Progression of Bills through Parliament

Lizzi Collinge Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I want to speak about the process of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which was prevented from completing its parliamentary journey by a small number of unelected peers who showed through their actions that they had no respect for the constitutional settlement of this country, no respect for the House of Commons, no respect for their own role as scrutineers and no respect for the British public.

[Mr Angus MacDonald]

May I intervene, please?

[Lizzi Collinge]

I am sorry; I will not give way, as I want to finish this speech.

The House of Lords at its best provides detailed scrutiny of legislation, proposing amendments to make it more workable and addressing criticisms of it. But this was not the House of Lords at its best; this was the House of Lords that I remember from my early adulthood: the Lords who kept blocking the equalisation of the age of consent for gay men and who delayed the repeal of section 28. What august company for these modern-day peers to be in! In each of those cases, the primacy of the Commons was asserted, and I really hope that once again the primacy of the Commons and the will of the British people prevail.

Opponents of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill will say that the actions of those few peers were the Lords providing the scrutiny that the Commons did not. I say: what utter nonsense. We have already heard that over 1,200 amendments were proposed, including a pregnancy test for all applicants, regardless of their sex or fertility status. Is that scrutiny, or is it filibustering? I think we know the answer.

In the Commons, the Bill had more scrutiny in terms of debate on the Floor and hours in Committee than any Government Bill of recent times. I remember those debates in the Commons; for the most part, they were nuanced, thoughtful and well intentioned. I remind Members that the issue of assisted dying has been debated for over 100 years in this country. I have also sat on multiple Bill Committees, including some of the longer and more contentious ones in this Parliament, and they did not last as long or see as many amendments debated as the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill did in the Commons. If a process that went above and beyond the process for any Government Bill is not sufficient to pass a law, what is?

The debate in this place and the subsequent amendments to the Bill addressed matters of substance that were raised because of often understandable concerns. They were supported by many of us who support the right of someone to choose the timing and manner of their own death in principle, but who would not support a Bill that exposed people to the risk of not making that choice freely or that did not have strong guardrails. My conclusion, and the conclusion of the Commons debate, was that this was about how a Bill would operate in practice. What we saw in the Lords was not that. The majority of Lords were first prevented from voting on any aspect of the Bill whatever, and the clogging of the debate with unserious amendments prevented a proper debate on matters of substance.

Where does that leave us? It leaves us in a dangerous status quo where terminally ill adults, with the means to do so, go abroad to die, often too early. It leaves us with a legal situation where the manner of someone’s death and the intention of the people who were with them are determined after someone is dead and cannot make their views known. It leaves hundreds of terminally ill adults taking their lives every year, often in very upsetting circumstances. Most people will die a perfectly ordinary death, managed well by palliative care, but palliative care cannot help everyone, no matter how good it is. Anyone who says otherwise is unfortunately not telling the truth. That has been demonstrated, unfortunately, by too many difficult deaths and by the pain of too many families who are left behind.

The debate today is about something even bigger than those tragedies; it is about the constitutional settlement of the United Kingdom. It is about the reasons why we have decided that those with no democratic mandate should not be able to block the will of the elected Chamber. It is about trust in Parliament—trust that we will act with dignity and respect for the proper way of doing things, and know our constitutional places and the limits placed on our power, which are there for a very good reason. It is about the ability of the Lords to behave in a way that allows us to have flexibility in our constitutional settlement, to move with the times and not to be bound by a single, rigid written document. I see great value in having flexibility in our constitutional mechanisms. However, that relies on individuals and groups of individuals operating with honour—something that, unfortunately, this episode did not demonstrate. I worry that if that is repeated, we risk having to move to a more rigid system to enable the primacy of the Commons.

The British people expect high standards of scrutiny from parliamentarians, in both this place and the other place. In the case of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, the House of Commons did its job very well. In the other place, the Lords were prevented from doing their job properly by the actions of a minority. Not only for the memory of Nat—our friend and fellow campaigner—but for every person in this country, that cannot be allowed to stand.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Cooper]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman that this Bill has huge difficulties, and its popularity does not capture those. The Salisbury-Addison convention that the Lords will not seek to prevent the Government from implementing manifesto pledges simply does not apply. In this case, it has not been breached. The Government made repeated declarations that they were neutral on the Bill—that it was a private Member’s Bill—and so the convention does not arise. We cannot let the emotional baggage of the assisted dying Bill override proper parliamentary procedure.

[Lizzi Collinge]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Cooper]

I will finish.

