Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Money)

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Liz Saville Roberts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Can we just state what is really quite obvious? This House has voted for further debate in order to make workable and legally watertight legislation, and with that debate will come a full understanding of the resources needed for both England and Wales. Of course, in Wales, health is devolved and justice is reserved, and we need to understand the implications for that.

What has been a bit of an eye-opener for me, as a member of the Bill Committee—it is, of course, a larger Bill Committee for a private Member’s Bill than ever before—is the sense of the way in which this place operates. We have been given the role of producing workable legislation as best we can, on the advice of witnesses—there is a part of me that would like the Committee to receive more witnesses, but I am very aware that we have to move ahead with what we have been charged with doing: namely, producing that workable legislation—but we will not arrive today, next week or after we have heard from our witnesses at a complete, perfect, already-made understanding of what we need to do to make correct and workable legislation. For those things to be in place today, the House would need estimates and information that the Bill Committee has been charged with providing, which it will not be able to provide until we have heard the advice from the witnesses we are calling forward to give us a sense of what the resource needs and associated costs will be.

It will then be the duty of us all on Report and on Third Reading to ensure that the money and resources are sufficient for the legislation to be workable. With that in mind, I support this motion.

[Daisy Cooper]

Members in this House who have spoken against the money resolution say they are doing so because they have so many unanswered questions about the costs. Does the right hon. Lady agree that if Members vote against the resolution, they will never get those answers? That is precisely why the Bill should move forwards.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Let us imagine what the public would make of our role in this place if this legislation were to fall at this point.