I followed closely the recent debate on the first day of Report Stage of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill. As I have written previously, I have very significant concerns about this Bill and its impact on vulnerable people, and I have not liked how Ms Leadbeater has approached seeking to drive her Bill through Parliament.
Sadly, what I saw at Report Stage has not led me to alter my view on these things. Ms Leadbeater and her supporters have often referred to the Bill’s passage through Parliament as “Parliament at its best”, but I have seen little evidence to support this.
It seems that to agree with Ms Leadbeater and her flawed Bill is to exhibit commendable virtue, while opponents’ questions about the Bill are likely to be dismissed as "noise" instead.
In reality, this will likely be the most significant piece of legislation the current cohort of MPs will ever scrutinise and vote on. The implications of their decision for some of the most vulnerable people in our country could hardly be greater. Getting this legislation right is what matters, even if the debate might on occasion raise passions.
It is hard not to be extremely frustrated by the way the Bill sponsor has handled this issue. It is hard to keep track of the number of misleading comments made about the Bill and the various ways she sought to stack the deck in her favour at Committee Stage at the expense of the genuine scrutiny her Bill so desperately required. I have also been alarmed about the discourteous way she treats opponents of her Bill.
The assisted dying Bill has taken a very alarming turn. I fear the debate is being rigged – Lord Stewart Jackson
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A case in point was the treatment of Naz Shah MP. Those following this debate will remember Naz Shah being forced to leave an unreasonably lengthy committee session early because her hearing aids ran out of battery, something she had flagged in advance as a potential problem.
These committee sessions, some of which extended late into the night, were said to be necessary to ensure the Bill made sufficient progress through Parliament, despite the fact that, only weeks later, Ms Leadbeater delayed the date her Bill would return to the Commons Chamber by a few weeks.
Naz Shah and I hold significantly different views on a range of policy issues, but on this issue, we share many of the same concerns, and I have been impressed with her tenacity in the face of an intransigent Bill sponsor.
The way she has stood up repeatedly for young women with anorexia who would likely be put at risk by Ms Leadbeater’s Bill has been laudable. Shah tabled a number of amendments at the Committee stage to close the loophole that could result in young women with eating disorders qualifying for assisted suicide (as has been the case in other countries), yet Ms Leadbeater shockingly refused to add these amendments to her Bill.
Ahead of Report Stage, Shah again tabled two amendments on this issue. From what she said in her passionate speech during the debate, it seems the Bill sponsor made no effort to engage with her before the debate and hadn’t agreed to put her name to the two amendments.
Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Ms Leadbeater announced in the debate that she would be open to adopting one of Naz’s amendments (not both), even though she maintained she didn’t think the concerns in question were an issue.
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