Early evening summary
Britain has a “huge opportunity” to get ahead of other countries in the race for green investment after the election of Donald Trump as US president, Keir Starmer has said. Speaking at the Cop29 conference in Baku in Azerbaijan, Starmer also claimed that the government could reach its new climate target without “telling people how to live their lives”. (See 11.58am.)
Green party says Starmer must do more to cut energy use to meet net zero targets
The Green party has said that, if Keir Starmer wants to achieve his net zero targets, he will need to do more to get people to cut their energy use. Responding to Starmer’s announcement about a new emissions reduction target for 2035, the Green party MP Ellie Chowns said:
The announcement of an 81% cut in emissions by 2035 is welcome – we need to remove fossil fuels from our economy as rapidly as possible.
However, the transition to clean energy needs to be matched by moves on energy reduction. We need a mass home insulation programme and large-scale investment in public transport and active travel. Instead, we have seen Labour downgrade the retrofitting of homes, fail to make solar panels on new builds mandatory, hike bus fares by 50% and offer only loose change for walking and cycling.
Keir Starmer says he will not tell people how to live their lives [see 11.30am and 11.58am], but he can put in place policies to support us to make changes that reduce emissions, cut bills and improve our health and wellbeing. This must involve every government department being laser focused on achieving our climate targets.
Government whips have urged Labour MPs to be careful when using mobile phones near Westminster after “a number” reported having their devices stolen, Tom Scotson reports in a story for PoliticsHome.
'Much more' needed in spending review to ensure 'meaningful' improvement in services by next election, says thinktank
The Institute for Government thinktank has published a report today on what the budget will mean for public services. It welcomes the extra funding they are getting, but it says that more will have to be done at the spending review if people are going to notice a significant improvement in service delivery by the time of the next election.
Here is an extract.
Given the poor state of many services, growing demand and the cost of meeting higher wage bills (including hikes to national insurance contributions and the national living wage), this budget was never going to return public services to full health. But the largely deliverable spending plans it set out should start to address the most serious wounds – for example, with the extra money for prisons and schools’ special educational needs funding.
The government has also made a start on its long-term objectives with a meaningful boost to capital budgets – another area of weakness long identified by the Institute for Government – while other measures will provide some breathing room for ministers to think more radically in the spending review next spring.
There is a lot of potential in the government’s plan to take a mission-led approach to that spending review and in its nascent reform agenda of creating more local and preventative services. While the budget could have done more to make a start on these changes, it is reasonable to save the bulk of this work till the spring. But the pressure to get these reforms right is high: on current plans, spending is due to grow much more slowly beyond 2025/26 and in fact implies substantial cuts to unprotected areas such as local government and criminal justice.
Summing up the report’s verdict, Nick Davies, programme director at the IfG, said:
The outgoing Conservative government left public services in an appalling state and returning them a decent standard will take at least this parliament. The budget should stabilise most services in the short-term and made the first tentative steps on the long road to recovery. Much more will be needed in the spending review from Labour’s reform plans if they are to deliver meaningful improvements by the next election.
Mandelson says he could combine being US ambassador to Washington with being chancellor of Oxford University
Lord Mandelson, the former Labour cabinet minister, is now described as favourite to be the next UK amassador to Washington. He is also down to the final five in the election to be next chancellor of Oxford University.
The two cities are 3,600 miles away from each other, but Mandelson told the Times’s How to Win an Election podcast that he did not think he would have a problem combining both jobs at the same time. He explained:
If by some chance these two things were to happen, they are not, you know, incompatible with each other. And the university has made that clear to me. They’re not incompatible.
Look, if I was in the United States, I would be promoting Oxford as a great, iconic premier university that is revered in the US. And if I was in Oxford as its ceremonial figurehead, I would be helping to bring in the best of American philanthropy. So they’re not incompatible. And I think anyone who thinks for one moment will realise that.
There are few people in British public life who have been as accomplished as Mandelson at accumulating titles and so it is quite possible he will end up with both jobs. William Hague once mocked this trait in a speech when Mandelson was in government. He said:
[Mandelson’s] title now adds up to, “The right honourable the Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham, First Secretary of State, Lord President of the Privy Council and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills”. It would be no surprise to wake up in the morning and find that he had become an archbishop.
Hague may have been ahead of his time. There is now a vacancy for one of those too …
Tim Farron, the former Lib Dem leader, is one of the MPs who has said they will vote against the assisted dying bill. He posted this on social media.
Given that we know that coercive control is something insidious and manipulative and that people often don’t realise they have been victims until years later, the Assisted Dying Bill is an enormous threat to vulnerable people. There are no adequate safeguards here.
