by Greg Smith MP, The Critic
Kim Leadbeater can’t even sit through the debate, let alone appreciate the concerns
Kim Leadbeater’s latest email to her parliamentary colleagues regarding her assisted suicide Bill was an interesting read. In the email, she extends an invitation to MPs to meet with her privately to discuss her Bill and any concerns we may have with it. While I appreciate the invitation, the reality is that, to date, she has not demonstrated a willingness to meaningfully engage with fellow MPs who hold genuine concerns about her Bill. The debate during the recent first day of the Bill’s Report Stage demonstrated this very clearly.
The debate represented a necessary opportunity for MPs (the vast majority of whom were not on the Public Bill Committee) to scrutinise her Bill in detail and raise concerns. And yet, while over 90 colleagues had requested to speak, Leadbeater voted to halt the debate on over 60 amendments to her Bill after only 26 MPs (excluding the two front bench speeches) had been able to make largely truncated speeches. The one amendment that did end up being put to a vote was subject to remarkably little debate.
There was also a very peculiar moment when a number of colleagues realised that Leadbeater had disappeared midway through the debate for a considerable period. In the time that she was out of the Chamber, several colleagues made carefully constructed speeches covering just some of the considerable flaws in her Bill. If I had been in their shoes, I would have been somewhat annoyed that the sponsor of the Bill was not even present to listen to the points being made.