Assisted dying dead – for now

0:00Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the spectators daily and sometimes twice daily politics podcast. I'm Patrick Gibbons and I'm joined by our Deputy Political Editor James Heal. James earlier today on the pod you were joined by Tim Schitman and Noah Hoffman to look ahead to the assisted dying vote which has now taken place. The bill has been defeated. Order, order. The eyes to the right 270, the nose to the left 286. 286 voting against and 270 voting for it. That was close but not quite a knife edge. What conclusions can we draw? Well look I think we've seen throughout this process this is to dying side, the pro side losing support, the second reading of the, it can lead me to version of this bill passed with majority 55. The third reading went back to the commons passed with majority of 23.

1:00Now it's been defeated, essentially identical bill put forward by Lauren Edwards by majority of 16 and I suppose a number of things are a bit striking to me. One of which is that some most ardent supports of the bill were those new MPs who've now been given jobs in this government and so I think that they had less incentive to push this forward and I think that there was insufficient level of energy to get this side going. One of the things I've been picking up throughout this whole week has been actually the sense of the pro lobby not feeling particularly confident. It was more of a let's give it a go than a kind of sense of we're going to get this through. Like it was in late 24 at least 25 when I was talking to people who were supporting the legislation. The anti side by contrast has been very mobilised. They were quite bullish going into that thinking they could make it really close and yeah they ended up winning and I think that speaks to a quite muddled process at times. I think it speaks to an inability to win over the other side. Sometimes bulldozing when I think there could have been greater safeguards putting from the start and I think it does for some people who've watched the debate will answer the question of was

2:04it better to have a poor bill and try and improve it or simply start from scratch or for instance argue on the principles of Dutinasia and then actually get into the question of what specifics we look like later. You mentioned that the bill was almost identical to the Kim lead beatable. In a ways the fact that this is dragged on has that allowed this to fail because it's given people who were maybe on the fence but swayed earlier in the year it's given them the opportunity actually to change their minds. A few MPs I think change their minds today. Yes certainly and I think that we will see that when we go through the voting lists later and more comprehensive detail there were certainly those switches. We were like Janet Dobby have spoken out George Freeman has written a piece for us to consider it from P talking about why he chose to change mind. I think there was a sense of will the government stand behind this or not it wasn't a government bill it was a prime members bill and I think some people looking at the weight of history looking at would we use the parliament act to do this for the first time when the government wasn't going to be standing behind it technically. I think also the arrival of Andy Byrne clearly changed things in the Labour side. I think there was that sense of where if the PM's not backing it how many given a nod in a wink like last time I'm not going to go out and swing

3:06for it. I think all those factors played a part. As you say Patrick it was a long process. I mean I'm always cynical when it comes to government legislation how quickly the whips are to try and ramp things through because they want people actually looking at the details scrutiny of it. With this one I think there was a sense of the momentum across the wider public debate. I mean Scotland obviously voted to reject having assisted dying earlier this year. There wasn't a sense of weakish inevitability about this bill and the way that maybe the social liberal reforms of the 1960s were there was you know you could say oh this is gay rights for instance a gay marriage was always part of that kind of broader trend. With this I think that there was a sense over time that that kind of progressive argument was failing and then she watched Labour and Peace stand up like they did today. I think they lost that case and I think it was quite striking to me that the most passionate speech day was from Ashley Dalton who has metastasized cancer and she gave a very moving speech talking about her concerns about this legislation and I think that they won a lot of the heads and they won some of the hearts today. You mentioned George Freeman and he's a Tory MP who changed his mind in his statement which he has published on the spectator website.

4:11He hasn't actually changed his mind about the principle of assisted dying but he does take issue as you say the fact that it was done through private members bills so do you think that avenue for supporters of assisted dying who hope that this may change in the future has that avenue gone? I absolutely think that they're going to try again with this and I think that you know we've already had Kim Lebi to be filmed outside Parliament saying it'll come back in another form. Charlie Falkerner has tried a number of times in the upper house with Falkerner. I would suspect he will listen to what's being said and try and work out how to produce another more convincing piece of legislation. Ultimately though as you say Patrick I mean the principle in some ways is more attractive than the practicalities of this. I struggle to see how it's going to pass the remainder of this Parliament. I think it's been quite a bloody experience. I spoke to one whip in the government office a few months ago who sort of had their head in their hands thinking about this whole thing. It's a real mess on everything else the government can pass with their majority. So I think that clearly the question isn't going to go away. We're going to see assisted dying pass in the legislature's across Europe and the rest of the world but I think

5:13overall no one particularly wants to revisit this. There's a lot of anger out there at the Lords for filibuster in its effectively on the third reading in the upper house last time but that anger was insufficient I think to kind of overcome the concerns some people had about this. I agree with you about the idea that assisted dying is probably dead for this particular Parliament but I suppose supporters would worry that with one eye ahead to parliamentary metrics after a next election that actually you could be looking at a very different house. Of course every Parliament is different and you get some Parliament such as the Brexit Parliament 2017-19 which are very frustrating Parliament. This Parliament was the new Parliament if you want to call it that. This was a Parliament of new faces more than half for the new MPs. It's the most atheist Parliament as well. If you look at non-believers in guns so there were some people who said okay they're secular. They don't have a Christian opposition to assisted dying. Let's see this prayer has a good chance of passing and you know to politics just think it would but there are no inevitabilities in politics. Tories should hate the word inevitable. You know how I always hate that word inevitable. This is very rare that you get inevitable things in terms of whether votes are going and clearly in

6:17this case I think in this case they fail to convince enough people and we'll see what the next Parliament looks like. It might be more reform Parliament. Interestingly enough reform will quite spit at the first reading on this. There are some people who reform me think you should my body my choice effectively but also there are those who have concerns about how they're actually working practice and paydative care. Well in a way for the reasons you outlined about the the makeup of the current Parliament it's all more remarkable that it didn't pass today. Yeah quite and I think that does speak to the consideration that MPs put into this. The high risks associated I remember that my old colleague Katie Ball was writing a column in 2024 saying that maybe debatied whether to put it in their manifesto because we know it's the death party and I think there was that sense of there's never going to be a great time for this. The argument for people at Wirstreet who are making was well we need to fix in NHS first but of course measures are less likely to pass at the end of Parliament than they are at the beginning. So I think that it's going to be people who are passionate on other sides are not going to give up this fight but yeah overall it is a huge significant moment and I think it is responsible for a lot of the rebellions that have happened in Parliament MPs learn to whip among themselves

7:17and I think it's quite striking to me that so many of those involved in the World Ferribelian were involved in assisted dying, and I think for the Conservatives there were a lot of happiness at this today. I think that it's been quite telling how united they've been I think 85 percent all thereabouts have been against these assisted dying measures so I think that the people in the Tory Whips office they may not meant this publicly but I suspect they might be raising a glass or two tonight. Well thank you James and thank you for listening to Coffee House shots.