Progression of Bills through Parliament

Debate between Lewis Atkinson and Tom Tugendhat

Monday 8th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lewis Atkinson]

I agree that private Members’ Bills provide an important avenue for democratically elected Members of the Commons to seek important legislative change. For decades, they have been a long-established precedent in how this country introduces social change—whether that is the decriminalisation of homosexuality and abortion, or the abolition of the death penalty. Fundamentally, I do not believe that the unelected Lords should be able to block such key social change, but I will come on to some of the issues that my hon. Friend raised.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Lewis Atkinson]

I will introduce the petitioners first, because they ultimately prompted the debate; I will then be happy to take further interventions.

The petition was initially proposed by Nathaniel Dye, a man who felt the urgency for change and looked at his Parliament to deliver it. Nat was a music teacher, and after being diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in his mid-30s, he campaigned for cancer awareness and support, being recognised with an MBE for his incredible efforts.

Nathaniel knew he was going to die, and he believed that Parliament should engage seriously with the issues that affected him and many others with terminal illness. He campaigned strongly in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) in the last Session. As a member of that Bill Committee, I had the privilege of meeting Nat on a number of occasions. He was a remarkable man.

In his final months, Nat became frustrated—angry, it is fair to say—at how the Lords were dealing with their consideration of the Bill. True to form, he decided to do something about it, starting the petition that we are here to debate today. Nat died in January this year. I pay tribute to him and his family, who have continued to support his efforts following his death. I am grateful to Rebecca Scott, his sister, for meeting me as part of the engagement process for this debate.

After Nathaniel’s death, his friend Sophie Blake became the petition’s sponsor, and it is a pleasure to see her in the Gallery today, as it was to speak with her in preparation for this debate, alongside a campaigner from Dignity in Dying. Sophie has incurable stage 4 secondary breast cancer, first diagnosed in 2020. She is allergic to opioids, which form an important part of the palliative care pain relief toolkit, and unfortunately her family have experienced what she describes as “bad cancer deaths”. She does not want her daughter, Maya—also in the Public Gallery—to run the risk of being left with those memories. She wants the option of an assisted death if she feels that that is required.

The key demand of Nathaniel, Sophie and the 114,000 petitioners is that Bills supported by MPs and the public must be able to complete all stages of the parliamentary process and to become law; and that the unelected House of Lords should be able to scrutinise, yes, but not block legislation backed by the elected Commons. Sophie and Nathaniel were both determined that the voices of terminally ill people should be at the centre of parliamentary consideration of the Bill. They closely monitored its various stages. They were in the Public Gallery of the House of Commons on Second Reading and of Committee Room 11 for some of the 100 hours of Bill Committee proceedings, where we made more than 100 amendments, including 30 proposed by MPs who had opposed the Bill on Second Reading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat]

I will not be giving way on that. If the hon. Member for Sunderland Central does not like that position, or the way in which the Lords run their business, that, again, is a perfectly legitimate thing to say, but then he is asking for very fundamental constitutional reform. Again, that is completely okay, but to do it on the basis of a petition of 140,000 names strikes me as a somewhat ambitious reading of the settled will of the British people. We have somewhere between 60 million and 70 million people—I am not quite sure where the figure sits today—and 140,000 does not sit very high against that number; it sits pretty low, frankly.

[Lewis Atkinson]

I think the right hon. Member is rather mischaracterising what I said. As I said, and as the Hansard Society says, I think there is a clear constitutional response within our existing settlement. It is not about fundamental Lords reform, though I may be in favour of that; it is about use of the Parliament Act. Does he agree that, if the Commons agrees to this again, using the Parliament Act is entirely appropriate?

[Tom Tugendhat]

On the contrary, I think what the hon. Gentleman is arguing, although he may not think he is arguing it, and he is perfectly entitled to ignore what he is arguing—it happens all the time in this place, it is absolutely standard, for Members on our Benches to make one argument and mean another—[Laughter.] Members on all of our Benches. Come on! Let’s not have the hypocrisy; we all know it is true.

It is absolutely true that we hear, on every side of the House, people making one argument and meaning another all the time. Today, the hon. Gentleman is making the argument for constitutional reform, but he actually means he is in favour of assisted dying. Again, that is a completely acceptable position, but it is not frank; it is not being straight with the House and it is not being straight with people.

All I ask on this is that, when we look down at the questions that have been raised and when we hear, for example, the voices of the disability groups, the various different medical groups and all the royal colleges, all of which rejected this Bill, and we say to them, “Look, we really must legislate at speed because there is a pressing need to do so,”—the hon. Member is really making the Mark Zuckerberg argument. He is making the “move fast and break things” argument.

[Lewis Atkinson]

rose—

[Tom Tugendhat]

I will not be giving way again. That is a perfectly acceptable argument for those who can afford to fail, but the problem is that the hon. Member is not dealing with the investment of a few people, which may or may not start a business or software company that fails or succeeds; he is playing with the lives of thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people.