Outrageous behaviour by a ragbag of unelected legislators threatens to precipitate a constitutional crisis in the UK. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill could never appeal to people of all persuasions but an unholy alliance of opponents set on assisting its death has resorted to tactics which demean the role and reputation of the House of Lords and could bring about its own final demise.
They have sprayed down amendments like confetti: more than a thousand to a relatively short Bill, mostly crafted by a core group of seven vehement objectors to the basic premise of the legislation. They would prevent people from having the right to choose a relatively gentle, medically assisted exit from a life which is anyhow nearing its end and has become intolerable.
Whatever their motives, religious in most cases but with some political game-playing by Conservatives thrown in, since they see the legislation as Labour-led, the obvious outcome of their approach would be to kill the Bill by ensuring it runs out of time.
This would be tantamount to a direct challenge to the authority of the elected House of Commons, which passed the Bill, and to democracy itself, since a majority of the country consistently backs the principle of the right to choose an assisted death. But the zealot peers have so far demonstrated a cavalier disinterest in the wider implications of their antics. In theory, as this is a Private Members Bill and the government remains neutral on it, the Lords can do their worst. And some have.
It started with demands for a Lords Select Committee to take evidence ahead of the main debate. The Conservatives defied calls for an equal balance of members for and against the legislation so the Committee was biased from the start, as was its selection of those who gave evidence. That it refused to hear from the terminally ill people who are desperate for this Bill to become law was a fair indication of its mindset and the attitudes that would colour the subsequent debates.
After two agonising days, just three groups of amendments have been covered. While accusations of filibustering are frowned upon, any other explanation for the numerous, long winded, speeches would be difficult to find. One frustrated proponent chose the polite term “procedural manoeuvring” to explain the efforts to lay a death trap for the legislation but that dignifies the shamelessness of some of the efforts.
For terminally ill people who have campaigned for this legislation even though many would be unlikely to survive long enough to take advantage of it, the unsavoury farce being played out in the Lords is the ultimate insult.
Some of the proposed amendments are simply ludicrous. One would in effect demand that any applicant for an assisted death, irrespective of age or gender, must submit a negative pregnancy test; another that they should not have left the country in the previous twelve months, so no final visits to foreign parts or even overseas relations. There is even one that says an assisted death should be denied to anyone with a close relation who has been found guilty or is under investigation for money laundering or tax evasion, surely a case of the sins of the family falling far beyond any sense of reason.
Lord Frost, of blessed Brexit fame, is determined that assisted death should be characterised with terms involving the word “suicide”, ignoring the fact that only people diagnosed to be within six months of death would be eligible.
Such misguided quibbling over semantics can serve no purpose other than to delay and thus eventually finish off a Bill which has been subject to a great deal more scrutiny in the Commons than most bills, changed significantly as a result, and then passed by the elected representatives of the people. Because of the determination of a few ring leaders and their machinating colleagues, the Lords is in danger of being seen to flout the will of MPs, the electorate and democracy itself. This is truly dangerous territory for an institution whose legitimacy is already widely questioned.
The Bill is not perfect and no legislation dealing with such a sensitive subject ever could be but the Lords’ role is to try and improve it and return it to the Commons within the allotted time. That time has now been extended far beyond the original restricted timetable but the fear is that there will never be enough hours for the opponents not to fill them with their posturing. Meanwhile, their supporters outside Parliament deluge peers with template emails making spurious cases against the legislation without declaring the real motivation behind their opposition.
At least Lord Farmer, a Conservative peer, is clear about the root of his hostility to assisted dying. “This is an atheist Bill that assumes there is nothing after death,” intoned the devout born-again Christian on the second day of debate, warning that the Bill “gives oxygen to dark thoughts…” On and on, he went as the clock ran down.
His colleague Lord Harper, not so long ago a Tory MP and former chief whip, now a key member of the obstructives, nearly lost his tongue in his cheek as he quoted the Bishop of Chester that “Greatness is great, but grace is greater”, and suggested that message should be reflected in the way the Lords behaved.
Talk of a Tory sweepstake on how slow they could make progress in the debate may only be apocryphal but sounds eminently plausible.
Everyone is entitled to their personal views on assisted dying but it is unconscionable that some, given their position as unelected legislators, should so nakedly try to override the elected house. Those who believe in democracy should make their views very clear, very loudly.
If the opponents succeed, they will not only destroy the Bill but precipitate the end of the Lords.
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