There were reports in the days leading up to Third Reading in the House of Commons of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill that the Prime Minister would not attend the decisive vote. In the event, Sir Keir Starmer rocked up to the Commons on Friday, 20 June and duly voted for the Billl. In doing so, he almost certainly took a number of his colleagues with him. Had he stayed away, as sections of the media had speculated, the result of the vote, already narrow, could have been reduced, perhaps to single figures or maybe even reversed.
Since becoming Labour leader, the Prime Minister has often been accused of changing his mind. There is a suspicion that he doesn’t believe in much at all, with critics questioning what “Starmerism” entails. Yet apparently the creation of a state-sanctioned suicide service is an issue worthy of him giving support and using up political capital. Despite the clear political risks associated with continuing to support a flawed Bill that had been widely criticised over the previous nine months, he persevered in backing this cause.
However, despite squeezing through the Commons at Third Reading, with a much reduced majority compared to Second Reading, it would be premature for Ms Leadbeater and her cheerleaders to celebrate just yet. This is a Private Members’ Bill not covered by the Salisbury Convention, and there is no reason why the Lords won’t be able to amend or even vote down the Bill. Many of the Bill’s fiercest critics lie in wait in the House of Lords, and they will not hold back when it comes to resolutely standing up for the myriad of different vulnerable groups of people that will all be put at risk should this ill-thought-out legislation make its way onto the statute book.
It would have been in the Prime Minister’s political interests for the Leadbeater Bill to have died
With over 400 Labour MPs elected at the last General Election and only 100 or so Conservative MPs, lifelong campaigners for assisted suicide, led by the pressure group Dignity In Dying, spotted a once-in-a-generation opportunity to force this law through Parliament. The sad reality is that if the Conservative Party had lost only very badly at the last General Election, perhaps securing 150 or so MPs, as opposed to losing catastrophically and securing 121 MPs, the Leadbeater Bill could very well have been defeated.
Having said that, I commend the 160 Labour MPs who voted against the Bill. The spoken contributions by a number of the Labour MPs opposed to this Bill were amongst the most meaningful and insightful.
Bearing in mind the favourability of the House of Commons, the fact that the majority dropped from 55 to a mere 23 at Third Reading speaks very clearly of the Bill’s deficiency.
Why, therefore, having observed over the past few months how dangerous this Bill is to many of the most vulnerable people in our society, would concerned Peers simply roll over and accept this Bill? In reality, having already spoken to a number of concerned colleagues in the House of Lords, we have a duty to challenge it.
Yes, I have no doubt that Ms Leadbeater and her allies in the Lords would much prefer us to raise the white flag. But doing so would be a dereliction of our constitutional duty to help the Commons to pass good law and our moral duty to protect the vulnerable. So, sadly for Kim Leadbeater and her cheerleaders, no flag of surrender shall be forthcoming.
As much as I respect Lord Falconer and his expertise, I found his claim that it would be inappropriate for the Lords to vote down the Leadbeater Bill to be entirely lacking in credibility. In fact, when the occasion has suited his political ends, Lord Falconer seems to have had no qualms about voting against Government Bills that — unlike Ms Leadbeater’s Bill — are covered by the Salisbury Convention.
Immediately after the Third Reading vote, I was pleased to read a story in the weekend papers about Reform UK potentially committing to overturn the assisted suicide Bill if the party were to get into power and the Bill had already achieved Royal Assent. Conservative Party MPs were largely united on the Third Reading vote, with only 17 per cent voting in favour. There seems to me a clear mandate for the Conservative Party leadership also to make a commitment similar to the one Reform UK is reported to be pursuing.
Despite his personal beliefs, it would have been in the Prime Minister’s political interests for the Leadbeater Bill to have died on 20 June, and I suspect a number of his advisers and MPs know that.
Many of us in the Lords will vigorously oppose the Bill in its current form, and it is likely the debate will take up considerable further amounts of parliamentary time. From what I have seen, media interest does not seem to have abated, and nor should it. We can expect intense scrutiny of this Bill in the Lords, and the more the murky details of the Bill and its implications are under the spotlight, the more alarming and concerning the whole enterprise will appear. Starmer may regret his continued support for it.