More from my colleague Jessica Elgot on the assisted dying bill.
A lot of MPs are also trying to work out the numbers for assisted dying, without committing themselves. Suggests two things to me - a) people trying to work out if they can abstain b) trying to pick the “winning” side.
While MPs are debating the final stages of the House of Lords (hereditary peers) bill, peers are holding a general debate on Lords reform. As my colleague Henry Dyer points out, one chamber is a lot more interested in the topic than the other.
House of Lords is pretty packed for a debate on… House of Lords reform. The Commons is simultaneously debating at committee stage amendments to the government’s bill to abolish hereditary peers, but one house is clearly more interested than the other! pic.twitter.com/7JzhJm3PYa
— Henry Dyer (@Direthoughts) November 12, 2024
SNP calls for hereditary peers bill to be amended to ban political donors from getting peerages
Ellie Reeves, the Cabinet Office minister, has told MPs that amendments tabled to the House of Lords (hereditary peers) bill suggest there is no principled objection in the Commons to the government’s plan to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit in the Lords.
The last Labour government removed most hereditary peers from the Lords, but 92 were allowed to stay as a compromise. Under a peculiar rule, the legislation said that when any of them died, there would be byelctions to replace them, with only peers voting and only hereditary peers able to stand as candidates.
The new bill will abolish this system, and remove the right of the remaining hereditaries (currently 88 in number) to be in the Lords because of their hereditary peerage. Some of them may be offered life peerages.
Opening today’s debate, which will deal with its committee and remaining stages in the Commons, Reeves said:
This bill is a matter of principle. In the 21st century it cannot be right for there to be places in our legislature reserved for those born into certain families.
Having now seen all of the amendments tabled from parties from across the house, it is clear there is no principled objection to the aim of this bill, which is to remove the right of people to sit and make laws in our legislature by virtue of an accident of birth.
Alex Burghart, Reeves’ Tory shadow, said the bill was “an attempt to gerrymander the membership of the House of Lords undercover of a reform”.
Pete Wishart, the SNP’s deputy leader at Westminster, said the bill did not go far enough. He said he hoped there would be a vote on an SNP amendment banning anyone who has donated more than £11,180 to a political party (the threshold at which a donation must be declared) from getting a peerage. He said:
114 years since the Labour party first promised to abolish the House of Lords and the best they can do is this quite frankly embarrassing bill. Unlike the Westminster parties, our position in the SNP is unequivocal – get rid of the House of Lords now.
At the very least Labour MPs must now back my amendment to end peerages being dished out to party donors – this murky practice should have ended with the Cash-for-Honours scandal. The only possible reason Labour MPs could have for not backing this amendment is that they want to keep stuffing the House of Lords with their millionaire donors.
Other SNP amendments, include one saying the Lords should be abolished and another saying peers should have to pay income tax on the daily allowance they receive, were not allowed because they were outside the scope of the bill.
MPs will vote on amdendments to the bill later this afternoon or early this evening.
My colleague Jessica Elgot says MPs are completely in the dark as to how the Commons will vote when Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill gets it second reading a fortnight on Friday.
Talking to a lot of backbench MPs today about assisted dying and absolutely no one I have spoken to has any idea how to vote. Have no idea how this is going to go…
Updated
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, considered plans to introduce road charging in the capital ahead of this year’s mayoral election, according to a report by Jim Waterson on his new London Centric Substack blog. But he says Khan dropped the idea in the face of Tory claims that he was anti-motorist. Waterson says:
The pay-per-mile scheme, known as Next Generation Charging but codenamed internally as “Project Gladys”, was expected to be introduced in September 2026, as a flagship policy of the mayor’s third and final term. In highly confidential internal documents seen by London Centric, TfL’s own modelling set out how the move would lead to a collapse in the number of cars on the roads.
Khan now insists he will never introduce a pay-per-mile scheme. He pulled the plug on the project ahead of his re-election campaign following claims by political opponents that Labour was pursuing a “war on the motorist”. This is despite huge pressure to reach the ambitious green targets he has set himself, which will require a substantial decrease in the number of vehicles on London’s roads.
A reader asks:
@Andrew - does Justin Welby keep his seat in the House of Lords?
It appears that it is very difficult to revoke a peerage, although I’m not sure if the ones given to the clergy are treated any differently.
There are 26 bishops in the House of Lords (including the two archbishops). Unlike other members of the House of Lords, bishops aren’t there for life. Their right to sit in the Lords is tied to being a bishop, and once they retire from that, they are out.