Of course, the legislation approving abortion in this country came through the private Member’s Bill route, but that was backed by the then Labour Government, who appointed a medical advisory committee that also supported its passage. That was a gold standard, against which this Bill is mere base metal. It fell—and fallen it should remain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I need to make progress, but I will give way in a moment.

Most of the Lords speeches on the Bill were very short. Filibustering, which many hon. Members in this Chamber will have done or seen, is when Members stand up to speak for prolonged periods. Sometimes the Whips ask Members to do so, perhaps because someone is off site and they need to prolong a debate—those things happen. Yet most of the speeches in the Lords were around five minutes or less.

The pregnancy amendment, which has been discussed, was often ridiculed, but when the Bill went to the Lords, there had been no discussion in the House of Commons about what would happen if someone who was pregnant wanted an assisted death. In some jurisdictions, such a person must have a termination before they can have an assisted death, while in others, they must have given birth.

[Lizzi Collinge]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

No.

The point is that the Lords had a discussion about what to do in those circumstances, for which there was no policy. Such things are important to nail down and resolve, yet that issue is still not resolved.

There is public support in principle for the Bill but that is not carte blanche. There is massive concern about the detail, but I do not have time to go into all of it. We know that most of the royal colleges are concerned about the Bill. It is important to remember that we are legislators: we make law that must be deliverable and unambiguous. The Commons is not simply a debating Chamber. Members debate, and this Chamber is a debating Chamber—we are not voting on law in this debate—but it is important that we legislate for the real world.

There is a role for a revising Chamber, because, frankly, we do not do that well in the Commons. We often have very little scrutiny, alongside in-built Government majorities. In recent times, perhaps because of the nature of a large majority, business has run short in the Chamber. We are unable to make changes in secondary legislation because of the in-built Government majority on delegated legislation Committees. The assisted dying Bill had an awful lot of Henry VIII powers: 42 delegated powers for any future Government—who may be mad, bad or dangerous, and of any existing party or one yet to be thought of—to make these decisions. That is what we would be giving away if the Bill were to pass. That is why we have a revising Chamber to discuss such matters. As I mentioned in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central, there was no real pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill and little time for MPs to engage with it. The Bill Committee sat for a long time but it had an in-built majority.

It is important that we discuss how we legislate, but let us not demonise the House of Lords. We in the Commons need to do a better job. That is not just about standing up and reading out pre-prepared speeches; it is also engaging and having discussions. In my 21 years in this House, I have had the privilege of engaging on issues with people with whom I disagree. Sometimes we find points of agreement, but we challenge each other in the House on such issues. We are not doing that well enough in this place. We need the Lords to do it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lizzi Collinge]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat]

I will not be giving way again. The hon. Member for Sunderland Central is instead saying that the role of democracy is to behave like the private interest group of a small cabal. I do not believe that is the case. I believe that the role of democracy is to measure, to weigh and to take matters slowly. If, on a matter of life and death, that is not the case, when are we supposed to be measured and take time?

Before people say that we had a long time in Committee, they should never forget that we start working on Government Bills years before—not weeks, not months, but years. Any of us who have introduced a Bill in this place know exactly what I mean. A Bill starts as an idea. It takes two years, normally, before it even gets to the Leader of the House and his various Bill committees, where we test, adjust and play with the Bill with the different Ministers, and the write-round process. The argument that that period of expertise, from Government, civil servants, lawyers, medical experts and all the others, can be replaced with a brief hearing in Committee is, I am afraid, simply not true.

[Lizzi Collinge]

Brief? Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Member may think it is long, but she really has no idea of time if that is her perception. The reality is that Government Bills take time because they have to be got right. This Bill is wrong. The only thing that stopped it was the Lords. If the hon. Member for Sunderland Central wants to abolish the Lords, that is fine, but if he could make that argument, I think we would all be a lot happier.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for the way he opened this debate, recognising, as we all do, the different perspectives that are held. I also thank the petitioners.

When I first wrote to my constituents about the reasons why I voted against the Bill, I said that the debate was not one in which there were two sides, but rather multiple perspectives. Members and our constituents may have one view about the principle of assisted dying and another about the specific Bill that was put before us. Eighteen months on, they may have another view about whether Members in the other place were within their rights to scrutinise it as robustly as they did.

