Progression of Bills through Parliament

Debate between Siân Berry and Tom Rutland

Monday 8th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

Many thanks, Sir Edward, for your firm chairing today, which I now look forward to. I sincerely thank the petitioners, and particularly Sophie Blake for all the work she does and for a very well put petition. I also thank Nathaniel Dye, and I had the genuine honour of meeting him and seeing his work before his death.

I want to add a cross-party voice to the debate. The Greens were not whipped on the issue of assisted dying—we do not whip our Members in any debates—but all four Green MPs voted for this issue of conscience. However, that is not what we are here to debate today; we are here to talk about the process. I was so impressed with it and with the seriousness with which my colleagues and colleagues across the House took this issue. We made our decisions after so much debate and engagement with the Bill text and the amendments, and debates in our offices and with our staff. In our constituencies, we all spoke with constituents from a wide range of different groups. I spoke with young people, disabled people, faith groups, several terminally ill people and people caring for those who were terminally ill. This was serious work.

I was a very new MP when the Bill went through its Second Reading, and I found it so inspiring. It is a sad topic, but I found the debate extraordinary. After all the debate in the House of Commons, which was unwhipped—by any party—and conducted with such seriousness on an issue of conscience, all that work led to a majority for the Bill. We all know what happened next: a refusal by the House of Lords to come to any kind of decision, and the effective blocking of any further consideration of this issue, into which we had all put so much work.

[Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)]

I thank my constituency neighbour for giving way. Many of my constituents have been deeply upset by the way a small number of peers blocked the passage of the assisted dying Bill, despite the broad support from the public and from a majority of MPs every time it was voted on. Does she agree that debate on the Bill, about which there are strongly held, principled views on both sides, is very welcome, but that intentionally filibustering to prevent its passage is unworthy of this Parliament?

[Siân Berry]

I quite agree. It was courageous of the House to take on this issue, consider it and then vote. We put our names to positions that we came to with some courage, I think, because we all knew there were people who felt very strongly the opposite way, whichever way we voted.

On the principle—on this and any other issue where a similar process takes place and the House of Commons has the courage to come to a decision—I agree that it is not for the House of Lords to stop that using these kinds of methods. I agree with the petition writers, who want the Government

“to ensure that when bills are supported by MPs & the public, they have the time to complete all their stages in Parliament.”

That is 114,000-plus signatories, alongside the 69% of people polled this year who believe that the debate on assisted dying should have continued until Parliament reached a conclusion.

I look forward to hearing from the Leader of the House about what can be done so that we can make the important private Members’ Bill process viable again in the future and restore the public’s faith in the health of democracy—I will not beat around the bush—and in the ability of this Parliament to make decisions on issues of such importance to so many of our constituents.