The situation is a different for archbishops because normally they get offered a life peerage when they stand down (just as a few other people with VIP establishment jobs do, like former cabinet secretaries, Met police commissioners and Speakers of the House of Commons). Given the circumstances of Welby’s resignation, he might have to wait a bit for a life peerage, or he might not get one at all. But I suspect it is more likely than not that he will get the customary peerage at some point.
Nandy scraps David Cameron's National Citizen Service programme, as she unveils plan for national youth strategy
National Citizen Service (NCS), a flagship volunteering idea promoted by David Cameron when he became prime minister, is finally being scrapped, Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, has told MPs.
In a statement to parliament, Nandy confirmed the move as part of announcement about developing plans for a new national youth strategy.
Cameron originally proposed national citizen service when he was opposition leader as a modern version of national service – compulsory military service for young people, phased out in the UK in the early 1960s but still a popular concept with rightwing Tories.
Cameron’s version involved teenagers volunteering. Originally he suggested that all young people might take part, in an initiative that was part of his “Big Society” vision and that he hoped would break down class divisions. But when his government did launch the scheme after 2010 it was voluntary.
The government eventually passed legislation making the scheme permanent. But by then Cameron was out of office, and subsequently the scheme had its budget slashed. Nandy told the Commons today that from March next year NCS will be wound down for good.
She told MPs:
In 2011 when the National Citizen Service was established, Facebook and X had only 700 million users. Now they have over three billion. And TikTok had not even been dreamt of.
In 2011 an estimated one in eight 10 to 15 year olds had a probable mental health problem. Now that’s one in five. The world has changed and we need a youth strategy that reflects that.
Nandy also told MPs that the government would be developing a new national youth strategy, and that this would be backed by £85m from government, and a further £100m from the dormant assets scheme.
In a news release, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport says:
The strategy will prioritise delivering better coordinated youth services and policy at a local, regional and national level. It will make sure decision-making moves away from a one-size-fits all approach, handing power back to young people and their communities, and rebuilding a thriving and sustainable sector. This will help deliver on the government’s missions, spreading opportunities, making our streets safer and taking pressure off health services.
To kickstart the process, the government is inviting young people to take part in a series of face-to-face engagements to ensure their perspectives and aspirations are at the heart of decision making. They will then be asked to share their views as part of a ‘Today’s Youth, Tomorrow’s Nation’ conversation on how best to help the next generation of young people …
More than £85m will be allocated in recognition of the urgent need for more youth facilities. This will include £26m of new funding for youth clubs to buy new equipment and undertake much needed renovations via the Better Youth Spaces programme.
The Financial Times is reporting that Sue Gray has decided not to take up the offer of a job at Keir Starmer’s envoy for the regions and nations. In her story Lucy Fisher says:
On Tuesday, her allies told the FT that she has rejected the offer. “Sue has taken a decision not to take the role. She’s going to focus on other things,” one said.
The person added: “She’s taken time to think about it properly, talking to stakeholders, but ultimately she’s decided she doesn’t want to do it.”
In her own story, my colleague Pippa Crerar says the job offer was being withdrawn anyway. She points out that Gray was offered the post almost six weeks ago, but this week was still on the “short break” we were told she was taking when she was dropped as Starmer’s chief of staff (a delay in turning up that would stretch the patience of most employers). Pippa says it looks like Gray jumped before she was pushed.
Has Sue Gray jumped before she is pushed?
Sources told me this morning that Starmer was planning to withdraw his offer of nations & regions envoy - but @LOS_Fisher reporting allies of Gray saying she no longer plans to take it up…
Keir Starmer poised to withdraw Sue Gray job offer
Keir Starmer is planning to withdraw the offer to his former chief of staff Sue Gray of the post of nations and regions envoy amid concerns over what exactly the role would entail, Pippa Crerar reports.
Miliband claims 'the economics' will push Trump in direction of clean energy
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, told the BBC this morning that he thought “the economics” would push Donald Trump in the direction of renewable energy.
Trump’s re-election has been widely seen as a disaster for global efforts to deal with the climate crisis because Trump has described climate change as a “hoax” and he is an unashamed support of more drilling for oil and gas
Asked about how the government would deal with this given its ambitious climate goals, Miliband replied:
It’s our job to work with the duly-elected US president. He has his own views.
I think what’s interesting about this – and you will see what decisions the new administration makes – is that the economics now point in the direction of clean energy.
If you think about lots of the decisions that companies and countries are making, they recognise this is the single biggest job creator of our era, and so people want to be ahead in that race.
