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Intro: [00:00:00] You are listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/pm.

Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox.

Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark D'Arcy. And welcome to the latest in our series of special podcast, tracing events around the Terminally Ill Adults End Of Life Bill, the bill that would allow assisted dying in England and Wales.

Ruth Fox: And Mark where we're at, we've seen the debate on the bill at report stage finished today. It has come to a close in terms of the discussion of the new clauses and the amendments, but the votes haven't finished. They didn't get through them all today, so MPs will have to come back next Friday, [00:01:00] 20th of June, to continue the votes that are outstanding.

We don't exactly know how many there will be. We know that there's one that the Speaker has selected today that they didn't get to, one from an opponent to the bill Rebecca Paul. But the speaker has indicated that he will be selecting further amendments for a decision as well. So there'll be a chunk of new votes on Friday next week.

But of the votes that did take place today, an amendment from Meg Hillier succeeded. Not one that Kim Leadbeater was supporting.

Mark D'Arcy: This is so far the first defeat, if you like, for Kim Leadbeater. Her bill has so far managed to ward off all the sort of hostile amendments until the moment that Meg Hillier's new clause two was voted on, and this was the clause that would've prevented doctors and other medical personnel from raising the subject of a possibility of assisted dying with a terminally ill person, under the age of 18. So they wouldn't be able to suggest it, the person concerned would have to actually raise it [00:02:00] themselves as a result of this amendment. So this is a defeat. It was reasonably emphatic in the end, wasn't it?

Ruth Fox: Majority of 43.

Mark D'Arcy: Majority of 43. So that was a reasonably significant moment in consideration of the bill, but it is a change that I think could kind of be absorbed by the supporters of the bill. It isn't an absolutely fundamental strike at the heart of the bill. Anyway, with us also in this podcast to assess the state of play is our resident procedural guru, former Commons Clerk Paul Evans. Paul, what's your take on on the state of play with the bill now?

Paul Evans: Well, we are in the closing stages of the Commons proceedings. That's very clear. And the bill has survived this far, which many people predicted it wouldn't. As you say, a clause has added against the wishes of Kim Leadbeater today, a new clause, but as you also added, it is not a new clause that goes to the heart of the principle of the bill in any way. It's a further protection and safeguard for minors. [00:03:00] What we were doing today, if we go back to what we talked about last time, we had two groups of amendments, of the amendments selected by the speaker. They've been put in two groups. Last Friday, group one was debated. It was closured.

Mark D'Arcy: Closure being where MPs vote to stop the debate and move straight to a vote.

Paul Evans: That's right. And so today we had to mop up some of the votes that were left over from that first day. And when we talk about votes, it's worth reminding this, it's probably, there are different kinds of votes. There is a decision, and probably 98% of decisions made by the House of Commons are made without a division, on the nod or on the voices, and only if there is persistent opposition to a proposal do you have a division. The division, well, marching to the lobbies, takes between 10 and 15 minutes on average and is the sort of final point. But many, many decisions are taken without a division. And we saw that today at the beginning, a number of new clauses [00:04:00] proposed by Kim Leadbeater went through on the nod.

Ruth Fox: That means that the MPs, nobody sort of shouted object or no. When the Speaker or the deputy,

Paul Evans: Nobody shouted no. Object is a different problem.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, quite right.

Paul Evans: Nobody shouted No, that's going on the nod. Occasionally people shout, no, the speaker declares that they think the ayes or the noes, as the case may be, have it.

And if nobody from the opposing side then argues with that judgment of the Speaker, it's taken on the voices.

Mark D'Arcy: Mm-hmm, so just to expand on that a bit, when the Speaker or deputy Speaker is standing up saying, I think the ayes have it, and there's loud shouts of no, no. Their next move is to shout division. If those shouts are loud enough. If it's only two or three voices, they usually get away with saying, I still think the ayes have it.

Paul Evans: Yeah. And it's the Speaker's decision really, but obviously a lot of convention and tradition surrounding that. But yes, so the kind of three gradations on the nod, on the voices, and on division. So many votes can be taken pretty much in a matter of seconds. [00:05:00] Many decisions can be taken and it's really up to the opponents to choose those in which they want to force the division.

And part of that is that a division takes a significant amount of time and requires number of people to turn up and vote coming from their constituencies on Friday, et cetera, et cetera.

Ruth Fox: But that tells us something, doesn't it, Paul, about what the sort of mindset and approach of the opponents of the bill is?

