Hansard Society

• Assisted dying bill: What will happen on Friday 13 June?

• The Assisted Dying Bill: Rushed And Lacking Scrutiny, Or Unfairly Criticised?

• The assisted dying bill: How does the amendment process work?

• Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: Concerns about the delegated powers

• Assisted dying - The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: Rolling news

• The Assisted Dying Bill: A guide to the Private Member's Bill process

• The Assisted Dying Bill: Making sense of the parliamentary process [Video]

Parliament

• Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: Bill documents

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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 special series of podcasts following the progress of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, the Bill that would enable assisted dying in England and Wales. And Ruth, the big news today is that the Bill has now cleared its final stage in the House of Commons. Its Third Reading. It won by a slightly reduced majority, but it won all the same.

Ruth Fox: Yeah, so we had 314 MPs voted for the Bill and 291 against, so it came through with a majority, as you say, a bit a bit of a reduced majority, [00:01:00] 23, compared to that Second Reading vote, uh, back last year, which was 55. Interestingly, same number of MPs voting: 605 plus four tellers for the vote. That is a very big turnout. I mean, we've set that in context with 650 MPs in the House. So where were the other 45? Well, there were some ministers abroad, David Lammy, for example, away, dealing with the Iranian situation. Take out the Speakers, the Deputy Speakers, the MPs who chair the Public Bill Committee stages, who don't vote at Third Reading.

Mark D'Arcy: The Sinn Feiners who, don't take their seats. The SNP who wouldn't vote on an England only, or England or Wales only issue. And actually you've got almost the theoretical maximum number of MPs who could have voted in this division, voting in this division, including such luminaries, of course, as the Prime Minister himself, Sir Keir Starmer

Ruth Fox: Suggestions that he might not be able to because of the international situation, but he was there in the voting lobbies. We understand

Mark D'Arcy: He took time out from stopping the slide to World War III.

Ruth Fox: [00:02:00] So it will now go to the House of Lords for, for further consideration. But it does mean that it will go into law, I suspect, I think it may struggle to get through quickly in the House of Lords. I think it'll be an extended process, but given that there is a solid majority for it in the Commons, I think that it'll go through the House of Lords. The question is how much it will be amended and how much time it will take up being sent back to the Commons.

For them to, to be asked to think again about some of the, the detail of the Bill perhaps. But if it gets through the House of Lords, then it will be probably the most significant piece of social legislation of my lifetime.

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