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[00:00:00] Intro: You are listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard Society production, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/PM.

[00:00:16] Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox.

[00:00:23] Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark D'Arcy. And welcome to our first mini pod in a series dedicated to the most controversial law currently before Parliament, the bill to legalise assisted dying.

[00:00:34] Ruth Fox: Yes, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is about to begin detailed scrutiny by a Public Bill Committee and even the preliminaries have been ominously difficult.

[00:00:49] Mark D'Arcy: And Ruth, you actually went along to that first Public Bill Committee sitting, not completely sure whether as a member of the general public you were even going to be allowed in because sometimes these preliminaries are conducted in private session rather than letting us members of the general public in.

[00:01:04] Ruth Fox: Yes, I mean there'd been speculation that it was going to be in private session, but it said on the parliamentary website it was public. I happened to be over there for another meeting earlier in the House of Lords, so I thought well, I'll pop my head in and see what's happening. So I went in and the public gallery was full, so 20-odd people sat at the back, and a very full turnout from the Committee.

[00:01:23] But I think it's fair to say the first skirmishes were somewhat tense.

[00:01:27] Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, I mean, the issue, first of all, dividing the Committee, was whether or not they should discuss the list of witnesses they were going to take in their first few hearings, because they're going to spend three days next week on taking evidence from witnesses, people like the British Medical Association, witnesses from countries where assisted dying has been legalised and they have all sorts of jurisdictions New Zealand, Australia, and the debate there was should they go into private session so that they could say things like oh such and such hasn't responded yet to our inquiries about whether they would give evidence. Or such and such just blathers and we'd rather have someone who's a bit more lucid. Those kind of discussions, which as I say, normally happen in private between the so called Usual Channels The government Whips and the opposition Whips normally agree these things in advance when it's a government bill. But this, of course, is not a government bill.

[00:02:17] Ruth Fox: And I think that was the issue. And that was what I felt reflecting afterwards, that it was very noticeable that it was a little bit chaotic, frankly, it was quite difficult to follow, which we'll come on to in a minute. You did sort of notice the absence of the Whips, the Whips sort of organise and orchestrate and that was missing. And you'd got Kim Leadbeater as the sponsor of the Bill on the one hand and Danny Kruger as the prime opponent on the other.

[00:02:41] Mark D'Arcy: The leader of the opposition on this bill if you like.

[00:02:43] Ruth Fox: Yes, but the two sides are not quite aligned because, yes we know who voted yes on the Second Reading of the Bill, we know who voted no, but we also know that some of the people who voted yes did so with some reservations and there's no guarantee that they're going to vote in the same way at the end of this process. So this isn't two tribal camps drawn up against each other. On the other hand, this is a matter of life and death they're discussing. So it, you know, it injects naturally a degree of high politics and tension.

[00:03:11] Mark D'Arcy: Maybe that's one of the reasons why this first meeting was at least a bit tetchy, if not downright ill tempered.

[00:03:18] It was partly that they didn't have this expertise that the Government and the Opposition Whips have in negotiating these things in advance. They were amateurs, quite reasonably, they were amateurs at doing this kind of stuff. And so the communication lines weren't completely open. And if they'd been a bit more consultation beforehand, maybe it wouldn't have been quite such an ill tempered little session.

[00:03:38] It was quite noticeable, Kim Leadbeater for example, on a couple of points was raising points of order when Danny Kruger was saying, for example, that her bill had been drafted by a pressure group and she was immediately up raising points of order. And if that's what it's going to be like, if this is a harbinger of things to come.

[00:03:54] Ruth Fox: Yeah. It's important for listeners to understand this first session was about dealing with the logistics. So sitting dates, sitting times and as you say the witnesses. And I think it sort of got off to a bad start, as you say if this was a government bill the Usual Channels, the party business managers, would carve it up amongst themselves and it would essentially be a 50 50 split. Government, decide your witnesses. Opposition, decide yours. There'll be a little bit of negotiation and compromise, but ultimately, the two sides will have their own witness lists. That wasn't true here. It was orchestrated by Kim Leadbeater. She'd invited the members of the Committee to submit ideas. She'd had I think she said about a hundred or so that had been proposed.