Because the fact that the three new clauses that were held over from last Friday and the votes were held today at the start of proceedings. MPs who opposed the bill could have shouted no and forced formal divisions and marked MPs through the lobbies and taken up 30, 45 minutes.

They didn't. I mean, these were not things to which they had any great principled objection, but it does show that they're focusing more on the principles rather than on procedural gamesmanship.

Mark D'Arcy: And they weren't resorting to deliberate time wasting.

Paul Evans: No, indeed. I think it's true to say of the new [00:06:00] clauses that were let through on the nod, they were mostly concessions, as it were, stronger safeguards, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So yes, there is a sense of fair play and there's also, it's quite embarrassing to vote against something which goes in your direction. It might be foolish to vote against a new clause or an amendment, which appears to be making a concession to your position. So, the debate was closured. Therefore, no more on day one of report.

It's now been closured on day two. So the two groups of amendments, there is no more debate to be had on them.

Mark D'Arcy: And with the coming debate on Friday the 20th, the day will begin with the outstanding votes left over from this chunk of report stage, just as today's debate began with a few votes left over from the previous session.

So yeah, there will be a couple of votes outstanding at the beginning of next Friday, the 20th of June, before they can move on to a third reading debate.

Paul Evans: Significant decisions to be made. What we don't know, is how [00:07:00] many of those will be forced to a division.

Ruth Fox: And we don't know how many decisions will actually be required because the Speaker indicated at the start of proceedings today his provisional selection of amendments that he was going to put to a vote.

There were what, four of them, we've got through three, one will be held over to next week. But there are further decisions that will have to be made, and we don't know what those will be, what he will select, he'll select from the matters of principle and so on. But two questions. What will drive his selection decision and why does he make an initial announcement at the start of proceedings today of just a few things that are gonna be put to a vote, but not the whole list.

Why do we know some of them, but not all of them that are gonna require a decision?

Paul Evans: I think what he was telling the House, today was his choice on group one and he didn't announce his choice on group two, rightly so because they were going to listen to the debate and see how it went. So you could draw the conclusion that apart from the amendments in the name of the [00:08:00] member in charge, those are the four from group one that are gonna get a decision taken.

And then there may be more from group two. If my interpretation is correct, they're gonna be quite sparing with those that are selected for separate decision in group two. And my sense is that group two has fewer issues of principle in it and a more technical stuff by and large. So the decision is which ones raise significant and preferably novel issues of principle. Which ones is there evidence from listening to debate that there is widespread support for rather than just pockets of niche support. And which ones are what the public might expect a decision to be taken.

Ruth Fox: Then if you like, can I ask you to take us a little bit behind the scenes? So that question about the Speaker reflecting on the debate that's taken place to inform his decisions.

He wasn't in the chair throughout the debate. There was a couple of deputy speakers, for example. [00:09:00] So what happens now? Do they have a kind of washup meeting this afternoon perhaps, to sort of go through what were the key issues that came up during the debate where they all put their heads together? Or is this handled by email? How does it work?

Paul Evans: I don't think they'll be having a washup meeting this afternoon because they'll all be getting straight for the trains to their constituents. They will, I'm sure, have some form of discussion of today's debate and its implications at some point before next Friday, hopefully, whilst it's still fresh in their minds.

Ruth Fox: Mm-hmm.

Paul Evans: And it's an iterative process because also the clerks who are managing this bill through its stages will have plenty of advice to offer about things that, in their view seem to have been decided, things that are technical and trivial and so on and so forth. They will offer their advice of a technocratic nature.

The three deputies and the Speaker will make a political assessment of the mood of the House that was expressed today, and they will then proceed from there. And then I [00:10:00] think there's a clear wish by the Speaker and his deputies, and indeed by most people, for this bill to get its decisions made that need to be made and to make progress and to reach third reading.

So that's the other factor, you know, balancing the need to hear the, and allow the expression of, alternative views and the desire to get this bill to third reading for a principal decision and of whether it's going to go to the House of Lords and face its fate there.

Mark D'Arcy: We've had though a series of votes on different amendments.

This time we've already mentioned the one that Meg Hillier got through, new clause two, about under eighteens not having assisted dying suggested to them, but there were in fact three votes on other matters, including a clause by Meg Hillier suggesting that assisted dying should never be suggested by medical professionals to a patient, which was defeated.

