Lauren Edwards MP sponsored the bill that was voted down on Friday (Alamy)

3 min read18 min

At the vote following the bill’s second reading, 286 MPs voted to prevent the bill from passing, while 270 voted in favour – a majority of 16 in favour of the ‘no’s.

The bill would have allowed adults with fewer than six months to live to apply to be given help to end their own life, but with certain safeguards in place.

In the debate before the vote, Labour MP Lauren Edwards, the bill’s sponsor, criticised the House of Lords for stalling the previous assisted dying bill by tabling more than 1,200 amendments after it was supported by MPs. 

“Many members would no doubt prefer to be working in their constituencies today,” she said. 

“They are not, because a small number of peers in the other place chose to prevent any votes taking place on the substance of that bill.

“That decision means that one of the most significant national conversations that we have been having as legislators was brought to an abrupt halt. And who suffers detriment as a result? Clearly, the terminally ill and their families, who had a fair assumption that the will of the people they elected to represent them in this chamber would be respected.”

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who brought the previous bill forward during the last parliamentary session, said MPs had a “duty to restart the process”.

The issue has divided MPs, with opponents arguing that the healthcare system is not ready or equipped to deliver assisted dying safely and fairly, and that the government should focus instead on improving palliative care. Many disability rights campaigners were concerned that assisted dying could lead to vulnerable people being at risk of coercion.

Labour MP Patrick Hurley, who opposed the bill, recently wrote in The House that the government’s own new equality impact assessment on the bill highlights concerns about coercion and finds that ethnic minorities are also particularly vulnerable under this legislation.

“The better answer to suffering is to care better,” Hurley wrote.

“Invest in hospices and palliative medicine, support unpaid carers, improve social care, tackle loneliness and protect older and disabled people from abuse. Above all, ensure that nobody approaching the end of life feels that their family would be better off without them.”

However, Labour MP Simon Opher, who is also a doctor who has delivered palliative care, wrote for The House that patients should be given “a choice over the manner of their own death”.

“What we all agree on is that the status quo isn’t working,” he wrote.

“What we have now is choice at the end of life but only for the wealthy. It’s there for those who have £15,000 in the bank. They can travel overseas while others are denied choice. Inequity is at the heart of the status quo.”

The vote on Friday means that the issue is unlikely to be revisited by Parliament before the next general election.

ASTIK

7 min read9 min

Why don’t whips speak in public? Is there, perhaps, a helium leak in their lairs just off Members’ Lobby? It would, after all, hardly help instil fear if when they spoke it was not in a menacing growl but a squeak.

Nonsense of course, but no less silly than some of the myths about them churned out by the Westminster rumour mill that go largely unanswered as whips stick to their omertà.

Now that Andy Burnham has vowed to reform the whipping system as Prime Minister, they are about to find their roles under intense scrutiny. And this time they should answer for themselves – in public.

Keir Starmer’s relationship with the bulk of his MPs went from bad to worse and his successor wants the whips’ office to act as more of an HR department than a disciplinary organisation.

Among his arguments is that he doesn’t believe the whip should be used to punish people on matters of conscience. “I didn’t see that done in the Blair and Brown years,” Andy Burnham told LBC.

A laudable point, but it does beg the question: when were Labour MPs punished on matters of conscience?

Such issues – think abortion reform, the death penalty, or assisted dying – are typically left well alone insofar as whipping is concerned. There was a bit of a commotion earlier this parliament when a Labour MP complained to the office about the issuing of a three-line whip ahead of a division on decriminalising abortion – but the line of the whip refers to attendance, not how MPs are expected to vote. In this instance, backbenchers were issued with a three-line whip to attend, but a free vote on the matter at hand.

This is a subtle difference unknown to some Westminster dwellers – even the odd MP. But can they really be blamed when the institution at hand remains so quiet on how it works, what it does, and why it exists?

Traditionalists shy from the light. The likes of Gyles Brandreth and former chiefs Tim Renton and Simon Hart – all one-time Tory whips who wrote about life in the office – are still persona non grata to certain diehards.

