Times editorial: Wrong to force assisted dying bill into law

Following the report that Lord Falconer is suggesting using the Parliament Act to force through the Assisted Dying Bill, the Times comments as follows:

Of the bill’s 59 clauses, only one has been fully discussed in the Lords so far .

The legislation travelled through the Commons after scrutiny by a committee weighted towards those in favour of assisted dying. It was opposed by the majority of groups representing the disabled. And the royal colleges of psychiatrists and physicians wrote a joint letter warning that the vulnerable were “not adequately protected”.

Supporters of the bill assured critics that any problems could be ironed out in the Lords. Yet now that peers are struggling with the herculean task of doing just that, Lord Falconer is suggesting ­using the Parliament Act to override normal ­process if the bill is timed out. This would permit the Commons to pass the reintroduced bill directly into law without consulting the Lords. It would have to be in an identical form to that passed by the original Commons vote, thus preserving all its flaws while losing any additional safeguards.

This would be an extraordinary and damaging move: invoking the 1911 act has never before been used for a private member’s bill. It would involve either Ms Leadbeater or one of her supporters being drawn high on the private member’s ballot to reintroduce the bill, or the government itself ­allocating time in the next session for it to return to the Commons. That would certainly generate fierce opposition from those opposed, including many Labour backbenchers.

On assisted dying, Sir Keir resembles a man who failed to study the weather forecast, blithely took a pedalo far out into a choppy sea, and is now in danger of being caught up in the mother of all constitutional storms.

He would be well advised to steer away from it, let the faulty bill expire, and send its supporters back to the drawing board. At the very least, they will have learned a painful but necessary lesson in how not to enact legislation

The Times Editorial here