It was defeated by 256 votes to 230. Interestingly, it shows that MPs are sort of differentiating. They're not just [00:11:00] voting, if you like, on straight for and against party lines on these matters. Different issues are affecting the way they vote. But is there a sense that once upon a time, the supporters of the bill were winning issues by 40, 50 votes, now they're down to around 20.

Does that suggest an erosion of their support in the chamber, or is that simply because quite a lot of MPs, a hundred or so, weren't there this time?

Paul Evans: It's certainly the absent 100. This, in a sense, was the least critical day probably of this stage of the Bill's proceedings. So members might have felt they could risk being away.

I don't think too much can be read into. I mean, you make a very clear point that two new clauses on quite similar lines, but differentiated as to whether it applies to minors or to everybody went different ways. So what that tells us is that, as you say, members are voting on what they think is right and wrong rather than on non-party lines.

And I think that cuts both ways. You know, there will be members who voted for [00:12:00] or against these clauses who might vote a different way on the bill itself, as it were, as a whole. So there could be members who thought that they would like to have this prohibition on talking to anybody, raising the matter with anybody.

It was lost. A larger group thought it should be a prohibition on talking about it to minors. It was won, but those groups could include a lot of people who voted for the new clause today, for example, that got through, who would vote for the bill in the end. So I don't think you can read a huge amount into the numbers.

Mark D'Arcy: There have been a number of MPs who kind of declared they've changed their mind and will now vote against the bill over the last couple of weeks. I think the no camp, as it were, are talking about 18 people who've sort of converted to their side now, but that isn't quite enough of that to defeat the bill.

It's just a matter of whether the erosion continues until third reading day and then there are enough, and that I think is impossible to judge from today's proceedings.

Paul Evans: I think I'd agree with you about that. Yeah, it [00:13:00] is impossible to judge from today's proceedings.

Ruth Fox: Just to explain to listeners. So we talk about this sort of the hundred missing MPs, I mean these will be, for example, ministers, front benchers on both sides who have other obligations.

Mark D'Arcy: Ministers in emergency meetings about assorted world crises, for example.

Ruth Fox: Yes. Which we'll come on to perhaps Mark in a minute. But there will also be MPs who had, you know, really important constituency duties and because they've given up a Friday in their constituency a few weeks ago, they probably knew, or it was likely that they were gonna have to give up next Friday as well. They've made a judgment call, as you say, that they can afford to miss today. I think it's actually slightly over a hundred. I mean, it's difficult to know because some MPs obviously won't participate in the votes and some of the Scottish MPs may not because it doesn't affect them. I think the SNP are not taking part, so we'll have to see.

But you would expect a much, much bigger turnout next week more akin to that that we saw at second reading.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. I think it's also worth making the point here. I think this is gonna be a factor quite a lot on future Friday proceedings, that [00:14:00] even though we're only one year, more or less, into this Parliament, a lot of MPs can already feel the hot breath of the electorate behind them and want to work very, very hard at their seats. Even now, it's not like there's a traditional parliamentary midterm anymore, when they can mostly spend their time in Westminster and then do a blitz later. They've got to worry about the electorate right now.

Ruth Fox: I mean, just a very practical point, it is very hot in London. I mean, Mark and I, listeners, are, are in the studio. Well, yes, it's a bit unpleasant.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. Paul, on the other hand, is wearing a sweater, but he's in Wales.

Ruth Fox: He's in Wales, but in the chamber, it's a very small room. It gets very, very hot.

Frankly, if they'd had many more MPs in there than they actually had, it could have been deeply unpleasant.

Mark D'Arcy: I think it's probably pretty uncomfortable anyway, and I think a few people, not excluding the deputy speaker, were rather wilting by the end.

Paul Evans: Yeah. Indeed, there are sort of micro climates within the chamber as well.

I used to have to sit at the table of the chamber wearing [00:15:00] not only a wooed three piece tail coat suit, but also a silk gown and a wig on top of it.

Ruth Fox: You always looked very fetching.

Paul Evans: In all weathers. But I got the impression that the Speaker's chair had a special microclimate of its own that could be controlled more, and it was a bit cooler there, but also I should tell you about an incident that happened when I was a very new clerk, I was taken on this tour of some secret corners of the building, and this tour included going into a very small room up in a sort of attic area. It looked like a sort of 1960s version of the TARDIS or something because it had lots of dials and knobs and gray metal all over it.