So, we will seek to find common ground with Donald Trump, he will make his own decisions about what he wants to do. I obviously want him to stay in the Paris Climate Agreement, but that’s his decision.
In the interview, Miliband was also asked about a post he put on Twitter in 2016 about Trump saying “the idea that we have shared values with a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper beggars belief.”
Miliband replied:
Look, I’ve said things in the past. My job now as a government minister is to work with the new US administration.
I genuinely don’t think that Donald Trump is reading my tweets, I don’t have such a high opinion of myself.
Ministers step in to help run Tower Hamlets council after report criticises 'toxic' culture
Ministers are to partially take over the running of Tower Hamlets council for at least three years after inspectors found the East London local authority had a secretive and “toxic” culture based around its controversial mayor, Lutfur Rahman.
In a written statement, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said it would propose sending “ministerial envoys” to work with the council, and would instruct it to appoint at least two opposition councillors to its advisory board.
Rahman was originally the Labour leader of the council, and then its directly-elected mayor. He was re-elected as an independent but removed from office in 2015 after a specialist court concluded that he was guilty of vote-rigging, buying votes and religious intimidation. He returned in 2022 under the banner of his Aspire party, after a five-year ban from office had lapsed.
After new concerns about the running of the council, inspectors were sent in by the previous government. Today’s statement said they found a series of concerns, including a lack of trust between political parties, and a subsequent churn of top officials, with concerns that many had left “as a result of ‘speaking truth to power”.
They also found limited scrutiny, an internal culture described as “suspicious and defensive” and “toxic”, with key decisions taken by a small group of people around Rahman.
While the council had made some changes, the statement said, the leadership showed a tendency to reject criticism, adding: “On some issues, the inspectors are sceptical of the council’s capability to self-improve.”
Jim McMahon, the local government minister, said he was satisfied the problems were sufficiently serious that he was justified under the Local Government Act to impose a “statutory support pack” for at least three years, with the envoys regularly reporting back.
In its own statement, the council welcomed the plan, saying it was “committed to working with the government on our continuous journey of improvement”.
Starmer says he sees transition to green economy as opportunity to bring good jobs to UK
Q: What is your message for Donald Trump about whether he should stick to the Paris climate agreement?
Starmer ignored the Trump part of the question, but said he wanted to show UK leadership on climate issues at the Cop conference.
He went on:
I see this not just as a global challenge, but a global opportunity.
If you look at where global investors are investing, they are investing in renewables, and everybody knows there’s a transition, an energy transition.
These things happen quite rarely, once in a generation usually, perhaps a little bit longer than that, where there’s a global transition on energy.
And the lesson from history is to go into that transition with a clear plan for a just outcome, but also to take advantage of being a first mover in that. And that’s what I want us to be.
There’s a race on for the next generation of jobs. They’re good, well paid jobs. Other countries are in that race. I want to be in it, and I want to win it for the UK, because that will be measured in jobs, well paid, good, secure jobs in the UK for many years to come.
Q: [From the Daily Mirror] Would you support banning private flights for personal use?
Starmer said he is not going to tell people how to behave. But he said there were measures in the budget affecting private jets.
Q: [From Hugo Gye at the i] What is your message to Donald Trump about Ukraine?
Starmer said he was not going to start “sending messages to the president-elect”. But he said he was happy to state his own position “because it’s been my position since the very start, which is that we strongly support Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression”.
He said his discussions with other leaders in recent weeks have focused on putting Ukraine in the “best possible, strongest position” going forward.
Updated
Starmer claims government can reach new carbon target without people's everyday lives being disrupted
Q: [From the Times] Is it really realistic to think you can hit your new carbon target without any change to how people live their everyday lives?
Starmer said this was realistic. He replied:
Yes, of course it is. And the target is my target, and the plan is my plan. I’m not borrowing from somebody else’s plan.
I don’t think that as we tackle this really important issue, the way to do it is to tell people how to run their lives and instruct them how to behave. I’m not going to do that.
I made a commitment before the election and shortly after the election that we’d be a government that trod lightly on people’s lives and I’m not going to now go around telling people how to live their lives.
I do think that the single most important milestone in hitting the target we’ve set out today is clean power 2030 which I know is tough … I’m absolutely sure we can do it.
Updated
Starmer disowns former Blair aide for saying government should treat farmers as Thatcher treated miners
Q: [From Christopher Hope at GB News] In relation to the controversy about the plan to subject farms to inheritance tax, John McTernan, a former adviser to Tony Blair, has said that farming is an industry the UK does not need and that the government should treat them as Margaret Thatcher treater the miners. Do you agree?
