HANSARD
Progression of Bills through Parliament
- 4:30 pm
- I beg to move,That this House has considered e-petition 752673 relating to the timely progress of bills through Parliament.It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Edward, and to open this important debate as a member of the Petitions Committee. I want to start by being clear about what this petition, and therefore this debate, is about. Although the petition was prompted by the parliamentary consideration of assisted dying, it is not about assisted dying; it is about British parliamentary democracy and how—or, indeed, whether—it can work.The petition poses what I would suggest is an existential question for us here: does our constitutional settlement allow changes that have been backed by the public and their representatives to pass into law? I desperately want the answer to that question to be yes. That is not because I want a specific piece of legislation to be passed; it is because if, as a country, we cannot resolve different views through Parliament—developing legislative proposals and scrutinising them, but ultimately reaching a decision on them—we are in a very troubling place.
- My hon. Friend has made an excellent start to his speech. Does he agree that if the other place has the ability to block private Members’ Bills, that totally undermines the concept of such Bills going forward?
- I agree that private Members’ Bills provide an important avenue for democratically elected Members of the Commons to seek important legislative change. For decades, they have been a long-established precedent in how this country introduces social change—whether that is the decriminalisation of homosexuality and abortion, or the abolition of the death penalty. Fundamentally, I do not believe that the unelected Lords should be able to block such key social change, but I will come on to some of the issues that my hon. Friend raised.
- Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
- I will introduce the petitioners first, because they ultimately prompted the debate; I will then be happy to take further interventions.The petition was initially proposed by Nathaniel Dye, a man who felt the urgency for change and looked at his Parliament to deliver it. Nat was a music teacher, and after being diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in his mid-30s, he campaigned for cancer awareness and support, being recognised with an MBE for his incredible efforts.Nathaniel knew he was going to die, and he believed that Parliament should engage seriously with the issues that affected him and many others with terminal illness. He campaigned strongly in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) in the last Session. As a member of that Bill Committee, I had the privilege of meeting Nat on a number of occasions. He was a remarkable man.In his final months, Nat became frustrated—angry, it is fair to say—at how the Lords were dealing with their consideration of the Bill. True to form, he decided to do something about it, starting the petition that we are here to debate today. Nat died in January this year. I pay tribute to him and his family, who have continued to support his efforts following his death. I am grateful to Rebecca Scott, his sister, for meeting me as part of the engagement process for this debate.After Nathaniel’s death, his friend Sophie Blake became the petition’s sponsor, and it is a pleasure to see her in the Gallery today, as it was to speak with her in preparation for this debate, alongside a campaigner from Dignity in Dying. Sophie has incurable stage 4 secondary breast cancer, first diagnosed in 2020. She is allergic to opioids, which form an important part of the palliative care pain relief toolkit, and unfortunately her family have experienced what she describes as “bad cancer deaths”. She does not want her daughter, Maya—also in the Public Gallery—to run the risk of being left with those memories. She wants the option of an assisted death if she feels that that is required.
- In 2009 and 2010, I used to be the Whip in charge of Friday sittings, but even now I would struggle to explain just how things work with some of the Back-Bench Bills, given some of the shenanigans that go on. Does my hon. Friend agree that it destroys our constituents’ faith in parliamentary democracy when they feel that we are all playing games—filibustering and resorting to tactics to talk a Bill out, rather than debating things on their merits and moving to a vote to determine the will of the House?
- I agree entirely. I absolutely respect the fact that others, including opponents of the Bill, reach different judgments on this difficult issue. Ultimately, as I said, in our parliamentary democracy that is for Parliament to resolve, on the balance of judgment of its constituent-elected MPs. That is explainable to our constituents. If something that constituents wish for is decided on by Parliament, that can be explained; what struggles to be explained is when tactics and filibustering are used to not reach a decision at all. I will come on to talk a little about that.At this stage, it is important to say that I spoke to groups opposed to assisted dying as part of my preparation for the debate—again, not to discuss the substance of assisted dying itself, but, as part of balance, to get their view about the process. It is fair to say that their position includes the assertion that the Lords were justified in not reaching a decision on the Bill because Commons consideration in Committee was flawed. I personally disagree; having sat in Committee for more than 100 hours—way in excess of nearly any other Bill—I might be expected to say that. Those exact same arguments, however, were available to Members before Third Reading.
- As my hon. Friend knows, we both sat long and hard on that Bill Committee. But if we sent the Bill to the other place in good shape, why did the sponsor there table 77 amendments to it? Is my hon. Friend able to outline why that happened?
- I am not here to speak for the sponsor of anything; I am here to speak for parliamentary democracy. Fundamentally, on Third Reading, MPs clearly backed the Bill. That was the final chance for MPs to have their say. In all those debates, my hon. Friend made his points well and ably, as I made mine, in Committee and beyond. I entirely respect his perspective, but I am bringing us back to the issue of parliamentary democracy.It is entirely appropriate, and no one is disputing—the petitioners are not disputing—that the Lords should scrutinise and indeed amend legislation passed to them from the Commons; what the petitioners find outrageous, frankly, is the failure to consider it. I will come on to that.
