Colin Gavaghan

• ‘Capacity and Assisted Dying’, chapter in Cholbi, M. J. (2017), Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Global Views on Choosing to End Life (Santa Barbara, California: Praeger), p. 299.

• Written evidence to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill Public Bill Committee (with Isabella Lewis), 14 February 2025

• ‘Assisted Dying Bill: Why the challenge for MPs is not a lack of information’, University of Bristol Law School blog, 28 November 2024

Hansard Society

• Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: Concerns about the delegated powers

• Assisted dying - The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: Rolling news

• The Assisted Dying Bill: A guide to the Private Member's Bill process

• The Assisted Dying Bill: Making sense of the parliamentary process [Video]

Parliament

• Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: Bill documents

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[00:00:00] Speaker: You are listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard Society production, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk.

[00:00:17] Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox.

[00:00:24] Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark D'Arcy and welcome to the latest in our special series of mini podcasts tracing the progress of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, the bill that aims to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales.

[00:00:37] In a moment we'll be looking at events in a jurisdiction that's had an assisted dying system for three years, New Zealand, and the lessons it might have for the system in this country. But first Ruth, there's been quite a lot of interesting action in the bill committee that's ploughing through the details of the bill at the moment.

[00:00:52] Ruth Fox: Yes, I mean the pace has quickened a bit. Notably, there have been various comments at different stages from Kim Leadbeater and others keeping an eye on the clock, almost, you know, noting that we need to make progress and so on. And I think they have made a little bit more progress than previous weeks.

[00:01:09] They're getting through things a little bit quicker, partly because it does appear as if some of the MPs who are supportive of the bill are making fewer interventions or shorter interventions. possibly to keep things moving along at a quicker pace.

[00:01:22] Mark D'Arcy: And that's a fairly classic kind of thing that happens when time is running short.

[00:01:27] The supporters of a proposition often almost disengage, let the other side make its debating points, but don't fire back at anything like the normal rate, just so that they don't take up time. It's something you often see, for example, in debates in the Commons Chamber on Private Members Bills.

[00:01:44] Ruth Fox: Yeah, I mean, it's important to stress this bill is getting more scrutiny than any recent Private Member's Bill, I can recall. And actually more scrutiny than quite a lot of Government bills, I can recall as well. So when we talk about the pressure of time and running short of time and so on, that has to be set in context. There's nothing that unusual about where we are in terms of the amount of time.

[00:02:04] But there is this pressure, obviously, of needing to meet the Friday of 25th of April to get into the next stage, Report Stage. put the bill back into the Chamber. They're mindful of that.

[00:02:16] Mark D'Arcy: And that might, for example, entail them sitting rather later than usual in the committee. Some very long sittings, 8pm or 9pm finishes to their afternoon sittings, for example.

[00:02:26] Which can get pretty gruelling for members of the committee who can be there, you know, 4, 5, 6 hours.