Starmer said he totally disagreed.
I totally disagree. I’m absolutely committed to supporting our farmers. I said that before the election, and I say it after the election. That is why, in our budget last week, I was very pleased that we’re investing £5bn of our budget over the next two years into farming … I think it’s essential that [farmers] not only prosper, but prosper well into the future. So I totally disagree with those comments.
Starmer declines opportunity to show support for Welby, saying his future matter for church and abuse case 'horrific'
Q: Do you think Justin Welby should resign? And do you think people should face consequences if they do not report possible criminality to the police?
Starmer says this is a matter for the church, but he says these are “horrific” allegations. His thoughts are with the victims, he says. For a second time, he says the allegations are horrific.
I’m not going to shy away from the fact that saying these are horrific allegations and that my thoughts are with the victims in relation to it.
He does not express any support for Welby.
UPDATE: Starmer said:
Let me be clear: of what I know of the allegations, they are clearly horrific in relation to this particular case, both in their scale and their content.
My thoughts, as they are in all of these issues, are with the victims here who have obviously been failed very, very badly.
It’s a matter, in the end, for the church, but I’m not going to shy away from the fact of saying that these are horrific allegations and that my thoughts are with the victims in relation to it.
Updated
Starmer says he will not be 'putting pressure' on MPs on way or another on assisted dying vote
Q: How will you vote on assisted dying?
Starmer says he will not be putting pressure on Labour MPs. He says he wants to study the detail of the bill, but safeguards are important to him.
When I was chief prosecutor, I was involved in drawing up guidelines. We had a massive consultation exercise, and I saw first-hand the depth of the strength of the arguments on both sides. That is why this will be a free vote.
And it will be a free vote where every MP can decide for themselves what position they want to take on the bill, and I will not be putting pressure on any MP to vote one way or the other.
I personally will study the details of the bill, which has now been published today, because safeguards have always been extremely important to me and were an essential part of the guidance that I myself drew up when I was chief prosecutor.
Starmer says government won't be 'telling people how to live their lives' as part of drive to achieve climate goals
Starmer is now taking questions.
Q: [From Alex Forsyth at the BBC] How will you achieve this? What will it mean for people?
Starmer says:
We’ve set out the target, which is an important, ambitious target.
What we’re not going to do is start telling people how to live their lives. We’re not going to start dictating to people what they do.
Updated
Starmer says the UK has sent a clear message at this Cop.
We are delivering on our promise for good jobs, cheaper bills and higher growth. We are backing UK energy and security on the world stage.
We are a key partner for countries, for investors and for businesses, and we are renewing the UK’s climate leadership to deliver for Britain.
Starmer confirms that the UK is now committed to a new green goal – cutting emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035.
Keir Starmer says, without climate security, there's no national security or economic security
Keir Starmer is holding a press conference at the Cop29 conference in Baku.
He says there can be no national security, no economic security, and no global security, without climate security.
He says the government has made a rapid start on measures to achieve its goal of decarbonising electricity supply by 2030.
The race is on for the clean energy jobs of the future, he says. And he says he wants the UK to be “ahead of the game”.
Leadbeater says MPs who abstain not being neutral, because they're saying 'status quo is OK' when it's not
Prinsley intervenes with a final point. He says he is telling MPs that abstaining is not a neutral act. People should came and vote, he says.
Leadbeater agrees. She says abstaining would imply the status quo is OK.
If you abstain, you are saying that the status quo is OK, and hopefully this moment has proved that it’s not OK.
And that’s the end of the press conference.
Leadbeater says people with a disability who are not terminally ill are not covered by the bill. She says it is devastating to hear disabled people say they are treated as second class citizens. She says she supports the rights of disabled people. But those rights should not be protected at the expense of the rights of the terminally ill.
Leadbeater says, if the bill passes its second reading on 29 November, there will be a “robust process” afterwards. She says it will have to go through a bill committee, and then there wil be a further debate in the chamber before it goes to the Lords. Asked if the bill can be talked out, she says she could use a closure motion to stop this happening.
We are getting towards the end, and rushing through final questions now.
In response to a question about people dying early, Leadbeater says having the assisted dying option available means that people might put off dying for longer than they do now.
Q: Have you got enough MPs supporting you to win?
Leadbeater says the debate has begun. People are taking this very seriously. Some MPs are undecided. But now they have the bill.
Malthouse says there has been “a big shift” since 2015, when an assisted dying bill was defeated by 330 votes 118.