And there were two blokes sitting there who introduced themselves. They were engineers, IT engineers, and they had a periscope, except this periscope was kind of upside down, so it went down rather than up. And through this periscope they could see, and they let me have a look. Sort of somewhere in the roof of the chamber was this [00:16:00] lens and it was a kind of fish eye view of the chamber, and they monitored the chamber continuously in those days.

This is before television cameras showed you what was going on there. They sat there, watch the members coming in and out at different times and the crowding and turn their dials to adjust the heating and cooling appropriately to the number of bodies that are in the chamber.

Mark D'Arcy: You can imagine the conversation there.

Hang on, Fred, they look as if they're shivering a bit on the opposition benches, turn up the heat or vice versa. You know, someone's wilting on the government benches boost up the aircon.

Paul Evans: But I hope, I hope the room's been preserved as a historical artifact somehow, because it was a fantastic 1940s period piece.

Mark D'Arcy: So can we cast our eyes ahead now to next Friday, friday the 20th of June and what we imagine will be the final phase of the bill, the third reading debate, what happens in a third reading debate? Because mostly they become a rather perfunctory, rubber stamping stage of discussion for a bill. But clearly on this bill, it'll be a matter of whether or not the bill [00:17:00] survives the vote.

Paul Evans: It will be. And every clerk like me carries around in their head an idealized version of legislative procedure, platonic version of legislative procedure, and this version says on second reading debate, you're discussing the principles of the bill, on committee you are going through the details and standing each clause part of the bill, on report you are tidying up what the committee did, and on third reading you've now got a bill complete and you are simply deciding whether or not you're going to pass that bill as it now stands not.

Mark D'Arcy: So you look upon your bill and decide whether it is good?

Paul Evans: Yes, and it's not really going back to first principles. It's about is this bill one we are prepared to live with? Now that it's been through all its processes. Obviously if you're completely opposed to assisted dying, you will continue to vote against it. If you are unmovable in favor of assisted dying, you'll continue going for it. And then there's the bit in the middle that say, now it's been through parliamentary process, it's been consulted, we've heard the evidence, we've heard the [00:18:00] debates, it's been amended. Is this a bill that satisfactorily, in our view, delivers assisted dying as well as we can possibly hope for? But that's what the decision is about.

The debate is a bit like a second reading debate. Kicked off by the member in charge. There will then be a series of speeches. There are no sort of detailed amendments in play, no new clauses, it's just a debate about the bill as it now stands, and at the end of it, there is a single vote unless the closure is required, on yes or no, that the bill be read a third time and if it is a majority in favor of reading it a third time, that's it. It's all over and it goes to the House of Lords, though it could come back again in the future.

Mark D'Arcy: So the shape of the debate will be next week, something like up to an hour or so, a vote or decisions anyway on questions left undecided at the end of report stage, so they'll clean up that bit, then they'll move on to the third reading and maybe half an hour or so before the final closure of the day, at two 30 [00:19:00] there will be a closure motion, a motion to bring the question to a vote.

Paul Evans: Yeah, that's how I would, one would predict it. It's even possible that the third reading debate would end of its own account, as it were, but that seems unlikely.

Ruth Fox: There was an interesting speech I thought from Kieran Mullen, the opposition front bench spokesperson towards the end of debate today, just before the minister Stephen Kinnock spoke where Kieran Mullen directly appealed to the government bench and said for third reading, lots of MPs haven't been able to speak on the bill at any stage thus far, lots of people who wanted to speak in the second reading and the report stage debates haven't had an opportunity to, will you give us more time at third reading to enable more MPs to participate now?

There was no answer given. So we don't know. Seems unlikely. But um, otherwise we are looking at three and a half hours debate, at third reading, which would be exceptional compared to most third readings, where most you get is usually an hour. And generally it doesn't need that.

Paul Evans: I mean, with [00:20:00] all due respect to the plea for more time, this bill has had quite a lot of time by standards of either government or private members bills. The third reading is not about changing, well, I suppose it is about changing people's minds, but it's not about changing people's minds about the detail of the bill, and most people's minds will have been made up. I mean, obviously the Speakers might well heed the call that those who got speak on second reading will come bottom of their pecking order for third reading potentially.

Mark D'Arcy: I suppose there is an issue here that there will be some MPs who have really wanted to speak on this bill and don't get the chance either at second reading or at the report stage, or even at third reading, and they're left standing. But I'm afraid from my point of view, that's show business guys, you know, you don't always get a chance to be on stage.

