You don’t need to have a strong opinion either way on assisted dying to be concerned about the latest attempt to legalise it: from a scrutiny perspective, Kim Leadbeater’s bill leaves a lot to be desired. It was published last night, 38 pages long, and will be debated in just under three weeks’ time.
Most MPs only find out the implications of a bill when they see them in human form
Critics who are saying MPs will get just five hours to debate the bill are referring to the second reading stage, with further detailed scrutiny available at its committee, report and third reading stages. However, once a bill passes its second reading, the Commons is seen to have approved its principles and overall design, and the following stages are more about finessing that.
The paradox is that the debate on this bill will still be far better than that offered to government bills, which get far more time on the floor of the Commons and in committee. When I covered the last attempt to legalise assisted dying back in 2015, I thought it was one of the most considered debates in the chamber that I’d heard: MPs changed their mind in the course of that debate, and actually listened to one another. The detail of the legislation was picked over properly.
By contrast, the speeches in most bills on government time tend to be about such broad brush principles that it’s often difficult to tell what the legislation intends to do. That may well be because the MPs speaking don’t understand it either. There is not really a culture of legislative excellence in the Commons, and MPs seem to take the same attitude as first year undergraduates do to the text they are talking about: not only is it fine not to have read it, but it is fine to talk about it without having read it.
Now, some people will argue that there is a great difference between legislation on transport policy and a bill that allows terminally ill people with less than six months to live to end their lives. The moral implications of the latter are greater. So of course MPs are going to worry about it more. But you can only really argue that the moral implications of any bill are big or small if you actually know what’s written in it. Most MPs only find that out when they see the implications in human form, either standing in their constituency surgery or as one of many victims of a public policy failure or scandal. This should not be the only bill we demand better scrutiny of: our standards across the board are far too low.
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