Prinsley says his impression is that older MPs are more inclined to vote for the bill, and younger MPs less so. So, he says, he is less confident about this passing than he was when the debate started.
Leadbeater agrees. She says she thinks people who have had experience of a relative going through a painful death are more likely to be in favour.
Malthouse intervenes. He goes back to the question about doctors charging, and he says there are three places in the bill where it says they cannot benefit from this.
They would have to offer this service as part of their palliative care offer, he says.
Updated
Q: Would it just be family courts dealing with this? And what would this do for court capacity?
Falconer says these applications will not take a long time.
These cases would take precedent. But he says they would not have a significant impact on delays in family courts, he says.
Falconer says any attempt to challenge bill on ECHR grounds would be 'doomed'
Hill says the bill is very clear that this bill would only apply to the terminally ill. A judge would not be able to apply the provisions to anyone else.
Falconer says a lawyer could argue that this law is discriminatory, on the grounds that it discriminates between the terminally ill and other people.
But a legal case like this would have “no prospect of success”, because the courts in Europe have said repeatedly that assisted dying is not a right provided by the European court of human rights. He says the courts have always treated this as a matter for national parliaments.
So any legal challenge on ECHR grounds would be “doomed”, he says.
UPDATE: This article by the lawyers Anurag Deb and Lewis Graham, on the UK Human Rights Blog, backs up what Falconer was saying at greater length.
Updated
Q: How much would doctors charge for approving assisted dying requests?
Leadbeater says there would be no obligation on doctors to get involved.
On costs, she says the bill says there should be no financial gain for anyone from this.
Q: The Western Australian numbers imply the number of people using the law in the UK would be in the thousands every year, not in the hundreds.
Talbot says in Western Australia practitioner-administration is allowed, and that is used in 80% of cases. She says the UK bill would just allow self-administration. That is why the numbers are likely to be lower.
Peter Prinsley, a Labour MP elected at the election who is also a doctor, is speaking now. He was meant to be on the panel, but did not speak at the state. Leadbeater invites him to contribute now.
Prinsley says, as a young doctor, he was opposed to assisted dying. Now he is in favour, he says.
He says he does not expect a large number of people to use the new law.
On palliative care, he says it should be as good as possible. It should be a core NHS service, and not something just delivered by charities.
But even people with the best palliative care sometimes regard that as “insufficient”.
Falconer says the courts are experienced at dealing with capacity issues (ie, does a person have the capacity to decide what should happen to them). But the NHS is experienced at dealing with capacity considerations too.
Leadbeater says she expects number of people using assisted dying to be in 'hundreds' per year
The panel are now taking questions.
Q: How many people do you expect to use this law?
Leadbeater says most evidence from around the world suggests between 0.5% and 3% of deaths would be covered.
Initially the numbers would be in the hundreds, she says.
Falconer says different numbers apply in different countries. But the numbers would grow, he says.
Leadbeater refers to the figures quoted early showing that, in Western Australia, less than half of the people who registered did not use the right. (See 10.23am.) But having that permission gave them reassurance, she says.
Q: Would the court hearings be in public?
Hill says the bill shows that there would have to be a “substantive consideration”. That means the legal process would not just be a tick box exercise.
He says how the hearings operate is something that would be decided at a later point. But the bill does not say they have to take place in private, he says.
Former DPP Max Hill says parliament should pass new law because current situation leaves vulnerable 'in pitiable situation'
Max Hill, the former director of public prosecutions, is speaking now. He says the law has not changed since the Suicide Act of 1961.
At present there is a “two-gear system”. People with money can go to Dignitas. But if a relative even just buys them a ticket, they are committing a criminal offence.
He says judges have not been able to change the law; there are limits on what they can do. And the CPS cannot properly address this either, he says, because it cannot say for certain that it won’t prosecute some cases.
Under the current system, all the scrutiny happens after someone has died.
He says it is time for parliament to look at this again, and pass a better law.
After a death does happen, a grieving relative is left in limbo for 15, 15, 18 months, not knowing if they will be prosecuted for booking that ticket to Dignitas, or leaving the pills by the bedside.
That shows the law at the moment “provides no safeguards … and leads the vulnerable in pitiable situation”.
Hill says the Leadbeater bill “has safeguards all over it”.
Sally Talbot, an Australian MP and a doctor, is speaking next. She says Western Australia has had an assisted dying law since July 2021.
She says she has been following the debate in the UK closely, and in many ways the debates are identical.
In Western Australia, as in the UK, there were convincing arguments that the system was broken and the law needed to change.
But in Western Australia, as here, there were also reservations. And people worried what might happen to palliative care.