Paul Evans: If there are 650 MPs, 400 and more of them are active backbenchers, there is simply no possibility of them all getting a chance to speak about everything. I'm afraid that is the reality. But they all have a vote.

Ruth Fox: You mentioned amendments [00:21:00] there, Paul. So a third reading, there can't be textual amendments of a bill unless in exceptional circumstances there were some technical matter that needed to be sorted out.

But I mean, frankly, it could be sorted out in the House of Lords if it gets that far. What we could see is a reasoned amendment at third reading, like we had at second reading where opponents of the bill, rather than just voting against it at third reading, table of motion to explain their reasons why they're opposing it. Is that the only scenario in which we're likely to see a, I mean it's not a textual amendment, it's an amendment of the motion to support the bill.

Paul Evans: It is possible to have a reasoned amendment, as you say, at third reading. I very much doubt whether the Speaker would want to muddy the waters more than is necessary by allowing a reasoned amendment, which is unlikely to say any more than the reasoned amendment he did allow at Second Reading. I think it's in everybody's interest probably to have a clean up and down vote on reading it third time, but [00:22:00] a reasoned amendment could be tabled. But the point is, the reasoned amendment doesn't make any, it's not different from the negative, the straight negative.

Mark D'Arcy: I suppose a few people might just like to get their words of wisdom on the order paper, even if it's not then selected for debate.

Paul Evans: Indeed, that is the opportunity. So as you say, there are no technical amendments. There's a curious phrase that's always, well, tickled me, which says, no amendments not being purely verbal are allowed at third reading.

And I've always thought, well, how could you have a nonverbal amendment? What it means is, just changing tiny words, so it's an opportunity to correct typos essentially, or something like that that's slipped into a bill occasionally. I've never, I'm not sure I've ever seen it used.

Mark D'Arcy: Let's assume for a moment that the bill does get passed third reading.

What happens then? I have visions of clerks in full regalia carrying the bill across the Houses of Parliament to the House of Lords.

Paul Evans: You are absolutely right. That is what happens. A clerk in full fig carries a copy of the bill tied up with green ferret as the [00:23:00] material is known, through the long journey down the passages of the two Houses to deliver it to the House of Lords.

Although since this likely to happen on a Friday, they may use the provision where it can just be sent, hug a mugger, if the other house is adjourned, you put in the internal post, you know?

Ruth Fox: What is a ferret, Paul, for listeners who are wondering?

Paul Evans: Ferret is a form of heavy ribbon.

Mark D'Arcy: Oh, right. I'm relieved to hear it.

Paul Evans: that houses copies of bills. It's not a word that's used as far as I know anywhere else nowadays. 17th century I think, but before it's sent, carried by the clerk, the Clerk of the House has to inscribe it in Norman French to show that it has been agreed by the Commons and read the third time and it can now be properly sent to the Lords.

So first thing is tie it up in red ribbon, which it should be already. Get the clerk to endorse it. The Clerk of the House. The boss clerk, with the words of Norman [00:24:00] French. And then carry it down to the other end. Of course, behind the scenes and all this, they've already swapped electronic versions of the bill, um, and all the rest of it.

Ruth Fox: And we we're using Norman French because

Paul Evans: You've now gone beyond my capacity to rationalize.

Ruth Fox: A hold over from the 13th century in Norman French.

Paul Evans: Because ever since the Normans, we always have used Norman French. Yeah. But many other aspects of parliamentary procedure have slipped inexorably into English, but for whatever reason, this little bit has been left.

Mark D'Arcy: So the correct incantations have to be pronounced and the ceremonial journey has to be made, and then the bill begins its adventures in the House of Lords, and we'll have plenty more podcasts on that if the bill does indeed reach the upper house.

Ruth Fox: One of the things that struck me today, Mark, was that the tenor of the debate was rather better and rather calmer.

By better I say more good natured. There wasn't that sense of touchiness that was a feature of the debate last month. I [00:25:00] think that's possibly a feature of the fact that MPs had had that first experience of report stage and were better placed to understand what was going on. I think there's been efforts by organizations like the Hansard Society to explain how report stage works through our podcasts and so on, Paul, that we know MPs are listening to.

But I was also struck by the fact that the grouping selection paper from the Speaker today, which was reissued, actually had some contextual information and instructions on it, which we don't normally see.

