Free vote: Campaigners on both sides gathered outside Parliament on Friday as MPs voted for the first time in favour of legalising assisted dying © Guy Bell / Alamy Live News
The Assisted Dying Bill passed its second reading in Parliament on Friday afternoon, the first time in history a majority of MPs have voted in favour of permitting people to end their own lives. The officially named Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, brought forward by Kim Leadbeater as a private members’ bill has been given a free vote on all sides of the House, and resulted in 330 to 275 MPs voting in favour of passing the Bill at it’s second reading. The Bill is still by no means guaranteed to pass. There is a strong likelihood that the Bill will be amended to introduce tighter restrictions on those it can apply to during its committee and remaining Commons stages, and it has the arduous task of passing through the Lords. 33 active MPs failed to vote (discounting the Speaker, Tellers and Sinn Fein MPs), and it would take just 10% of those who voted in favour to turn against the Bill down the line) so campaigners on both sides will be pressing ahead in the coming weeks and months.
Louise Haigh MP unexpectedly resigned as Transport Secretary on Thursday evening, less than five months into the role after it emerged she plead guilty to a criminal offence in 2013 by telling police, incorrectly, that a work mobile phone had been stolen. In her resignation letter, she said she remained "totally committed" to Labour's project but argued that the “issue will inevitably be a distraction” for the Government and she had made the decision to resign. It has been reported that the Prime Minister knew of her conviction before appointing her to the role; but, as the first Cabinet Minister to be publicly rebuked by the PM since the election, after she encouraged people to boycott P&O Ferries on ITV News in October, rumours of her impending reshuffle have been circling Westminster for weeks. It’s fair to say, no one was expecting her to depart the Government quite like this or so quickly. Heidi Alexander, returning to Parliament at the election after four years as Sadiq Khan’s Deputy Mayor of London for Transport, has been promoted from Justice Minister to the role.
The Government was keen to talk up the latest migration figures released on Thursday, which showed that net migration to the UK in the year to June fell to 728,000. This is 20% reduction on the year before, after figures for the year to June 2023 were revised up by over 160,000 to 906,000. In a speech in Downing Street, the PM argued the UK economy had become “hopelessly reliant on immigration”, accused the Conservative Party of running an “open borders experiment” and pledged to publish a white paper on immigration. Figures also show that when Labour came to office in July, asylum decisions were down over 70% and asylum interviews were down over 80% compared to the start of the year. New Tory leader Kem Badenoch sought to pre-empt the figures by delivering a speech on Wednesday night in which she argued the party had got it wrong on immigration, and committed the Conservatives to introducing a “strict numerical cap” on immigration in government.
The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee is one of only two select committees to return the same chair to the role after the General Election, and has quickly picked up where it left off before the summer, launching inquiries into the BBC World Service, British film and high-end television (a continuation of work from earlier in the year), and sport in local communities and schools.
As one of Parliament’s most prominent committees over the last decade, with its sessions beamed around the world in the aftermath of the phone-hacking scandal, we’ve taken a look at the new-look committee and who will be firing the questions at further potential high-profile witnesses over the next few years. If you would like to receive a full copy of the briefing, please drop us line and we’ll send you a copy.
85% – women globally who have witnessed or experienced online abuse and violence, including harassment, stalking and hateful misogynistic content
728,000 – net migration to the UK in the year to June 2024 – 20% down on the previous year
100,000 – members of Reform UK – now just 30,000 behind the Conservative Party…
147 days – Louise Haigh becomes the second shortest serving Transport Secretary in 20 years (after Anne-Marie Trevelyan who lasted just 7 weeks under Liz Truss)
100% – Members of the Cabinet who are state educated, after Heidi Alexander’s promotion
170 – MPs who requested to speak during the debate on assisted dying today (h/t Politico London Playbook)
378 – number of MPs who still don’t have an office phone number listed on the Parliament website, almost 5 months after the election
92% – bathing waters in England that meet minimum water quality standards
0 – how many years in modern history the Government’s new employment target of 80% has been reached
10% – people who now consider themselves a ‘flexitarian’ according to a Deltapoll survey this week
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves faced some of her critics this week, taking part in a Q&A at the CBI’s Annual Conference, stating that the Government had taken steps to ensure the “public finances are on a firm footing and also our public services are funded in a proper way”, adding that she was “really clear I’m not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes”. Earlier in the day the CEO of the CBI Rain-Newton Smith had said the tax rises in the Budget “must never again be simply done to business”…
But the Prime Minister didn’t repeat this pledge when offered the chance by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch at PMQs, saying he was “not going to write the next five years of Budgets at the Dispatch Box.” Badenoch herself had also addressed the CBI Conference, calling for “lower taxes, less borrowing and healthy, real competition”.