She says in Australia the latest report on the law has just come out. It says that 1,851 in Western Australia have requested an assisted death since the law came in, and 738 have died by chosing an assisted death.
She says the law was decriminalised. “Remember, it happens now, but we have decriminalised it,” she says.
The law treats this as a rational decision to end suffering.
Western Australia was the second state in the country to legislate for this. All the others have legislated now, she says.
She says there are two points where the Australian legislation is similar to Leadbeater’s.
First, the law says you must have a terminal illness.
And, second, to be eligible, you must have an enduring capacity to consent at every stage of the process.
She says these two principles are the “bedroock safeguards”. They are in the Western Australian legislation, and in Leadbeater’s too.
She says when they were taking evidence in her state, they did her evidence of coercion. But it was coercion from relatives who were trying to persuade terminally ill people not to die because they wanted an extra week with them.
Leadbeater introduces the next speaker, Nat Dye, who has terminal cancer. She says she thinks his views are the most important for people to hear at this press conference.
He says he has known “positive” experiences of death. His fiance and his mother both had relatively peaceful deaths. He says palliative care can work for some people.
But he says he is “hoping for the best but preparing for the worst”. This bill would allow him to avoid the worst-case scenario of a bad death.
He is not afraid of dying, he says. He says his loved ones will have to live with the manner of his death for the rest of their lives.
He can imagine a situation where he might never get out of bed again. Talk about the end of the tunnel? The tunnel is blocked up, he says.
Even with the best palliative care, people can suffer painful deaths.
He says he sees this bill as being about allowing him to perform “one last act of kindness” to his family, and to himself too.
He says he cannot imagine anyone wanting to end their life because they think they are a burden. For him, choosing to end his life would be an act of kindness.
UPDATE: Dye said:
Imagine I am dying and palliative care hasn’t improved. Well, I have no choice whatsoever: I die in pain or I die in pain.
I see this as a chance just to act with kindness and a choice for people at their darkest hour.
I am not a doctor, I am not a lawyer, but I would just implore MPs and peers to really carefully consider these safeguards because I think it is the best phrase I have got: my very death depends on it.
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The Conservative MP Kit Malthouse is speaking now. Leadbeater introduces him as evidence that her campaign is cross-party. Malthouse says he has been in favour of assisted dying legislation for a long time. He says it is harrowing to hear from people whose relatives have wanted to end their lives in harrowing circumstances.
Assisted dying bill has 'best and most robust safeguards in world' for law like this, says Charlie Falconer
Charlie Falconer, the former Labour lord chancellor, is speaking now. He says the law is “completely broken”. The law says people can be jailed for 14 years for helping people to die, but the CPS will not prosecute people motivated by compassion.
He says Leadbeater has described the bill as having “the best and most robust safeguards in the world” for a law like this, and she is right.
Kim Leadbeater is speaking now. She says after she came top in the ballot for private member’s bill she suddenly became “the most popular person in the world”. Many groups wanted her to take up a bill.
She says she has consulted very widely on the bill, with the BMA, the archbishop of Canterbury, disability rights activists, medics and lawyers.
The current law is not fit for practice, she says. People who do want to end their lives have to travel abroad, and often do so prematurely.
She says, however good palliative care is, some people still face a harrowing death.
And, when you meet people who have had that experience in their families, you realise “the status quo cannot go on”, she says.
She urges reporters to speak to families in this situation.
Kim Leadbeater holds briefing on her assisted dying bill
The Kim Leadbeater briefing is taking place in an MP’s room in the Commons. There are about a dozen or more journalists here, and almost as many people due to speak. Half the journos have ended up sitting on the floor. We are just starting now.
The Conservative MP Danny Kruger has posted a lengthy thread on social media explaining why he is opposed to the assisted dying bill. Here are some of his posts.
The Bill tries and fails to restrict itself to the extreme cases. But anyone who can find two doctors to confirm they’re within 6 months of death - and a judge to confirm they’re making their own decision - can qualify.
(Actually it’s not even ‘doctors’ but ‘medical practitioners’, the definition of which will specified at a later date - so a nurse or pharmacist, I guess.)
You need to be registered with the first ‘practitioner’ for 12 months before they can give the green light. If the second one you pick doesn’t agree to sign your form, you can shop around for another one.
And if they don’t agree either, I think - it’s not clear - you can start the whole process again, and repeat till you get your wish.
So it’s death on demand, if a little slow and bureaucratic (for now - till the activists persuade Parliament to speed it up and simplify it on compassionate grounds).