[00:04:36] Obviously they can't hear from everybody. Not everybody's going to be available on the days that they want them. So there's inevitably got to be some compromise. But there was very much a view on the, the sort of Danny Kruger opposition side of the debate, the 'no's' who don't like this bill, that it was an unbalanced witness list.

[00:04:52] And I think two things got it off to a bad start. Firstly, she. tabled the day before, quite late I think, I understand, a motion that the Committee should sit in private to discuss what's called the sittings motion, which is this motion which lays out, details when they're going to sit and who they're going to hear from.

[00:05:12] And that sitting motion was not made public. It was on a piece of paper in the room. But it wasn't available on the website. I didn't have a copy when I was sat in the back in the public gallery, so it was very difficult to follow what was going on. And the decision about sitting in, in private created a problem because it looked like, and it allowed opponents of the Bill to suggest, that there was something underhand going on, that this was not transparent.

[00:05:39] A lot of people on social media, for example, and some journalists, got the impression that this meant the whole of the Committee, its entirety of its work, was going to be behind closed doors, which of course it wasn't. What she was proposing, not unreasonably in my view, though others may have a different perspective, but she was proposing that they basically went into private session for about an hour or so to discuss the logistics of the witness list. And as somebody who's been invited to a Public Bill Committee, I have to say, if the alternative is you discuss that in public - if myself, my organization, my evidence, my availability were discussed in public view I'm not sure I'd be very happy about that. Because it's not guaranteed that somebody doesn't say something disparaging, or inadvertently rude or whatever it may be.

[00:06:25] And in fact, when they eventually did get round, when they went, they had their private session and then went back into public session, they did end up discussing the witness list unavoidably, and they started to name names. And some of the witnesses who've not been chosen have pointed this out on social media and said, you know, I was basically not selected by the Committee.

[00:06:45] So you can see how there are good arguments in both directions. You maximise transparency, but you're also talking about people and organisations and private matters.

[00:06:57] Mark D'Arcy: And I think one of the points about this is, this is no ordinary Private Member's Bill. First of all, the simple fact of them taking witnesses, it's the first time it's been done with a Private Member's Bill, as opposed to in Bill Committees considering government legislation.

[00:07:08] Ruth Fox: And this is part of the problem, I think in terms of the, there's no direct precedent here.

[00:07:12] Mark D'Arcy: That's one of the reasons, as you say, it's difficult, but secondly, this is much bigger than your average Private Member's Bill. This isn't some humdrum measure to change some small detail of way some organisation operates.

[00:07:25] This is something with absolutely massive public interest. So while the procedural requirements may be fulfilled, I think they really do need to make sure that this is done with maximum possible transparency and the most visible even handedness. And any departure from that simply provides a stick with which the opponents of the bill can beat the proponents of the bill.

[00:07:45] So they've got to be very, very careful to be absolutely above board. Justice must be done and seen to be done is kind of the vibe here.

[00:07:52] Ruth Fox: Yeah. And that ought now to be the measure that applies because all the future evidence. sessions should be in full public view. So, you know, now the logistics we think are probably out of the way. I mean, they've scheduled three days of oral evidence sessions next week. They've got their list of witnesses. They're going to have to amend it next week because they've agreed now to add somebody that they previously opposed.

[00:08:12] Mark D'Arcy: It's the Royal College of Psychiatrists who a lot of people thought should be brought in on the act.

[00:08:17] Yeah. Will now be brought in on the act. So I think maybe they really don't want to be in a position where they think that someone who seems a fairly obvious witness to have isn't on the list. So, badabim, that's in there.

[00:08:28] Ruth Fox: But it's worth exploring why did the Committee initially decide against having the Royal College of Psychiatrists?

[00:08:34] Because, again, the argument has been, among some of the opponents of the Bill, that this was not wanting to hear from people who are going to talk in ways that are not supportive, that they're going to talk to issues around coercion, the Committee doesn't want to hear about these issues and so on. The argument was put by proponents of the Bill that we've got the General Medical Council.

[00:08:55] And interestingly on the witness list, the GMC's not got a named witness, it's simply the organisation, so it's for the organisation to decide who it sends. So the argument was made, well look, they could send somebody from, you know, the relevant organisations within their, their umbrella body that can speak to these issues and we don't want to duplicate.

