Leadbeater Bill falls

The last day of Committee Stage in the Lords of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has just concluded in the Commons. With the Parliamentary session ending next week, the Bill will make no further progress, and will fall.

When the Bill passed its first vote in the Commons, the media narrative was that this monumental and terrifying change was inevitable.

Make no mistake, this outcome is not because of procedural fluke. The Lords took their job of scrutiny seriously, and the more they scrutinised the Bill, the more its flaws were exposed. This came about because of consistent campaigning by people from a whole range of perspectives – disability, social work, domestic abuse, palliative care and the wider medical professional, and if course, pro-life groups.

Proponents of the Bill are already threatening to make unprecedented use of an obscure parliamentary procedure (the Parliament Acts) to try and force through the same fatally flawed Bill in the next session without it passing through the House of Lords. The next ballot for private members bills will take place in just a few weeks, and any MP who gets a high spot in that ballot will be under huge pressure to take on the Bill.

From Christian Concern