A well scrutinized bill

The End of Life Choice Bill has now had all four parts gone through Committee of Whole House stage and all that is remaining before third reading is committee stage for the preliminary clauses and schedules. This will include consideration of the amendment to have a referendum.

The committee stage has been more extensive than most comparable bills. I don’t think you can claim it has been rushed.

In the four sessions to date, the House (as a committee) has spent 28 hours debating and voting on the details of the bill.

There have been a total of 111 speeches during the committee stage from 39 different MPs.

David Seymour has spoken the most on the bill (as expected as sponsor), doing 11 speeches during committee stage.

Other multiple contributions have been:

• Simon O’Connor 10 times
• Melissa Lee and Alfred Ngaro seven times
• Chris Penk and Louisa Wall six times
• Maggie Barry, Simeon Brown Paula Garcia and Nick Smith five times

It is right and appropriate that such an important law change gets extensive scrutiny. This is on top of the select committee process of course.

So the committee stage should conclude at the next members’ day on Wed 23 October and then probably a third reading on the 13th of November.