Kim Leadbeater can’t even sit through the debate, let alone appreciate the concerns
Kim Leadbeater’s latest email to her parliamentary colleagues regarding her assisted suicide Bill was an interesting read. In the email, she extends an invitation to MPs to meet with her privately to discuss her Bill and any concerns we may have with it. While I appreciate the invitation, the reality is that, to date, she has not demonstrated a willingness to meaningfully engage with fellow MPs who hold genuine concerns about her Bill. The debate during the recent first day of the Bill’s Report Stage demonstrated this very clearly.
The debate represented a necessary opportunity for MPs (the vast majority of whom were not on the Public Bill Committee) to scrutinise her Bill in detail and raise concerns. And yet, while over 90 colleagues had requested to speak, Leadbeater voted to halt the debate on over 60 amendments to her Bill after only 26 MPs (excluding the two front bench speeches) had been able to make largely truncated speeches. The one amendment that did end up being put to a vote was subject to remarkably little debate.
There was also a very peculiar moment when a number of colleagues realised that Leadbeater had disappeared midway through the debate for a considerable period. In the time that she was out of the Chamber, several colleagues made carefully constructed speeches covering just some of the considerable flaws in her Bill. If I had been in their shoes, I would have been somewhat annoyed that the sponsor of the Bill was not even present to listen to the points being made.
Not a single disability group supports Leadbeater’s Bill
This was the Bill sponsor’s opportunity to engage constructively with colleagues, and she failed to do so. I, for one, will not be taking up her offer of a private meeting — she has already made clear that she isn’t receptive to constructive criticism when it comes to her Bill.
I know from my mailbag that this issue divides opinion across the country and in my own constituency. However, regardless of one’s view on the principle at stake here, we can all agree that the process for introducing such a consequential piece of legislation needs to be rigorous and thorough. The process that Leadbeater’s Bill has followed has been anything but this.
I followed the Bill’s scrutiny at Committee stage, and what I picked up only made me more concerned. The witness lists seemed to have been stacked in Leadbeater’s favour and hundreds of amendments tabled by MPs holding concerns with her Bill were rejected, including amendments to protect people with Down’s syndrome or anorexia. On top of all that, the Bill’s principal so-called safeguard of High Court Judge oversight, was stripped out of the Bill.
This is an issue that cuts across party lines and some of the most eloquent and impassioned speeches in the chamber have been from Labour MPs. Speakers such as Florence Eshalomi and Meg Hillier, MPs who put themselves forward for the Public Bill Committee but were not selected by Leadbeater, set out in crystal clear terms why they are so passionately against Leadbeater’s dangerous Bill.
Readers will not be surprised to know that Florence, Meg and I do not agree on everything, but I have no doubt they serve as MPs in order to stand up for the most vulnerable and the voiceless, and in this flawed Bill they see a very real threat to such people. On that, I share their concerns.
As my former colleague, now the Lord Harper, made clear last week, it is notable that not a single disability group supports Leadbeater’s Bill. As Liz Carr has suggested, disabled people need better support to live rather than support to die. Kim Leadbeater’s poorly drafted Bill will put disabled people all over the country at risk. Rather than engage with them and organisations who hold concerns over her Bill in a meaningful way, as far as I can see, their concerns have not been taken seriously.
As Members of Parliament, we have a duty when we legislate to do everything we can to safeguard the lives of the most vulnerable. Can we honestly say this has been the case with this Bill?
Any opportunity to make this Bill workable and introduce assisted suicide in a safe way has gone. The assisted suicide Bill is beyond remedy and must be put out of its misery.