Paul Evans: That was a very good innovation, I think, and good to see. But also indicates just how the message getting to, how complicated it is for members who are not plugged into the very details of all that is going on, to grasp what is going on.

Yeah. And so that conflictual detail, for example, about the fact you weren't allowed to debate amendments in the first group, about which questions will be put and how they will be put subsequently and so forth, was all, I thought, very sensible innovation.

Mark D'Arcy: Especially given that we're talking about a 50% new House where an [00:26:00] awful lot of MPs simply won't understand or be very used to all these rather complicated procedures.

Paul Evans: What it probably also reminds us is that normally on government bills, which of course is the majority of this carry on, members don't need to know and don't particularly want to know what's going on. They just want to be whipped, see the whip pointing to the aye lobby or to the no lobby. When they arrive from their office, when the bells have run, and they often have no idea what they're voting on.

I mean, I don't wish to be dismissive here. They have other things to worry about, but they probably have no idea what they're voting on. The curious thing about this private member's bill is they have to understand, make their own choices, make their own decisions, do their own homework. Nobody's going to tell them how to vote even, I'm sure Ms. Leadbeater and her supporters stand in the lobbies advising people, but they can't say, you must, you know, this is the aye, this is, no, this is not as was indicated by the two votes on the two new clauses [00:27:00] today on a subtle variation if it had been a government bill, once new clause one had gone, new clause two would've been deemed to be dead in the water as it were. Everybody would have voted the same way. But you see genuine shifts of opinion on nuanced, relatively nuanced points in these amendments.

Mark D'Arcy: Which I suppose is what Parliament is supposed to be. Going back to your point about it being the platonic ideal of the process.

Paul Evans: Yes.

Mark D'Arcy: Now, hardy souls who will have stuck beyond that final vote and watched the last moments of the Bill's consideration, may have stayed on and seen some rather odd parliamentary ritual afterwards.

First of all, there was a whole series of points of order, one of which was a complaint about a go-slow in one of the lobbies from the Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine. But if they'd hung on long enough, they would've seen John McDonnell, once Labour's shadow Chancellor, now in the outer darkness as a whipless Labour MP at the moment, and Jeremy Corbyn now an independent ex Labour leader, of course, both getting up to raise points of order [00:28:00] about the fact that they'd been under police investigation for taking part in a demonstration over Gaza and they raised what turned out to be quite an interesting constitutional point. John McDonnell said that the police officials and the prosecutors suggested to them that part of the reason why they were being investigated was that MPs should be held to a higher standard than ordinary members of the public, which was, they thought a quite extraordinary proposition.

Paul Evans: Yes, it was an interesting series of exchanges and the key issue here is of course, in a sense, we expect MPs to be held to a higher standard of behavior in public life than the rest of the world.

But under the law, they're all equal. And the worry is it may have been well-intentioned, sort of thought somewhere in the crown prosecution or the police's mind that you mustn't be seen to be lenient with MPs. But it has a danger within it, that if you apply the law differentially to our [00:29:00] legislators as opposed to other members of the public, if you make the fact that they're a legislator a factor in your decision about their culpability, then you're opening the door to oppressive pursuit of MPs by the law enforcement agencies. And let's be honest, we've seen quite a bit of this over the Atlantic already.

Ruth Fox: You're referring to the incident this week of the California senator who was arrested for trying to ask a question at the press conference.

Paul Evans: Well he was thrown out, but, but also there's been threats of prosecution against the people who were on the committee that did the January the Sixth investigation and all kinds of other threats of criminal or legal sanction against people who are basically just disagreeing with the present executive in the USA.

And that's what shouldn't ever be possible. And that's the real point of issue that I felt that Jeremy Corbyn and and John McDonnell were right to put their finger on, is that everybody's equal under law, including MPs, and they [00:30:00] must be treated no differently, no more oppressively or no more leniently than a member of the public would be in any particular circumstances.

Mark D'Arcy: And I think that the first point of their questions was just to get on the record that they've been told there would be no further proceeding against them. But secondly, they wanted to know what the Speaker, the Chair, was going to do about it and the response, and they'd given notice of this question, so I think it must have been a prepared response, was this is not a matter for the chair. And that rather riled a few people, I mean the Conservative backbencher Sir Christopher Chope got up and said, why isn't this a matter for the chair? Isn't it your job to protect? I paraphrase. Isn't it your job to protect MPs from this sort of thing?

And again, the response was not so sure about this. So what do you think might proceed from here? How might this unfold now?

