Progression of Bills through Parliament

Andrew George Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lewis Atkinson]

I will just finish this point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) mentioned, Lord Falconer—the Bill’s sponsor in the Lords—made clear that he would sit down and discuss amendments with peers: indeed, he accepted and supported amendments that responded to genuine concerns with the Bill. But there was no opportunity for the Lords to reach a conclusion on amendments, because of the tactics involved.

Mark D’Arcy, a BBC parliamentary correspondent for more than two decades, characterised the Lords’ treatment as this:

“This is a filibuster. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and tastes good in orange sauce, it’s a duck. If they’re going this slowly over this piece of legislation, I’m afraid it’s a filibuster. There is no other way to describe what’s going on here. It may be in order. It may be within the rules of the House, but what’s happening here is that a relatively small number of peers are putting down lots and lots of amendments and debating them very, very slowly.”

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. He will be aware of early-day motion 2709, which I tabled in January. It is about the role of the House of Lords in scrutinising legislation, and the importance of ensuring that they are there purely to scrutinise and provide sober second thought on legislation. It had strong cross-party support. On 12 February, the Leader of the House responded to a question to say that if there were delays,

“I will find time to see how we can progress it. This is a timely warning to their lordships”. —[Official Report, 12 February 2026; Vol. 780, c. 957.]

This was a fundamental attempt—a successful attempt—to block the Bill; it was nothing other than that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) on the way in which he introduced the debate and the strong case he made about not only the Bill and its treatment, but the recommendations for reform of the House of Lords. As he said, we do not want to rehash the debate on the Terminally Ill Adults Bill, but as we have seen, people on both sides of the debate were disgusted by the way in which a small minority of their lordships were able to abuse the powers available to them, not to scrutinise but to block the Bill. Indeed, a strong opponent of the Bill, Rod Liddle, described his side winning “by cheating”, which is exactly what happened.

Their lordships on many occasions in a rather condescending way told the democratically elected Chamber of the House of Commons that the Bill it passed on Third Reading was not fit for purpose. The fact is that if we all designed a private Member’s Bill, there would be 650 different versions. The concept of a perfect Bill can no doubt be debated by everyone that looks at it, and they would say, “I would prefer it to be amended in this manner” or “in that manner”. The fact is that the way in which the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) proceeded, accepting very sensible amendments, meant that we ended up with a stronger and very effective Bill.

[Daniel Francis]

Is the hon. Member aware that I fought long and hard on the learning disability issue in the Bill Committee? The sponsor in the House of Lords had amendments that would have undone some of those commitments. If the Bill had passed in the Lords, we could have then been stuck in a ping-pong situation with the amendments that had been passed in the Commons being undone by the Lords.

[Andrew George]

The hon. Member makes a very strong point. There were more than 100 hours of debate and scrutiny in Committee and in the Chamber. I am sure that we all in this Chamber engaged in thousands of hours of discussion with specialist bodies and had private meetings and investigations on the matter. I am on the Health and Social Care Committee and therefore take these issues very seriously.

I have mentioned the early-day motion that I tabled at the end of January, which castigated the House of Lords and proposed that if it continued with its filibuster, we needed to accelerate reform of the House of Lords. It has certainly precipitated a justification for that from the House of Commons and the Government, and I hope the Leader of the House will follow that accelerated reform through in the light of what has happened, which I think is quite disgraceful.

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech, so I say this with some trepidation, given how well he has done in the private Member’s Bill ballot this time round. Something that could unite people with differing views in this Chamber would be significant House of Lords reform and meaningful reform of the private Member’s Bill process.

[Andrew George]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. I was No. 4 this time round. Having been No. 1 in 2014, I know what it is like to go through the process. On that point, I find it unacceptable that I am under significant pressure to take this Bill through again, which denies me the opportunity to take through the many other options that I should be entitled to take forward. I leave the House awaiting my announcement on the 17th.

As I mentioned earlier, the Leader of the House said in his answer to me on 12 February that

“I will find time to see how we can progress it. This is a timely warning to their lordships”.—[Official Report, 12 February 2026; Vol. 780, c. 957.]

It should not now be down to a private Member to take the matter through. It should be down to the Government. If the will of the House has been decided, the Government need to find time to use the Parliament Acts to ensure that democratic principles are upheld.

If we are looking at reforming the House of Lords, we need to start by asking what we want a second Chamber for and, indeed, if we want a second Chamber. We need scrutiny and a sober second thought. Others might mention a democratic deficit. In my view, the best thing is to abolish the place. I would rather see it replaced with a citizens’ assembly and an appointments commission bringing the brightest and best from all walks of life into the Chamber. What we do not want is a second Chamber in competition with the House of Commons. I look forward to the concluding remarks from the Leader of the House, and I hope that he will think hard about his words to me and will find us time to take this Bill through.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alan Campbell]

This is cold comfort to people who want to see the Bill pass, and pass soon, but I would say to the right hon. Gentleman that this has all been part of that process. I do not want to play with hypothetical situations, but let us imagine that this legislation was taken forward. I have no evidence to suggest this will happen, other than the fact that it could, but if one of the MPs near the top of this year’s private Members’ Bills ballot decided to pick up the assisted dying Bill and run with it, there would be lessons to be learned. There would be lessons about how we use time, and about how wide the scope of the Bill should be because of the amendments that would be tabled. There would be a lesson about how the Lords should deal with the situation, even though it would be deeply uncomfortable for them.

I gently say to the proponents and opponents of the Bill that, if someone picks it up and runs with it, and prays in aid the Parliament Act—as I have said, our view is that it falls within the scope of that Act—there would be rules around that, too. Lessons need to be learned on top of what the right hon. Member for Tonbridge is getting at, which is about how we take public opinion with us and build consensus, which, as we have heard, takes time.

[Andrew George]

The Leader of the House said earlier that he felt that a private Member’s Bill was not necessarily the most suitable vehicle for legislation of this nature and gravity; as someone who has come out fairly high in this year’s ballot, I am interested in his remarks in that regard.

Leaving that aside, does the right hon. Gentleman not feel that, even if a private Member’s Bill is not the most suitable vehicle, it is now incumbent on the Government to find the time and the means through which the legislation can now be delivered, given that the Bill has the overwhelming support of the House of Commons?

[Sir Alan Campbell]

No, I do not, although who is to say whether in future the Government—or a Government—will decide to make the issue part of their manifesto, bring it forward and deal with it differently in that way? It is rather unfair for the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) to expect this Government to pick up this Bill—or his Bill, if he picked it up and it failed. The hon. Gentleman has been through this before: he had a private Member’s Bill, which had quite a lot of public support. It got through its Second Reading and to Committee, and he got through clause 1. The reason why it did not get any further was that the Government of whom he was part—the coalition Government—stopped it. I have to say, in this well-tempered debate, that it is a bit rich for him to talk about Governments picking up Bills and running with them when he knows full well that it is much more complicated than that.