- That is the key. Both the sponsor of the Bill in the House of Lords and others tabled amendments that might well, had they returned to the House of Commons, have had the opportunity to improve the Bill. Would the hon. Gentleman agree that the denial of that opportunity to improve the Bill is an absolute travesty?
- Yes, I agree. I will come on to talk about future consideration of the legislation.The arguments against the process—that the consideration was somehow flawed—were widely debated before Third Reading, and the Commons reached a conclusion on that. All MPs had to make a judgment, independent of the Whips, on whether they wanted to pass the legislation.Sophie and Nathaniel were in the Commons Gallery on the day of Third Reading. They, like people across the country, thought a clear decision had been made: that assisted dying reform would become law, with significant safeguards, subject to some further iteration in the Lords, if required, including an extended implementation period of up to five years to allow any other considerations to be worked through. It was the approach of the House of Lords, specifically a small number of peers, that outraged Nathaniel, Sophie and the other petitioners.
- It may only have been a small number of peers who tabled amendments, but many others wished to put their names to them. Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise the will of the House of Lords? I think 170 peers had real concerns about the legislation. The role of the House of Lords is to ensure that those concerns are looked at, and it is fully entitled to do so. On this occasion, it was not able to improve the legislation in the timescale provided. Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that?
- It is always a pleasure to receive an intervention from the hon. Gentleman; he is much more experienced in this place than I am. However, over 16 days of debate in the House of Lords, the will of the Lords was not tested once. There were no Divisions. If the will of the peers was so overwhelmingly against the Bill, the Lords could have divided on Second Reading if the House had wished; it chose not to.The opponents of the Bill in the Lords went out of their way, it is suggested, to avoid Divisions. Some amendments may have passed, but a great number of others would probably have been defeated. With more than 1,200 amendments tabled, and 1% of peers tabling 60% of them, that small number of peers took up more than a third of the total speaking time.
- Several hon. Members rose—
- I will just finish this point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) mentioned, Lord Falconer—the Bill’s sponsor in the Lords—made clear that he would sit down and discuss amendments with peers: indeed, he accepted and supported amendments that responded to genuine concerns with the Bill. But there was no opportunity for the Lords to reach a conclusion on amendments, because of the tactics involved.Mark D’Arcy, a BBC parliamentary correspondent for more than two decades, characterised the Lords’ treatment as this:“This is a filibuster. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and tastes good in orange sauce, it’s a duck. If they’re going this slowly over this piece of legislation, I’m afraid it’s a filibuster. There is no other way to describe what’s going on here. It may be in order. It may be within the rules of the House, but what’s happening here is that a relatively small number of peers are putting down lots and lots of amendments and debating them very, very slowly.”
- The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. He will be aware of early-day motion 2709, which I tabled in January. It is about the role of the House of Lords in scrutinising legislation, and the importance of ensuring that they are there purely to scrutinise and provide sober second thought on legislation. It had strong cross-party support. On 12 February, the Leader of the House responded to a question to say that if there were delays,“I will find time to see how we can progress it. This is a timely warning to their lordships”. —[Official Report, 12 February 2026; Vol. 780, c. 957.]This was a fundamental attempt—a successful attempt—to block the Bill; it was nothing other than that.
- I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I agree with him—as does Rod Liddle, a journalist who did not support changing the law and was an opponent of the Bill. He said:“The truth, I am ashamed to say, is that in the case of the assisted dying Bill, my side won by cheating…What was not right was for opponents of the Bill, no matter how strongly they felt, to use machinery rather than honest debate to get the Bill booted out.”
- My hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), who introduced the assisted dying Bill as a private Member’s Bill, cannot be with us today. Does my hon. Friend agree that the filibustering in the Lords and the inability of the Lords to deal with the assisted dying Bill within reasonable time fetters us as Back Benchers, and has a chilling effect on introducing a range of issues of conscience as private Members’ Bills?
- My hon. Friend is right, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater). I have heard it said that it was inappropriate for this issue to be brought as a private Member’s Bill, but equally we know that it would have been inappropriate for it to be included in any party’s manifesto. I see opponents of the Bill, as well as proponents of it, nodding in assent. Clearly, both public opinion and parliamentarians’ opinions on this issue are not split across party lines. The Prime Minister was clear in advance of the general election that he favoured a free vote to decide this issue—not on what the outcome of the issue should be—and that a private Member’s Bill was an entirely appropriate mechanism to achieve that.I hear some opponents saying, on the one hand, that a private Member’s Bill was never appropriate to do this but, on the other hand, that it would not have been appropriate to include this issue in a manifesto. Therefore, one is left to conclude that those opponents think there is no viable vehicle for social change in this country.