Paul Evans: Well, I think what the chair was doing, taking their very no comment sort of line on this, there is a risk that you'll dig a hole for yourself by saying something off the cuff. It's certainly an issue. Even though they had notice, I don't [00:31:00] know how much notice they had. Certainly an issue that requires a bit of careful thought about what the right response is, and it could be thought to engage questions of parliamentary privilege and therefore be referred to the privileges committee or possibly the standards committee.

Or you could have a debate about it, could be secured in various ways, but I think it's something that is probably best dealt with in the first instance by a committee if you want to take it any further.

Mark D'Arcy: So would it go to the privileges committee?

Paul Evans: Well, that would be the obvious place for it to go, yes.

But the privileges committee can only engage with the subject if it's referred to it by the House. So there has to be a motion on the floor of the house, which is debatable, to send the matter to the privileges committee for investigation. So it might not go that far, might not go that far, but I mean, technically it's not really infringing their rights directly to participate in parliamentary proceedings.

But implicitly, there is a bigger issue going on here.

Ruth Fox: One last feature, Paul, of today's events was that there were no [00:32:00] ministerial statements, which there could have been given the unfolding events in the Middle East overnight, the Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities. And indeed there could perhaps have been a statement given the loss of life in the Air India Crash in Ahmedabad, in which so many British citizens have been killed. We didn't see statements. It could have happened. I think about 11 o'clock is the norm, if there's a statement on a Friday. The indicator for the Speaker was that we'll see statements on Monday. Did that surprise you given the enormity of the events and the sort of security and economic implications and questions about British citizens?

Paul Evans: I don't think that surprised me. I think on a different Friday, if we've been discussing, for example, the Dogs, Cats and Ferrets bill, which is coming up, the minister may not have felt the same inhibition about making a statement, but bear in mind the statement made it 11 o'clock, as you say, could easily take an hour and a half with questions, especially if it's on the Iranian [00:33:00] nuclear situation, for example.

It would've basically have obliterated substantially the whole day's debate. Now, that would've been on a very undesirable end. But also just bear in mind that I imagine the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defense and a lot of other people are quite busy trying to sort out what's happening, what's going on. You may have a better informed statement on Monday, in all fairness.

Ruth Fox: Yeah.

Paul Evans: Than you would today.

Ruth Fox: Whose decision would it have been? Would it have been the minister? Or would it have been the Speaker, or negotiate between them or can the Speakers rule out the minister coming if the minister indicates he felt he had to make a statement?

Paul Evans: There's a curious little bit of parliamentary good manners, which has always tickled me. Again, when they're making a statement, ministers always get up and say with permission, Mr. Speaker, it's not clear who's permission they are seeking because they never asked for it, and they're never given it. They just assert it. So making a statement is regarded as a ministerial prerogative, effectively. I mean, if the speaker thought it was a real abuse, they could have a go in private to the minister and say, for God's sake, don't do it today. [00:34:00] But they can't stop them effectively, and nor can they force them effectively.

And if a minister refuses to make a statement, as you've discussed elsewhere on this series, the Speaker's last resort is to allow an urgent question, sort of planted urgent question, which then does force the minister into the chamber.

Mark D'Arcy: But the Speaker effectively diffused all that right at the beginning of proceedings by saying that he expected a statement from the Foreign Secretary on Monday. So everybody knew that it wasn't going to come. And with that, I think Ruth, I think that just about concludes our consideration of today's consideration of the Terminally Ill Adults End Of Life Bill. We'll be back next week to look at what's happened during the anticipated third reading debate on that Friday.

Uh, so do join us then, hopefully along with Paul.

Ruth Fox: And that also means listeners, that, the podcast will be delayed, the usual 24 hours. So rather than landing in your feed on next Friday, it will land on the Saturday. And just a reminder to everyone that our listener survey is still running, so, [00:35:00] you'd be really helpful to us if you could complete it if you haven't already done so.

Hundreds of you have. So really grateful to you for doing that. But it will really help us understand what you think about the podcast, what bits of it you like, what bits you'd prefer us to concentrate on, and also help us in that delicate task of ensuring that we get advertising, to help pay for these proceedings.

So with that, we look forward to seeing you next week. Bye.

Mark D'Arcy: Goodbye.

Parliament Matters is produced by the Hansard Society and supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. For more information, visit hansardsociety.org.uk/pm or find us on social media at Hansard Society.

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