We have some very important and good news regarding the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill.
As you may have seen reported by the media today, the Government’s chief whip in the House of Lords, Lord Kennedy, has confirmed that the Government will not give the assisted suicide Bill more time, beyond the dates already announced, before this Parliamentary session ends in May.
For the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill to become law, it will have to pass all stages in the House of Lords by this May deadline.
With there being only five remaining sitting Fridays allocated to the Bill before May, without the Government granting the Bill further additional time as it did at the end of last year, the Bill will not have enough time to complete all its stages and become law.
Media outlets are reporting that this means that the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill will now “almost certainly fall” – and the assisted suicide campaigners behind the Bill have themselves confirmed with media outlets this afternoon that they also expect the legislation in its current form to now fail.
This is obviously a major and encouraging development – and an important milestone in our campaign to defeat the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill – but we are not there yet.
WE’RE ALMOST THERE, BUT IT’S NOT OVER YET
As mentioned above, there are still five more sitting Fridays when the Bill will be debated before the end of the Parliamentary session in May.
We expect the assisted suicide lobby, led by the Bill’s sponsor in the House of Lords, Lord Falconer, to employ every tactic it can to try to use this remaining time in the Lords to its advantage.
From there, the assisted suicide lobby has made it clear that it is going to attempt to take the inappropriate and unprecedented route of bringing back the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill in the next parliamentary session and then using the Parliament Acts to bypass the House of Lords to force the Bill into law.
So we can expect a large battle over the next couple of months to ensure that the assisted suicide lobby is not able to take this route, and not able to bring back the Leadbeater Bill.
If we can stop that next step, the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill will be finished.
THE NEXT THREE MONTHS WILL BE PIVOTAL
Over these next three months, we will be facing three of the largest battles on life issues in UK history.
The first battle, as we have covered above, will be stopping the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill from being brought back in the next Parliament, and this battle will likely run over March, April and May.
The second battle will be to defeat the Scottish McArthur assisted suicide Bill at its final Stage 3 vote, which will be taking place in March.
Following the Stage 1 vote in Scotland, The Telegraph published a piece based on analysis from our Public Affairs team, which revealed that more than 20 MSPs who initially voted for the Bill have indicated they could vote against it at the final vote at Stage 3.
If just seven of these MSPs switch their stance and vote against the Bill, it will be defeated at Stage 3.
So this battle is very much winnable.
The third battle will be around the abortion up to birth clause in the Crime and Policing Bill.
As you will likely recall, in June last year, pro-abortion MPs, led by Tonia Antoniazzi MP, hijacked the Crime and Policing Bill to rush through the abortion up to birth clause after just 46 minutes of backbench debate – there was no prior consultation with the public, no Committee Stage scrutiny and no evidence sessions.
Baroness Monckton is leading a group of Members of the House of Lords, who have tabled an amendment to overturn the abortion up to birth clause.
Baroness Stroud has joined other Peers in tabling another amendment, which would ensure that women have an in-person consultation with a medical professional before taking abortion pills at home.
This would help protect women from the grave health risks involved with performing a late-term abortion, along with identifying many other health risks that can be accurately assessed with an in-person consultation.
It would also protect babies from having their lives ended in late-term home abortions.
The vote on these two amendments – and a very large battle with the abortion lobby, who will attempt to defeat them – will be taking place in the House of Lords in March.
As you can see, we face three very large battles over the coming months.
THANK YOU
Finally, we want to take this opportunity to thank you.
We really have reached an amazing milestone tonight in what has now been a gruelling 17-month campaign to defeat the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill.
We want to emphasise that we would not be at this milestone today without you.
You have joined our 250,000 supporters covering constituencies across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland who have worked relentlessly at every stage of this battle.
Your work as the Bill has progressed through the Commons and then through the Lords has meant that we have been able to bring to light how dangerous the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill would be for the most vulnerable in our society, and get us to the amazing milestone that we have reached today!
As mentioned above, it’s going to be a very busy final few months in this battle, but we are almost there