[00:09:13] Again, not an unreasonable argument, but if you want to go the extra mile, think about the politics of this and how it looks externally, it would have been better, I think, just to have conceded on the day.

[00:09:23] Mark D'Arcy: And this was something that was actually voted on by the Committee. And interestingly, the two Ministers who take part in the Committee, Stephen Kinnock, Health Minister, Sarah Sackman, Justice Minister, both voted.

[00:09:36] And that's interesting because the Government is supposed to be neutral on this, but yet they tipped the scales.

[00:09:43] Ruth Fox: Yeah, so Naz Shah, who, is an experienced Labour MP, an opponent of the Bill, she moved a series of amendments to the sittings motion that Kim Leadbeater had tabled, to try and get these additional witnesses onto the list.

[00:09:57] Most of the amendments were considered 'on the voices', the sort of, the Chairman of the Committee asked, you know, 'ayes', 'noes', and it was done on voices, but on one of the amendments about the Royal College of Psychiatry, they had a formal division. So I was actually locked into the room with the rest of the public, which was interesting!

[00:10:13] They had the formal division and the Ministers voted. And I have to say, I was surprised because you're either neutral or you're not. You can't pick the points at which you're neutral in the process.

[00:10:23] Mark D'Arcy: But they appear to be doing just that.

[00:10:24] Ruth Fox: Yeah, so I think, I think that's interesting. The other thing, just to add, that as a result of the deliberations in the private session that they did have for about an hour, They did agree to amend Kim Leadbeater's list of witnesses to add somebody from the Welsh Parliament, the Senedd, to talk about the devolution issues, and to add somebody from Mencap, because the other criticism was that there wasn't enough representation from bodies dealing with disability matters and how that plays into the Bill.

[00:10:52] So they've agreed to that. So it sort of stood out a little bit more. Why then would you not just concede on the Royal College of Psychiatry? But in any event, 24 hours later, there's clearly been discussions behind the scenes and Kim Leadbeater has agreed they should be added to the witness list, so one assumes next week there's going to have to be an amendment moved to the sittings motion to add them.

[00:11:14] Mark D'Arcy: It's not quite kiss and make up though, because I suspect that this is never going to be one of those collegiate "Parliament is at its best here" kind of moments that you sometimes see. Because the opponents of this Bill are very against it. They're not sort of shrug their shoulders, they don't like that, but we can accept it.

[00:11:32] What they're saying, the opponents, is that this is a Bill that could lead to thousands of people being coerced into an early death and so there's a limit to how collegiate they're going to be prepared to be.. The idea that everybody's just going to be warm and respectful and not play hardball, I think, is for the birds.

[00:11:51] This is going to be a pretty tough Committee, starting, I suspect, with the three days of witness hearings next week.

[00:11:56] Ruth Fox: Yeah, well we had an early indicator of that because Danny Kruger himself disabled a motion listing the dates and the witnesses that they wanted on their side of the argument. So we know full well, you know, what their list would have looked like and we can now compare it to what's been agreed.

[00:12:13] But interestingly, he only had one member of the Committee as a signatory to that motion. All the other members on it were senior, many senior MPs, people like Meg Hillier, people like Julian Smith, former Chief Whip. But they are not members of the Public Bill Committee. They're outside, if you like, this stage of the process.

[00:12:32] So there was some criticism in the Committee about what he'd done, because again, he'd not told people about it. Some of the members said they'd first heard about it from the media. So, you can see there's going to be some maneuverings going on. And as you say, this is going to be hardball, I'm afraid. Just because it's not partisan and party tribal doesn't mean it's not going to be divisive.

[00:12:53] Mark D'Arcy: Some pretty strong dividing lines in the Committee. And watch out for the witness evidence in the coming week. I mean, they're going to kick off with Chris Whitty, a sort of blast from the COVID past there. The Chief Medical Officer, still in office. Will have quite an important role within this legislation because he's the person who has to kind of monitor when things would go wrong with an assisted dying process, amongst many other things.

[00:13:14] And there'll also be the British Medical Association in attendance. The BMA has an interest here because one of the points of debate is whether or not doctors will be able to suggest the option of assisted dying to their patients. And there is some suggestion that there may be a kind of cosmetic concession that Kim Leadbeater's side might make, to say that actually there'd have to be a separate consultation on the option of assisted dying later and doctors couldn't just bring up the subject.