The ‘biggest reforms to employment support in a generation’ were unveiled by the Government this week, with the publication of the ‘Get Britain Working’ White Paper, aimed at achieving an 80% employment rate in the UK. Measures in the White Paper include: delivering a Youth Guarantee so every young person has access to education and training; changing the Jobcentre system into a new National Jobs and Careers Service; and cutting NHS waiting lists and expanding access to mental health support to reduce the number of people off work due to sickness.
Storm Bert wreaked havoc across the UK, with the Environment Secretary Steve Reed holding an emergency meeting with the Chief Executive of the Environment Agency on Monday morning. There was ‘significant river and surface water flooding’ last weekend, especially in the South West, the West Midlands, and the Calder and Weaver Valleys in the North of England.
24 hours is a long time in politics… as proven by then Transport Secretary Louise Haigh on Thursday morning, when she launched the Government’s Integrated Transport Strategy, which seeks to provide more ‘joined-up and locally led transport’ across England. The Strategy looks to replicate the success of the Bee Network in Greater Manchester, Transport for London, and the system in Dijon, France, with a single app that brings together every mode of transport. Over to Heidi Alexander to take this forward…
Reform UK have over 100,000 members, and held a press conference held on Thursday afternoon to announce that it had passed the milestone, as well as revealing that the former Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns had joined the party and would be its candidate for the Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire.
A ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hezbollah, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying that it was “long-overdue” and that it “must be turned into a lasting political solution”. Hezbollah has been given 60 days to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon while Israeli forces must withdraw from the area over the same period.
A General Election is being held in Ireland today, with polls closing at 10pm. A total of 174 seats in the Dail – the Parliament’s lower chamber – are being filled, with Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin all seeking to be the largest party. The last election in 2020 resulted in a power-sharing agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
Following a stormy weekend, the Commons had a busy week considering legislation. Both the Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill and the Tobacco and Vapes Bill had their second readings. Whilst the Government’s main focus was its launch of the Get Britain Working White Paper, Energy Security Secretary Ed Miliband addressed the Commons, reaffirming the UK’s position as a climate leader and reiterating the Government’s commitment to reduce emissions by at least 81% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels. Jessica Morden also introduced her Bill to review and raise awareness of e-scooters through a Ten Minute Rule Motion. Of course, this week’s legislative activity culminated in the much-anticipated second reading of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill…
Over in the House of Lords, progress continued on the Government’s legislative agenda, as the Football Governance Bill had its first day in committee, the Water (Special Measures) Bill reached its third reading, and the Mental Health Bill had its second reading.
Almost three quarters of Brits believe assisted dying should be legal, compared to just 13% who say it shouldn’t, and almost 60% support assisted dying ‘in both principle and practice’, a new well-timed poll from YouGov revealed this week. Published in the week leading up to today’s vote in Parliament, the stats will have appeared in every MP’s inbox this week as campaigners on both side ramped up their efforts ahead of the vote.
Almost 40% of Brits see the EU as the UK’s most important trading partner, over 8 years since the Brexit referendum, according to Ipsos’ latest poll. Interestingly the same figure believe it will remain this way in 5 years’ time. In contrast, 27% of people believe the USA is the UK’s biggest trading partner… but just 23% of people think this will be the case in 5 years’ time.
The headline of stable wealth inequality hides changes in inequalities within age groups so argues a report out this week by the Resolution Foundation that found that whilst the wealth inequality gap between the young and old has widened, a more equal distribution of wealth among older Britons has kept a lid on headline inequality. The report argues that a lot of wealth remains on older households’ balance sheets, and the Government should do more ‘to deal with the present reality of Britain’s unbalanced wealth landscape’.
A perfectly-placed typo or [insert palm face emoji] error always gives us a Friday afternoon giggle… but they’re a particularly good laugh when the mistake is made by the most inappropriate person… so this week’s You’ve Got to Laugh award goes to former Defence Procurement Minister and current Shadow Defence Secretary James Cartlidge MP, who tabled a written question this week asking the Secretary of State ‘what estimate he has made of the cost of repairing the structural damage to HMS Devonshire’. Slight problem – the only recent HMS Devonshire was a fictional Type 23 frigate that sunk in the South China Sea in James Bond’s Tomorrow Never Dies… So we’d hesitate a guess, Shadow Secretary of State, that the cost will be quite high…
