Liam Conlon

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for the way he opened this debate, recognising, as we all do, the different perspectives that are held. I also thank the petitioners. When I first wrote to my constituents about the reasons why I voted against the Bill, I said that the debate was not one in which there were two sides, but rather multiple perspectives. Members and our constituents may have one view about the principle of assisted dying and another about the specific Bill that was put before us. Eighteen months on, they may have another view about whether Members in the other place were within their rights to scrutinise it as robustly as they did. It is clear that everybody who engaged in the process has been motivated by a desire to reduce suffering. That was the driving force behind every vote, speech and amendment in both Houses during the time the Bill was before us, and the petition we are now discussing is no exception to that. The primacy of the House of Commons as the elected House is not in doubt, and it is right that there are robust constitutional conventions in place to protect it. But that does not mean that the work of the revising Chamber should be dismissed as illegitimate. To view its role as being little more than a rubber-stamping exercise would be to fail to recognise the value of challenge in our democracy. The overwhelming public interest is not in Parliament doing its work as quickly as possible or without disagreement; it is in ensuring there is strong and workable legislation. The scrutiny of the Bill in both Houses was important and highlighted a number of significant concerns that have still not been resolved.