“Chief whips should never write memoirs nor give detailed interviews about their work or their flock,” argued a former Tory chief whip. During his tenure, the ex-chief handled “one coming out, three marriage problems, and other personal difficulties”. But he would rather go to jail for contempt of court than “reveal any secret of the office or what colleagues said”.

This omertà may seem extreme but his argument is simple and compelling: “If Conservative MPs thought that whips would be writing books or giving detailed interviews then no one would talk to us again.”

Such an outcome would be disastrous. The whips’ pastoral support for colleagues has, on occasion, been life-saving. Were top whips of all political colours to publish what they witnessed in the office, “then we could outsell Nadine Dorries, Jilly Cooper, and God knows how many Shades of Grey”, the ex-chief said, “but we don’t and should never do so.”

Undoubtedly, however, the code of silence has waned – 64 politicians who served in the whips’ office spoke to me for my book – with many now happy to rebut untrue rumours and half-truths, all within clearly defined parameters that don’t dwell on the personal.

So much the better. Where once it made sense for the whips to remain aloof, thereby inculcating respect and fear among new arrivals to Westminster, now the fog has partially lifted. It is time for full disinfecting sunshine.

Some would argue that the whips’ office is already scrutinised and held accountable through the leader of the House, who takes questions in the Chamber related to the Commons and legislation. The office also issues statements and context in response to journalists’ queries or reporting.

It’s not completely unheard of, either, for whips to appear in the media. Labour chiefs in particular have typically been more comfortable speaking to journalists.

There is, too, a degree of accountability in Parliament. Whips from rival parties are constantly negotiating in the ‘usual channels’, through which agreements (and disagreements) are hashed out. These lines of communication have long been a key thread of parliamentary life, and there are consequences for skulduggery – over the decades, opposition whips have refused to co-operate in the wake of perceived wrongdoing or double-crosses by the governing party.

“We could outsell Nadine Dorries, Jilly Cooper, and God knows how many Shades of Grey”

Chiefs have even spoken from the despatch box. In 1975, government chief whip Bob Mellish addressed the House after a prank by his legendary deputy Walter Harrison, who asked Labour MPs to vote twice, once in each lobby, while wearing disguises (the Tories, in an attritional opposition measure, had taken to calling divisions but not voting). Mellish defused accusations of cheating (the vote was never going to stand, as there weren’t enough people to constitute a quorum) by saying: “I spend all my time trying to get as many MPs as I can to go in one lobby. I’m overwhelmed at the enthusiasm of those who voted in two.”

A more sombre example came in late March 1979, when Mellish’s successor, Michael Cocks, announced to the Chamber that an unidentified person had been seriously hurt in an explosion on the parliamentary estate. The person in question was Conservative MP Airey Neave, who died from injuries sustained after a car bomb detonated under his Vauxhall Cavalier.

But I believe it’s time to go further, and have more direct scrutiny.

Whips would be better served by occasionally putting up spokespeople for interviews or having the chief whip and other seniors face the equivalent of a whips select committee or departmental questions in the Commons, perhaps once a parliamentary term, or on an ad hoc basis, such as during business questions.

This could be set with limitations. They should not, for example, discuss individuals or private information. Instead, they would speak about the parliamentary process, the government’s approach to particular votes, or broader whipping principles that may have informed the behaviour in question.

Speaking publicly would help the whips push back against misconceptions and clarify their essential role. From ensuring attendance at unheralded bill committees, responding to procedural prompts in the Chamber, to facilitating two-way communication between No 10 and backbenchers, the whips keep the place going. The public deserves to know that, and understand the whips’ core purpose beyond cajoling MPs into the ‘correct’ division lobby.

There’s a second powerful argument – though few traces remain of the brutality of old, the whips are nonetheless recipients of a potent form of political power: information. And where there’s power, there will be the wrong people attracted to it.

No matter how few the wrong ’uns are in comparison to the good, there will always be friction where whips are privy to MPs’ personal lives, while at the same time lobbying them for their votes. Having more accountability would help to neutralise this threat, reassure backbenchers wavering over who to trust, and preserve the ethos of good whipping that predominates.

