Jim Shannon

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I refer hon. Members to the 2019 report produced by the Constitution Committee, “The Legislative Process: The Passage of Bills Through Parliament”, which summarises well the roles each House of Parliament plays. It is instructive when considering this petition. I quote: “The House of Commons usually addresses the policy and politics of bills, while the House of Lords tends to focus more of its scrutiny on the details and technicalities. This characterisation is not universal, but the complementarity of the broad approach of the two Houses is beneficial to the legislative scrutiny process.” Similarly, “Erskine May” part 2, chapter 11, paragraph 11.4, concerning the rights and functions of the House of Lords, says: “The House of Lords, as the unelected Chamber, recognises the primacy of the House of Commons. It does, however, retain substantial powers, particularly over legislation (see Part 4). The House uses its powers to legislate and to scrutinise primary and secondary legislation, to hold the Government to account, to investigate matters of public policy”. My concern is that the petition emphasises the primacy of the Commons—which I wholly agree with—but neglects the function of the House of Lords in scrutinising legislation. Fundamentally, I am deeply troubled by the proposition that any Bill that passes this House, irrespective of its subject matter, should become law regardless of its flaws or the risk it may pose to the vulnerable. This is particularly so in the case of the assisted suicide Bill, which was not a manifesto commitment. The House of Lords is constitutionally entitled to subject proposals to sustained scrutiny, arguably especially on a morally significant subject such as assisted suicide. The assisted suicide Bill was introduced as a private Member’s Bill, but it did not have the rigorous pre-legislative testing that Government Bills benefit from.