[00:13:42] "Yeah, hang on Mr Jones, we know that this is a terminal diagnosis, do you want to consider assisted dying?" They will be able to say that under the legislation as it stands, but it wouldn't be too much of a concession. to change that. And the opponents of the Bill fear that this may be an opportunity for Kim Leadbeater and her supporters to look reasonable, without conceding very much and be able to point and say "look we have made concessions, we have listened."

[00:14:08] Ruth Fox: Some of the other witnesses they're going to hear from a range of medical professionals, they're going to hear from lawyers, from academics. But interestingly, they are also going to hear from a number of witnesses from overseas jurisdictions where they've got assisted dying provisions. And again, that was quite a bone of contention in the discussion about witnesses because there's America, Australia, New Zealand, and a number of the opponents of the bill said they wanted to hear from people in places like Canada, where there's a feeling that the system of assisted dying has, um, shall we say, had been a slippery slope, that it's expanded beyond what was expected, and there are some quite tricky legal issues to explore there.

[00:14:45] Mark D'Arcy: And there's some arguments about whether or not the legal basis of assisted dying in Canada is so different that it's not relevant to what's being proposed here.

[00:14:53] Ruth Fox: They're going to hear from witnesses, about 40 odd of them next week. Three days, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday next week.

[00:14:59] Mark D'Arcy: So it's going to be  pretty intensive.

[00:15:00] Ruth Fox: Pretty full on, morning and afternoon. Again, that was a bone of contention. Danny Kruger and the opponents of the Bill wanted to have two days and a gap between them, so sit Tuesday and Thursday, so they had a day to prepare and plan for the next session, and then the four sittings rather than three, and have the next two the following week.

[00:15:17] So that was a bone of contention, but, um, they've settled on three. And We understand then, that once they get into the clause by clause scrutiny of the bill, that'll then be sittings on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And again, that has been a subject of debate because Danny Kruger et al wanted to sit on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And to have that gap in between. The Committee has decided, no, they're going to sit Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And the argument against that was apparently that some members will have other business and other commitments that they are signed up for on Wednesdays. And it's going to put pressure on business and so on. And actually Thursdays would be easier in terms of not having clashing select committees and so on. I'm afraid legislation takes priority and they're short to be taking priority over everything else. But again, there are good arguments on both sides.

[00:16:05] Mark D'Arcy: I think one of the interesting things to watch out for when this gets to the witness taking stage is the kind of social media Greek chorus around the Bill.

[00:16:16] All the people who are either big supporters or big opponents shouting very loudly through X or whatever medium they choose, about what's being said and done in the Committee. Because this is just going to ramp things up. We've seen it already, to some extent, in this, in just this early preliminary skirmishing.

[00:16:33] Very loud proponents out there saying, this is gerrymandering, this is disgraceful, this is absurd, the other side's tactics are terrible. That is, I think, inevitably going to feed into the Committee. And unless people exert considerable self control, tempers are going to rise. And it could all get very, very unpleasant.

[00:16:50] Sir Roger Gale, the former acting Deputy Speaker, is a really heavy hitter who's obviously been put in place to ringmaster this process as Chair of the Committee.

[00:16:59] Ruth Fox: He needed it this week.

[00:17:00] Mark D'Arcy: He was already, um, showing his talents for being emollient and keeping things in, in control. That's not going to be the last test he faces.

[00:17:08] Ruth Fox: Yeah, and I, I was very struck that quite a lot of the, sort of, the media and the social media commentary around this made quite big assumptions of, of bad faith on the part of the pros or the antis, depending upon what your position was. Kim Leadbeater was accused a number of times of being a liar. It's just a bit, a bit unpleasant.

[00:17:27] Mark D'Arcy: Some of the media, I mean, there's an article in the Daily Telegraph this morning, uh, the morning we're recording this, calling her the Angel of Death. And I, I do think that kind of language, especially given who Kim Leadbeater is, and who her sister was, I do think that was wildly inappropriate.

[00:17:41] Ruth Fox: Yeah, and we should just explain, particularly for overseas listeners, that reference that, uh, Kim Leadbeater's sister is Jo Cox, who was the Labour MP, who was murdered in her constituency during the EU referendum campaign.

