Update from Alison Bennett MP on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I was back in Parliament today for the start of the Report Stage and Third Reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life Bill).
I voted for the Bill at the Second Reading in November and detail the reasons for my decision here: https://www.midsussexlibdems.org.uk/news/article/alison-bennett-mp-terminally-ill-adults-end-of-life-bill
Today was the first of a number of Friday sessions to debate and vote on this Bill. I attended and listened carefully to speeches from MPs across the House today.
No final vote was taken today and the debate will continue over a number of sessions in the coming weeks. There will be various votes on amendments during these sessions.
Today we considered the rights of medical professionals not to offer assistance to patients under the Act.
The Bill’s Sponsor, Kim Leadbeater, introduced a new clause which tightens the protections under the Act for medical professionals who choose not to offer assistance to patients who wish to exercise their rights under the Act.
As I made clear in November I have always maintained that medical professionals should not be compelled to offer assistance under this legislation and that it should be entirely a matter for their conscience. So I fully support these additional protections. The house unanimously agreed with this clause and it therefore went through without a vote.
There was then a vote on an amendment to this clause which would have meant that when an employer decides not to offer assistance to patients under this Act, their employees would also be prevented from offering assistance while working for that employer.
Because I believe that assisted dying should be treated as a matter of conscience, an employer should not be able to prevent their employees from making a different decision to them. The impact on people working for more than one employer with different views was also not clear.
Consequently I voted against this amendment. The amendment failed so will not be part of Bill that we finally vote on.
We expect the debate to next return to the House on 13th June.
I will provide more updates throughout this process.