Labour prime minister Keir Starmer believes five hours is sufficient for MPs to debate legislation on assisted suicide—potentially the most significant piece of lawmaking during his time in office.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was put down by a (Labour) backbencher rather than by a minister, leaving less time for deliberation under parliamentary rules, much to the ire of some Labour ministers.
Starmer—who supported legalising assisted suicide in the past but appears now to be pretending not to have made up his mind—could allocate more time to the debate, if he so wished. But to no one’s surprise, he has described five hours as “sufficient.”
Dr. Gordon Macdonald, CEO of the Care Not Killing campaign group, described this stunting of proper debate as
disappointing given the seriousness of the proposed law, which would fundamentally change health care and put pressure on vulnerable terminally ill people to end their lives prematurely, that the debate is being limited to just a few hours.
He told The European Conservative that it is “no wonder many MPs are saying they have not had the time to properly scrutinise the bill and talk to their constituents,” adding:
MPs should reject this dangerous bill and instead focus on fixing the UK’s broken palliative care system and ensuring universal access and funding.
Labour health secretary Wes Streeting has made a similar case, saying that the poor state of British palliative care means new legislation could see people being “coerced” into ending their lives.
Health professionals and church leaders have also criticised the short period of time allocated to the debate in Parliament, which will take place on November 29th.
It is not, after all, as though there is little to discuss. Having scrutinised the bill, Conservative MP Danny Kruger described it as “just as bad as all the other efforts to license doctors to kill patients.” He also noted that “the Bill makes it LEGAL for a doctor to suggest assisted suicide to a patient who hasn’t mentioned it (a common problem in cash-strapped health systems), but ILLEGAL for a doctor to refuse to refer someone for Assisted Suicide if they request it. No neutrality here.”
Those opposed to the legalisation of assisted suicide can only hope that enough MPs follow the example of former Tory minister Alec Shelbrooke—who bashed Starmer’s failure to allocate more time as “shortcutting democracy”—and vote against this bill, having been unable to debate the issue “in full.”