The whips’ silence is starting to hurt them: reputationally, strategically, politically.

Everyone with an interest in politics knows they’re not the fearsome enforcers of old, and yet misconceptions about ‘issues of conscience’ persist. With pragmatism going out of fashion, a forthright argument for their raison d’etre has never been more urgent. And who better to make the case than the all-knowing actors at the heart of the parliamentary nexus? 

Sebastian Whale is author of The Usual Channels: Inside the Mysterious World of Political Whips

(Alamy)

4 min read7 min

The plans are inspired by European countries like Denmark, where the government uses literature to instruct the public on what steps to take within the first 72 hours.

The Tories say they also want the government to be more honest with the country about threats facing the nation, which could include declassifying information held by the state.

Shadow defence minister David Reed is leading on the party’s national resilience policies.

In an interview with PoliticsHome, the Conservative MP for Exmouth and Exeter East said the coronavirus pandemic had created a public mindset that the state can do everything for them, when, in the event of a national emergency, people will need to take steps themselves, especially in the first hours and days.

“The onus needs to be pushed back onto the citizen to say, if things are coming down the track… you need to start thinking more about yourselves and your families, and start preparing so that you can be more resilient and really start to reinvigorate that idea of being a citizen, contributing, and being part of the community,” Reed said.

“By physically giving something to someone, posting it through their door, what I want to see is the narrative in people’s minds change.”

The government is preparing to launch a public awareness campaign around household resilience later this year, with a spokesperson telling PoliticsHome: “The campaign will bring the UK in line with European countries that run similar campaigns already. We’ll announce further details in due course.”

Last month, the Financial Times reported that people would be encouraged to stockpile emergency supplies, including tinned food and bottled water, as part of the push to help households prepare for hostile state acts, cyber warfare, and extreme weather.

In an interview with Sky News Defence Insider, published on Thursday, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said the UK does “need to have a national conversation about resilience”.

Streeting pointed not just to state-based threats but climate-based disruption, too, and said people should consider practical questions, like “in the event you have a power cut, would you know where you keep your torch? Have you even got matches or candles?”

Last week, the National Audit Office warned that government had not done enough to engage with households and businesses to strengthen resilience to supply chain shocks.

Reed, a former Marine, is concerned that the planned comms campaign will “fall flat” unless it goes as far as giving every household in the country a readiness pamphlet.

A version being drawn up by Conservatives, seen by PoliticsHome, seeks to communicate that, for a short period after a national emergency or major disruption, it will be up to people to take action where the government cannot help. It sets out a three-point household response, based on stockpiling supplies, making a plan and checking on each other, and lists key items to have in an emergency kit.

The European Commission has encouraged citizens to stockpile enough supplies to last for 72 hours to increase readiness, following in the footsteps of Germany and Nordic states.

“If you look at the Danes, if you look at the Dutch, and if you look at some other European countries, they produce a pamphlet, and they deliver it to every single house in the country, and it just goes through really simply in a nice, civilian-digestible way,” Reed said.  

At the same time, the shadow minister said the government should look for non-military figures to communicate the importance of preparedness, especially to young people, and said ministers should “definitely” consider influencers as campaign spokespeople.

The Conservative MP argued that due to the UK having experienced peaceful decades since the mid-20th century, resilience has become “such an abstract concept”, especially for younger generations, “that you can’t even have the conversation at all”.

He referred to the experience of his 84-year-old father, born in 1942 during the Blitz in Plymouth: “That’s the last generation that has any sort of real semblance, that physical idea of border insecurity and things not being right in terms of security”.

“Work does need to be done with the younger generation because they will be helping out. They will have to help out with all these efforts,” Reed stressed. 

He also called for a greater central government focus on resilience, pointing to Denmark, where they have their “own ministry for national resilience and preparedness, and they’ve got a centralised minister that has been able to work with the different departments to be able to have the conversation about what needs to be done, to be able to set targets”.