In this fifth instalment of our special mini-podcast series, we take you back inside the Public Bill Committee for the latest updates as MPs continue their scrutiny of the assisted dying bill. This week we speak with Kit Malthouse MP, a co-sponsor of the Bill and a key voice in the Committee’s deliberations.
Kit Malthouse, a former Home Office Minister and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Choice at the End of Life, is a strong supporter of the assisted dying bill and a key ally of its sponsor, Kim Leadbeater MP, in the Public Bill Committee.
In this episode, Kit shares his insights on the Committee’s discussion of key amendments this week, as well as the further changes he hopes to propose later in the process.
We explore the challenge of determining how much detail should go on the face of the bill and how much should be left to regulations, the unusual role of Government Ministers in the Committee – speaking as Ministers but voting as MPs – and whether the decision to alter the judicial safeguards is eroding support for the bill.
Kit Malthouse MP
The Rt Hon Kit Malthouse is a member of the House of Commons Committee considering the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill and has been the Conservative MP for North West Hampshire since 2015. He was a Government Minister under Prime Ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Before becoming an MP he had been a councillor on Westminster City Council, a member of the London Assembly and a Deputy Mayor of London. He is Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Choice at the End of Life.
Hansard Society
Parliament
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: Bill documents
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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 hanardsociety.org.uk/pm.
[00:00:17] Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox.
[00:00:24] Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark D'Arcy. And welcome to the latest in our series of special podcasts, tracing the progress of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) bill, the bill that will legalise assisted dying.
[00:00:35] Ruth Fox: And this week we're speaking to Kit Malthouse, a former Home Office and Justice Minister who's sitting on the Public Bill Committee considering this legislation and is also Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for choice at the end of life. He co-sponsored the bill with Kim Leadbeater.
[00:00:56] Mark D'Arcy: Kit Malthouse, first of all, give us a flavor of what it's like on the committee. You've been meeting for several weeks now. There's lots of amendments, lots of quite passionate speeches, lots of routine grind. How's it appeared to you, sitting there as a big supporter of the bill?
[00:01:10] Kit Malthouse MP: Well, it's been pretty intense, if the truth be told. As you, as you say, we've been at it for quite a, a bit now and we're sort of getting still in the early clauses of the bill.
[00:01:21] And it's been intense on a number of levels. I mean, obviously we're talking about an extremely serious subject, a matter of, of life and death and, and humanity and compassion and principle. But also it's intense because it's very legalistic. For those of us who aren't, uh, lawyers, line by line, scrutiny of any bill is quite testing from an intellectual point of view and understanding what can be quite complex interactions between this bill, other bills and between clauses in this bill itself is quite intense and requires a lot of concentration. And of course you will know that the way Parliament presents these things, also takes quite a bit of, of staying on top of. So while we might debate certain amendments, we don't actually get to voting on those amendments until later in the bill.
[00:02:10] And so working out what you are going to be voting on in the future is also part of the challenge. But to be honest with you, it, it's felt to me actually, for all the very obvious differences on the committee, in many ways, quite constructive. I think everybody's motivation is the same, which is to make the bill as safe as possible, although even then I think there are some people who, even if we did accept all their amendments, probably still wouldn't vote for the bill. But at the same time, I think everybody is being very respectful.
[00:02:41] Mark D'Arcy: One of the issues that came up, and it's gone big on social media, is the idea that there should be built into the bill, a requirement that someone seeking assisted dying should have a consultation with a palliative medicine provider to see whether they could, in effect, be made comfortable and not feel that they had to end their life. I think that's the logic behind it. And, uh, the minister, Stephen Kinnock and a number of other people on the committee rejected that proposition. This has led to quite an eruption on social media that the supporters of this bill don't want palliative medicine involved.
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This briefing explains what to watch for during the Second Reading debate of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on 29 November. It outlines the procedural and legislative issues that will come into play: the role of the Chair in managing the debate and how procedures such as the 'closure' and 'reasoned amendments' work. It looks ahead to the Committee and Report stage procedures that will apply if the Bill progresses beyond Second Reading. It also examines the government's responsibilities, such as providing a money resolution for the Bill and preparing an Impact Assessment, while addressing broader concerns about the adequacy of Private Members’ Bill procedures for scrutinising controversial issues.
In this ninth instalment of our special mini-podcast series, we continue to explore the latest developments in the progress of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, often referred to as the assisted dying bill. We are joined by Dr Marie Tidball MP to discuss the amendments she has secured for a Disability Advisory Board and an independent advocate for people with learning disabilities.
