The prorogation of parliament on Wednesday signals the end of the road for the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill. The proposal to allow some patients in England and Wales, under very specific circumstances, to have medical assistance in ending their own lives was still at committee stage in the Lords when the house rose. Since it was introduced as a private member’s bill, it cannot be carried over into the next session.
Campaigners for assisted dying are furious at what they see as procedural obstruction by unelected peers, bogging the bill down with heaps of amendments and running down the clock, thwarting the will of the elected Commons. Critics of the bill counter that the normal legislative process was followed and that the volume of amendments was a function of poor drafting, leaving practical and ethical problems that had to be addressed in the Lords.
There can be truth in both perspectives. Peers who oppose assisted dying on principle had clear motivations to prevent the bill becoming law. That doesn’t mean objections raised in the upper chamber lacked foundation.
Even if the argument is accepted that a terminally ill individual should have the right to choose how they die, the question of how to express that right fairly in law – balancing compassion for the person making the choice with protection for those who might feel coerced into making it, for example – are ferociously difficult.
Debate over whether Kim Leadbeater’s bill achieved that balance is now academic. There is a theoretical possibility of its revival if another backbench MP favourable to the cause does well in the next ballot for private members’ bills and reintroduces it. The odds are against it. Downing Street could also adopt a version of the bill as government legislation. That is less likely still. Sir Keir Starmer was among the majority of MPs who voted in favour of assisted dying, but he will not spend any of his depleted political capital revisiting an issue that divides his cabinet.
This is a malfunction of the democratic process. Opinion polls indicate majority public support for a liberalising law. The elected chamber of parliament has expressed the same view. Hundreds of hours have been spent debating the change, only to result in the status quo enduring, and that is a legal and ethical mess. The Crown Prosecution Service can take account of “compassion” in cases of assisted dying, implying that it might sometimes be tolerated, but that is next to useless for family members who risk long jail terms if prosecuted for helping someone end their life.
Parliament will have to bring clarity sooner or later. Its failure this time was a function of arcane procedure, not argument. That should be the spur to innovation. The complex tangle of ethical and practical dilemmas involved in the assisted dying debate make it suitable for a royal commission. Better still would be a citizens’ assembly – a forum for public consultation and deliberation, with expert input, at one remove from overheated Westminster partisanship. MPs would still decide what becomes law, but with the benefit of an enriched understanding of what the public actually wants. The issue of assisted dying is not going away. Since the established mechanism for resolving it has drawn a blank, the only way forward is to try something new.
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