Don’t blame the Lords for the assisted dying bill’s failure – it was the wrong process
Activists and politicians including Tanni Grey-Thompson (centre) opposed to Kim Leadbeater's assisted dying bill, March 2025 (Credit: Karl Black/Alamy Live News)
4 min read
When I went to collect the hard copy of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill, I was holding the slim version in the name of Lord Falconer.
“If you are wanting the bill from the Commons, you need the bottom right-hand corner,” I was helpfully advised. Reaching into that pigeonhole, I found her bill under ‘T’ for Terminally Ill Adults and was shocked by its weight and size – that of a government bill.
When I met with Lord Falconer recently, which is always an intellectual pleasure, I used the analogy of not pre-baking your baguette and expecting it to cook in the time needed for raw dough. Perhaps not the most cerebral analogy to use with a former lord chancellor but I think it makes the point.
In more than 15 years in the House of Lords, I have never seen such a huge PMB
Leadbeater’s bill runs to 59 clauses. Bills of this size, complexity and significance, whether government or a Private Members’ Bill (PMB), should not come to the legislature – using its expertise, time, emotional energy and staff time (from clerks to caterers) – without pre-baking.
Such pre-baking would be either by way of a green or white paper, or by holding a consultation – in this case, with the NHS staff who would have to deliver it (five royal colleges remain opposed) and those who would be most affected. It is notable that of the roughly 400 groups associated with those likely to be affected by the bill, such as disability organisations, not a single one has broken ranks and come out in support of it. This deafening silence should be deeply concerning to the bill’s backers.
Pre-baking by being in a manifesto is, of course, the gold standard. If this were a government bill, its ‘dough-like’ state would have been caught by the Parliament Business and Legislation (PBL) Committee, which can refuse a bill to be presented to Parliament if it is not ready. Not passing PBL is the bane of secretaries of state, but it is an important safeguard.
So, the Terminally Ill Adults (TIA) is a sui generis bill, a unique bill, I told Lord Falconer, trying to move on from baked goods. In more than 15 years in the House of Lords, I have never seen such a huge PMB. On one of the many TIA Fridays, a space industry PMB passed, which changed the word “may” to “must” in the existing legislation. I had the honour of working with the late Sir David Amess on a PMB to add to the criminal offence of possessing specialist printing equipment so that the supply of it would also be a criminal offence. (As an aside, this is the equipment that enables villains to make fake passports and drivers’ licences.)
With the Leadbeater bill, there is no benchmark to say over 1,000 amendments to a ‘government bill’ in the PMB process is too many. No benchmark to say 14 days in committee is too many (the Welfare Reform Act 2012 had 17 days). No benchmark to say speeches averaging 4.59 minutes per amendment are too long.
If the bill fails for lack of time, it will not be the House of Lords that is shown up as being “not fit for purpose” – as argued by Baroness Wheatcroft – but the PMB process for a de facto government bill. All concerned will have been let down by the parliamentary processes, and an urgent review of the use of the PMB process is needed.
The value of all this work ultimately hinges on the next Commons PMB ballot. Whether Lord Falconer’s threat to use the Parliament Act is realised will be determined by which MPs make the top three slots. This would be the first time that the Parliament Act will have been used on a PMB. I expect tensions will be high. Even I am out of analogies, baking or otherwise, to describe the idea of using the truncated Parliament Act process for such a vital bill.
Baroness Berridge is a Conservative peer
