Dame Meg Hillier

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. Before I go on to make some other comments, I want to nail a few myths that have been brought up. There has been some talk of how Government Bill Committees that Members have sat on have been shorter than the private Member’s Bill on assisted dying. That is because Government Bills are timetabled. Guillotines are put in because the usual channels get in touch to limit the debate, and there is always an in-built Government majority on those Committees. It is not unusual for more time to be spent on a Bill that does not have those constraints. It is also worth noting that the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill Committee had a majority built in by the sponsor, so there was very little chance of any change in that. A lot of people voted on Second Reading for change and discussion in Committee, but few changes were made—most of the amendments were made by the sponsor. Bills relating to hunting and equal marriage were supported by Government, whereas assisted dying is not explicitly supported by this Labour Government. If they were to support it, I think there would be a major crisis in the party, as that policy was not in the manifesto and was not discussed in any of our normal policy procedures. It is important to correct what my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) kept saying in his opening speech about there being no votes or opportunities to divide in the Lords. That is because Committee stage in the Lords is not an amending stage and there is no opportunity to vote—the votes happen at a later time. That is just the way that the House of Lords works, and it is really important not to criticise the Lords for following their normal procedures. There was not anything special or different in their approach to the Bill.