[00:17:53] Mark D'Arcy: In 2016.

[00:17:54] Ruth Fox: Yeah, it's going to be interesting to watch, but I suspect this will not be the end of the tensions. They will flare, particularly once we get into the amendment, uh, process. And people have to start putting their names to changes that they want. And getting those put to a vote.

[00:18:10] Mark D'Arcy: Yeah, and that will be quite an interesting exercise.

[00:18:12] Not least because, if something's been voted down at Committee, it can't then be chosen again and put to the Commons at Report stage. So people have to rather pick what amendments they're willing to press at this point.

[00:18:24] And Ruth, just before we finish this, this mini pod, we should point to the other assisted dying bill event this week, which was the long awaited appearance in the Commons Chamber of the Money Resolution, the resolution which would authorise spending in pursuit of the Bill if it became an Act, which was slightly unusually for a Money Resolution, debated for the full 45 minutes.

[00:18:44] Ruth Fox: Yeah, so normally on a Government Bill, these are programmed, and you'd normally have the money motion immediately after the Second Reading decision. We don't have that with Private Members Bills. So you have the money motion separately and, uh, as a consequence it's debatable for up to 45 minutes, can be amended.

[00:19:00] There was some concern, some speculation, that there might be an attempt by opponents of the Bill to do a bit of an ambush on a Wednesday afternoon and vote against the money motion, which would have meant that the Bill was effectively stopped in its tracks. But I think the opponents of the Bill recognised that doing that kind of procedural manoeuvre would have just looked terrible.

[00:19:18] But again, it raised some important issues that the Government has effectively signed a blank check. "We will provide the money."

[00:19:27] Mark D'Arcy: This will cost whatever it costs, basically.

[00:19:29] Ruth Fox: Yeah, and lots of MPs were asking questions about, well, how much do Ministers think it's going to cost? Is it going to come out of existing departmental budgets, health, justice and so on.

[00:19:39] Mark D'Arcy: Well, what the cost estimate is, kind of implies what you think the kind of caseload is going to be of people requiring assisted dying and therefore both the medication involved and the judicial process that's involved to authorise it.

[00:19:49] Ruth Fox: Yeah. So one of the things that did come out of it, a bit of news is this question about will there be an Impact Assessment?

[00:19:54] Is one being done? Will it appear? And the Minister, Stephen Kinnock, confirmed that yes, an Impact Assessment will be undertaken and they hope to have it available to MPs by Report stage. Now that was expressed in terms of "it is expected" that it will be available. So not a guarantee, but it also means that the Public Bill Committee will not, not have access to it.

[00:20:14] And his answer on the question of, well, how much is this going to cost is, well, it depends upon what form the Bill eventually takes because the nature of the service or the nature of the You know, that will determine the cost. We'll see later on what further information they'll be able to winkle out of Ministers.

[00:20:31] But given that they were voting in the Public Bill Committee, I think it's going to be interesting how they manage their role in this process once it gets back into the Chamber as well.

[00:20:39] Mark D'Arcy: And with that, I think that probably brings to an end our first mini pod on the assisted dying legislation. We'll be back next week with a report on what's been going on in those witness sessions with Chris Whitty and others, and looking at the implications for that and whether it tees up any future manoeuvres, amendments or arguments about the nature of the Bill.

[00:20:59] Ruth Fox: And yeah, if you want, uh, at home to watch what happens at the witness sessions, you can watch it live on Parliament Live TV. You can access that through the Parliament, website. And also, we've got a Hansard Society rolling news page on our website, hansardsociety.org.uk, which is bringing together all the latest developments day by day about the debates, the procedures, the decisions, the key milestones that are shaping this legislation.

[00:21:26] So you can find out all the necessary links you need there, hansardsociety.org.uk.

[00:21:32] Mark D'Arcy: Join us again next week for more on what's happening with the assisted dying bill.

[00:21:36] Ruth Fox: See you then.

[00:21:38] Mark D'Arcy: Bye.

[00:21:40] Intro:  Parliament Matters is produced by the Hansard Society and supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. For more information visit hansardsociety.org.uk/ PM or find us on social media @HansardSociety.