And by the way you don’t have to do all this yourself. A ‘proxy’ - someone you’ve known for 2 years, or someone ‘of good standing in the community’ (the Neighbourhood Assisted Death Advisor, perhaps) - can do all the paperwork for you.
Stephen Flynn says he will stand for seat in Scottish parliament at next Holyrood elections
Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader, has submitted an application to stand for the party at the next Scottish parliament election but, if elected, also plans to remain an MP, PA Media reports.
Writing in the Press and Journal newspaper, Flynn said he hopes to be joined by current and former colleagues at Westminster in aiming to become an MSP at the 2026 election. He said that, if elected, he plans to remain the MP for Aberdeen South until the next general election but would not take two salaries.
He wrote:
I’m chucking my bonnet in the ring. I will be seeking my party’s nomination to be their candidate for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine at the 2026 Scottish Parliament election.
Why? Well, it’s simple really. I don’t want to sit out the upcoming battles that our city, shire and country face in Holyrood …
In my mind, it is clear that we are at a crucial junction in our nation’s story.
As John Swinney rebuilds the SNP and refocuses his government, I feel that I can contribute towards the next chapter and help build the case for independence.
And, in doing so, I’ll aim to be as unashamed as always in putting Aberdeen and Scotland first.
Flynn has been tipped as a future SNP leader, but in practice to run for that post he would need to be sitting as an MSP, not an MP.
Kim Leadbeater’s terminally ill adults (end of life) bill would apply in England and Wales. Here is an article by Harriet Sherwood explaining what it would do.
In Scotland the Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur has tabled a bill to allow assisted dying, but the Scottish government has said that the Scottish parliament cannot pass it because laws relating to lethal drugs are reserved to Westminster.
In Northern Ireland the DUP is strongly opposed to assisted dying, but Sinn Féin and the SDLP are sympathetic to changing the law to allow it.
UK unemployment rises as pay growth slows
The UK’s jobs market has shown further signs of cooling after a rise in unemployment in September while pay growth slowed, Richard Partington reports.
Starmer says Labour MPs must decide for themselves on assisted dying, refusing to say how he will vote
Good morning. Parliament passes important laws (as well as some rather tedious ones), but normally the process is predictable because the government is in charge and most of what it does foreshadowed in a manifesto. Once a minister says ‘X will become law’, usually it does.
But assisted dying is different because the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater is trying to change the bill through the private member’s bill process, MPs will have a free vote and no one really has much of a clue as to what will happen. The main uncertainty is whether or not MPs will vote to give the bill a second reading when it is debated, on Friday 29 November. But even if it passes at second reading, given the jeopardy inherent in the private member’s bill process, it could still be touch and go whether it becomes law.
Leadbeater published her bill last night, and she is holding a briefing about it this morning. Here is our overnight story by Jessica Elgot, Harriet Sherwood and Kiran Stacey.
Even though Labour MPs will have a free vote, the views of ministers, and the prime minister, will still be influential. Keir Starmer voted in favour of assisted dying when the Commons last debated a bill (in 2015 – it was defeated by 33o votes to 118) and, when asked about this issue before the election, he always implied that, provided the safeguards were adequate, he would vote in favour again.
When he was director of public prosecutions in 2010, with parliament refusing to change the law and the CPS under pressure to prosecute people who had clearly helped terminally ill relatives to die out of kindness, not malice, Starmer issued new guidance on what might have to happen for the CPS to decide prosecution was not in the public interest. This did not change the law, but it was a bold move by a DPP clearly frustrated at the way the law was operating.
Now the bill is out, and Starmer can exame the safeguards, which are not trivial. But he still has not said definitely that he will vote for the bill. Speaking to reporters travelling with him at the Cop29 summit, he said Labour MPs would have to make up their own minds. He said:
Look, it’s going to be a free vote and I mean that. It will be for every MP to decide for themselves how they want to vote.
I’m not going to be putting any pressure whatsoever on Labour MPs. They will make their own mind up, as I will be.
Obviously a lot will depend on the detail and we need to get the balance right but I’ve always argued there will need to be proper safeguards in place.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: Kim Leadbeater holds a press briefing about her assisted dying bill. Charlie Falconer, the former lord chancellor who has introduced similar legislation in the the Lords, and Sir Max Hill, the former director of public prosecutions and another supporter of the bill, are also attending.
11am (UK time): Keir Starmer is due to hold a press conference in Baku in Azerbaijan, where he is attending the Cop29 summit. Later he is due to give a speech confirming the government’s new target to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035.
After 12.30pm: MPs debate the remaining stages of the House of Lords (hereditary peers) bill.
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