A cross-party group of over 100 peers has criticised the “delaying tactics by a small minority” of lords who prevented a vote on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill earlier this year.
In a letter sent to MPs, the lords said it had been “a great disappointment” that they had been unable to complete all the bill’s stages in the last session before the summer recess, in what they described as a “filibuster” that had undermined trust in the process.
“The unprecedented number of amendments tabled, the length of time taken to debate them, and the refusal of opponents to agree a schedule to enable us to get through more than seven of its 53 clauses prevented us from completing our task”, the lords wrote.
“By stalling the Bill in this way, a minority of peers prevented our House fulfilling its proper constitutional function. Our responsibility is to bring our own collective experience and expertise to bear in scrutinising and suggesting revisions to legislation before returning it to the elected chamber. In this case, we failed to do what was rightly expected of us.”
With the bill returning to the House of Commons on Friday for debate on Friday, the lords have urged MPs to send it back to the House of Lords “as quickly as possible”
They wrote: “The Bill being debated on Friday is the same as the one we were sent last year with the addition of amendments accepted by us without a vote. If it is sent back to us again as quickly as possible, as we hope it will be, the Lords will be able to complete the task that we were prevented from finishing earlier this year. It can go through all its stages and be referred to you for a final decision in the normal way.”
A small minority of peers should not be able to decide policy, the Lords said, particularly on an issue which has “very significant public support”.
They concluded: “And the many terminally ill people and their families who are depending on Parliament to pass this long overdue change to the law should not be asked to wait any longer than absolutely necessary for us to come to as decision.”
