Our MP on the Assisted Dying Bill committee

Fri 13 Dec 2024, 22:09

People Assemblies? I'm really unhappy with "rush" resulting from basically a Parliamentary "ambush" by a sudden, chance. Winning in a "lottery" for a  MPs right to table a Motion to the House.  This is much, much, too fast, far too rapid a rush to a Parliamentary vote.

Parliamentry Committees are simply just too small a group of people to be able to really get to what should be done!!

You really should look up Peoples Assemblies  to get an idea of their activities and impressive depth of their conclusions and recommendations. I'm really unsure with the issue now going into a Committee, composed of a relative limited handful of MPs who inevitably time-limited by all the multifarious demands upon them. Can they really chew it up with the due diligence it demands?

Impressive was by the process in Ireland (Republic) that Peoples' Assemblies chewed over, with ample time allocated, both in 2015 and 2019. Major, deep, issues for constitutional changes of the first order were extremely effective and fed over with little friction to elected representatives, and brought about Constitutional change.

With a population of just over 5 million, and whatever the demographic number of people who are "adult", voting age etc is,  PAs gave and presented very comprehensive reviews of the issues, and came out with  decisions, recommendations of social issues of grave importance or whatever the correct label should be. (Although in such issues of  immense import, probably youngsters under 18 years should have input and voting rights - I've known many 12 or 14 years who had a much better grasp of things than very many 30-40 years older!

Britains population is now - what? - 66 million now. So I doubt that a single Peoples Assembly would do. The PAs should, probably, be "regional" in some way, i.e a number of them.

So then, how does this process of PAs then feed into the mechanism of Governmental change?

Wed 11 Dec 2024, 20:20

Sean voted against the bill because of his concerns over safeguards, but otherwise is quite open-minded and sees both sides. It's therefore a good idea that he's on the committee where he will be able to participate in tightening any loopholes and so hopefully more likely to vote for the bill next time round. Anyone interested in his views can read his very thoughtful article.

Wed 11 Dec 2024, 19:10

The committee will reflect the balance of views in the House of Commons, so it will have people both for and against. It’s really important to have the voices against because they will be raising all the concerns with the Bill so that there can be as many safeguards as possible.  I heard a women’s group saying that the vast majority of “mercy killing” cases investigated by police where there’s concern about foul play are women killed by men which I suppose shouldn't be a surprise. 

Wed 11 Dec 2024, 18:23

As an anti.... Disappointing.