord Polak said “sitting on Fridays in the winter is deeply problematic” for Orthodox Jews like him since Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, starts before 4PM for much of the winter.
Background of the Bill
The original Bill was published late, and, since then, the process has been rushed. The Commons Bill Committee faced accusations of bias, and the Bill’s supporters have attempted to limit scrutiny in both Houses.
Despite multiple warnings about the assisted suicide Bill’s weaknesses, the Bill’s sponsor, Kim Leadbeater MP, refused hundreds of proposed amendments in the House of Commons before the Bill reached the House of Lords.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “The announcement that seven additional sitting Fridays have been created for the assisted suicide Bill, while much of Westminster and the media were distracted by the Budget, is deeply troubling”.
“This is a cynical attempt to slip through without scrutiny a major change to what Peers had expected. The Government can no longer claim to be neutral on the assisted suicide Bill when it is making extra time to push through the flawed and dangerous Bill”.
“The Bill has been mishandled at every stage, from its late publication to the biased Commons Bill Committee, and the Bill’s supporters’ recent attempts to bully opponents into rushing scrutiny”.
“No amount of time given to the assisted suicide Bill will make it safe. It simply is not possible to legislate against the danger of self-coercion and vulnerable people being pressured into assisted suicide”.
“Parliament has no obligation to allow extra time now to fix a Bill which is beyond repair because of deliberate choices made by its sponsor in the Commons”.
