LONDON — Campaigners leapt for joy when MPs voted to legalize assisted dying earlier this year. But they shouldn’t pop the champagne corks just yet.
Backbench Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill starts its journey through Britain’s unelected House of Lords next month after completing its Commons stages in June.
A bumpy reception in the upper House is guaranteed — risking Brits’ ire if peers vote down the bill or take so long to scrutinize it that it runs out of time in this parliamentary session.
Humanists UK and My Death, My Decision campaigner, Nathan Stilwell, said peers rejecting the bill “would be pretty disastrous for the House of Lords itself” because “the public image … would be quite difficult.”
If the bill ran out of time, “it would just be egg on everyone’s faces,” Stilwell added. “The public would be furious.”
Opinion polling has repeatedly shown support among Brits for altering the current law, which threatens a person who helps another to die with 14 years in prison.
After much debate and agonizing on both sides, the landmark vote by MPs in June resulted in 314 to 291 parliamentarians backing the right for terminally ill adults in England and Wales with less than six months left to live to receive support to medically ending their lives.
But now that verdict will come up against legislators who never have to face voters and won’t have a party whip telling them what to do.
And opposing peers are already considering undoing the lower House’s decision.
“It would be legitimate for the Lords to vote it down,” said Tory peer and opponent of the bill, Richard Balfe. “It is, after all, a matter of conscience.”
Unshackled by convention
Under the Salisbury Convention, peers typically do not prevent legislation in a party’s manifesto from becoming law.
But Labour’s election-winning manifesto did not mention assisted dying — Starmer only promised time for a debate.
Government ministers have taken a hands-off approach, with Leadbeater sponsoring the Private Member’s Bill (PMB) in the Commons and former Labour Justice Secretary Charlie Falconer taking the reins in the Lords.
Despite losing the Commons battle, opponents haven’t given up the war and think there’s still everything to play for.
Peers will have a second reading debate on Sept. 12, where 122 members are registered to speak.
“If we had more time, then almost certainly we would have had a majority in favor of halting the bill,” said Alistair Thompson, a spokesperson for Care Not Killing, a campaign group which opposes assisted dying.
“We will get a much fuller and franker debate in the Lords without people who have genuine concerns being excluded,” Thompson argued.
“This particular bill is a very bad one,” concurred Tory peer and opponent Mark Harper. The former cabinet minister claimed some MPs “both on and off the record … recognized that the bill is not in great shape and expect the House of Lords to improve it.”
However, proponents want momentum from the Commons decision to continue — and are adamant that despite it not being in Labour’s election manifesto, peers shouldn’t override elected MPs.
Members of the Lords will initially decide “whether they are inclined to reject it outright,” explained Hansard Society Director Ruth Fox, or push to amend the bill later on.
Peers could theoretically vote the bill down at any stage, though the democratic legitimacy of this would raise eyebrows.
Bogged down
If the bill passes its second reading, it will face pressure in committee stage, where it’s examined line by line, clause by clause.
Unlike the Commons, all peers can take part in the chamber where any amendment can be debated — without a time limit — and put to a vote, giving opponents the perfect opportunity to draw the process out.
“There will need to be very, very significant changes to the legislation or the bill should not proceed,” said Thompson, highlighting the shift from a High Court judge overseeing applications to a multidisciplinary panel of three.
Though MPs approved that change in the process, even supporters have raised their eyebrows.
“It’s not altogether rigorous,” admitted crossbench peer Martin Rees. “Replacing the judge by a committee is not necessarily a good thing.”
But backers are divided about what peers should do beyond approving the law.
“It’s quite hard to imagine that we will think of things that the Commons haven’t,” said Labour peer and supporter Dianne Hayter. “They seem to have done a very thorough job.”
One crossbench peer who backs assisted dying, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said Leadbeater’s “seriously flawed” bill didn’t go far enough. They criticized people with long term health conditions not being eligible and the patient having to self-administer the final dose.
Parliamentary bottleneck
Analysis of these technical and ethical subjects would be tricky, even with all the time in the world.
But while peers aren’t restricted to debating PMBs on Fridays, the government’s legislative agenda is bursting at the seams, with eight weighty bills currently clogging up the Lords.
Peers have already proven willing to take their time assessing bills promised in Labour’s manifesto, including abolishing the 92 hereditary peers who sit in the Lords by birthright.
“From the government’s perspective, they’re stringing it out. They’re being difficult,” said Fox. “From the Conservatives’ perspective, they’re doing proper scrutiny.”
Opponents argue that proper scrutiny would demonstrate the law wasn’t fit for purpose.
“It would be actually a dereliction of duty if the House of Lords didn’t force the proponents of this bill to actually think some of these things through,” argued Harper.
Wind-up time
The bill must pass all stages — including MPs considering amendments made in the Lords — by the end of the parliamentary session to become law. It’s a date nobody knows yet.
While government bills can be carried over to the next session, this doesn’t happen for PMBs.
“They use the end of the session as a way to force things through and persuade people to reach a consensus,” Fox explained, which is likely impossible on a topic like assisted dying.
She speculated the new session won’t start until next spring, which would be a “very long time” for opponents “to try and string things out.”
While the government is neutral on assisted dying, a majority of Labour MPs backed the bill — alongside most of Starmer’s cabinet. A written ministerial answer last month called the bill a government priority to disquiet from opponents — suggesting they want it to become law.
While ministers resisted giving government time in the Commons, the lengthier Lords sessions could mean that offering government time becomes appealing for Starmer.
Hayter didn’t believe the legislation should become a government bill, but, if “come December, January, people are playing silly buggers … there’s nothing wrong with the government making time available.”
But opponents were not concerned about public opinion: “We don’t have to go and face some group of electors.” argued Balfe. “They can’t just say, ‘Oh, I’ll never vote for you again,’ because they never voted for us in the first place.”
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