Peers urged to be ‘very careful’ before any bids to thwart assisted dying Bill

Peers must be “very careful” before trying to thwart efforts to pass an assisted dying law, a Labour lord has warned.

Lord Dubs said blocking the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would be a “regrettable step”, and Lord Falconer of Thoroton urged his colleagues to “respect the primacy of the Commons”.

But Conservative former minister Lord Swire said peers had “absolutely every right to amend or send it back” if they disagreed with its contents.

MPs have already agreed to back the draft new law by a majority of 23, after it cleared the Commons in June by 314 votes to 291.

It faced its first day of scrutiny in the Lords on Friday, and peers will resume their second reading debate next week.

Lord Dubs said: “The Bill had extensive coverage in the Commons and I think we have to be very careful before we challenge the elected House, which has been through such long processes of debate and consideration of this particular measure.

“It would be a regrettable step if we were actually to block something by procedural means rather than by the principles which are there for us to scrutinise this legislation.”

The peer also said: “I’ve always felt that I cannot deny to others something that I would want for myself, and I would certainly want to avail myself of the Bill if my health had reached the position when I qualified for it.”

Lord Falconer, the Labour former justice secretary who introduced the Bill in the Lords, told his colleagues their “job is not to frustrate, it is to scrutinise”.

He continued: “The decision on whether to change the law in our democracy should be for the elected representatives.

“We should improve where we can, but we should respect the primacy of the Commons.”

He said the debate on the green benches which ended earlier this year “enhanced the reputation of Parliament”, and urged peers to scrutinise the proposal – to make assisted dying available to adults in England and Wales with less than six months to live – “in a manner that will reflect just as well” on the Lords.

Baroness Goldie said she wanted to “reserve the right to vote against the Bill if, or it seems more likely, when, such a vote arises”.

The Conservative former minister said she opposes assisted dying “on principle” and added that “genesis of this Bill is the profound distress which has attended many patients as they approach the end of their lives”.

She said better care for terminally ill patients demanded “a reversal of chronic underfunding over decades of palliative and terminal care, and a restoration to clinicians of their proper clinical discretion and professional obligation to always act in the best interests of their patients without fear of the consequences”.

Lord Swire, who is also a Conservative former minister, described the Bill as a “piece of legislation which raises profound ethical and moral issues”.

He continued: “And therefore we owe it to ourselves and we owe it to the country to spend as much time on a deep dive into many of the issues they raise.”

Lord Swire added: “We have absolutely every right to amend or send it back if we are not happy with what is in it.”

Asked whether she was confident the Bill could become law, Kim Leadbeater told the PA news agency: “I think the Lords are very respectful of the will of the elected chamber, and we’ve had a lot of people say that today.”

The Labour MP for Spen Valley, who steered the Bill through the Commons, added: “I think there will be a significant amount of scrutiny which, again, I’ve always welcomed, but I do remain confident that the will of the public will be respected, as will the will of the elected chamber.

“So I think there’s work to be done, and I look forward to working with colleagues in the Lords as much as I can to support their scrutiny.

“But I do feel that by the end of the parliament, we will have the safest, most robust piece of assisted dying legislation in the world.”