It is clear that everybody who engaged in the process has been motivated by a desire to reduce suffering. That was the driving force behind every vote, speech and amendment in both Houses during the time the Bill was before us, and the petition we are now discussing is no exception to that. The primacy of the House of Commons as the elected House is not in doubt, and it is right that there are robust constitutional conventions in place to protect it. But that does not mean that the work of the revising Chamber should be dismissed as illegitimate. To view its role as being little more than a rubber-stamping exercise would be to fail to recognise the value of challenge in our democracy.

The overwhelming public interest is not in Parliament doing its work as quickly as possible or without disagreement; it is in ensuring there is strong and workable legislation. The scrutiny of the Bill in both Houses was important and highlighted a number of significant concerns that have still not been resolved.

[Lizzi Collinge]

My hon. Friend is making some excellent points about the need for challenge, debate and quality in this place and the other place. Does he agree that it is a shame that the Lords did not have an opportunity to express their view on the Bill because we never got to the end of business?

[Liam Conlon]

It was a shame that it was timed out, but the amendments that were accepted through the scrutiny process were important and demonstrated the inadequacies of the Bill as it stood and the need for the process to continue.

It remains the case that no disability organisation or charity supported the Bill and none was confident that the safeguards would have adequately protected vulnerable people from being coerced or socially pressured into choosing a premature death.

From speaking to constituents, I know the importance of palliative care. I welcome the Government’s announcement last week and the extensive consultation with hospices into the future of palliative care. It is vital that the commitments we have made on palliative care are in no way derailed. I remain as concerned as ever that that would be the inevitable result of introducing assisted dying into our NHS without it being fully costed.

A number of issues were raised throughout the Committee process, and against that background, it would have been surprising if the Lords had not asked questions or tabled amendments. As all Members know, that is how answers are secured from the Bill’s sponsors and the Government, especially when the consequences of getting legislation wrong would be unimaginably devastating.

I will finish on the question raised by some Members, including from my own party, on what comes next and whether the Bill should be reintroduced. Two years ago, the British people elected a Labour Government because they wanted change. After years of economic stagnation, failing public services and declining trust in politics, they voted for a Government focused on raising living standards, rebuilding the NHS, delivering safer streets, expanding opportunity and driving economic growth. That is the promise on which I and others sought a mandate, and it is a promise that we must unite around and deliver.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lizzi Collinge]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jim Shannon]

No.

That scrutiny cannot simply be a rubber stamp. If it is conceived of as a rubber stamp, that is a false understanding of what scrutiny entails. The Hansard Society has stated clearly during the previous Session that

“The House of Lords has the authority to reject, delay, or otherwise block the assisted dying bill.”

That myth needs dispelling.

The second myth that needs to be dispelled is the absurd accusation of the blocking or filibustering the assisted dying Bill by just a small handful of Lords. Amendments were tabled or co-signed by more than 90 peers, and some 140 peers with a range of views on the principle of assisted suicide expressed opposition to the Bill in the Lords, in the form of amendments, speaking in debates or Parliamentary questions. Some have pointed out that hundreds of amendments were tabled by a small number of peers, but it is important to note that dozens of other peers would have tabled the same amendments. It is a total fiction to suggest that opposition came from only a few—there were multiple peers involved.

I will tell hon. Members who those prominent peers were. They were lead signatories on these amendments because of their expertise. They included Baroness Grey-Thompson, who tabled amendments relating to disability—who has better knowledge than that lady? Baroness Finlay, a leading palliative care professor, tabled amendments on medical issues—again, her knowledge is significant. Lord Carlile KC, tabled amendments related to legal concerns. Had they not put their names to those amendments, countless others would have done so. They led on those amendments, and the fact that others did not add their names does not mean that they would not have done so in turn.

It is also important to understand that, having been sent to the Lords by this House, the Bill was scrutinised by three separate Committees: the House of Lords Constitution Committee, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and a Lords Select Committee. The Delegated Powers Committee was scathing about the skeletal nature of the Bill’s provisions, which included handing more than 40 sweeping, unspecified and unjustified powers to future Ministers to determine what assisted suicide under the Bill would actually look like.

The final myth, on which the petition partially rests, is that Lords scrutiny of a Bill should be rendered null due to public support for this particular proposal. That is an exceptionally flimsy argument and does not stand up to scrutiny. Putting aside the veracity of claims of 70% public support for the Bill, a recent multi-level regression and post-stratification poll found that, across the country, just 8% of the public would support pushing a non-manifesto commitment into law without approval and full scrutiny of both Houses of Parliament. The same poll found only 7% ranked it among their top three priorities for their MPs to focus on.

We should listen to our constituents. I always listen to my constituents, in Strangford. I suggest that others may need to do the same.