Peers back calls for extra time to debate assisted dying bill

Peers have backed calls for extra time for the House of Lords to debate the assisted dying bill.

The proposal was put forward by supporters, who are increasingly concerned it could run out of time to pass all its parliamentary stages.

However, some opponents argued the bill was unsafe and suggested even more time to debate the legislation could not transform it.

It has been approved by MPs but must also pass the Lords before early May, when the current session of Parliament is expected to end, to become law.

There will now be private negotiations between peers over when and how much extra time should be granted.

Extending debates already scheduled on Fridays is one likely option but sitting later would anger some Jewish peers because the weekly religious Shabbat ceremony begins at sunset.

Peers have already been given 10 extra sessions to debate the legislation but with more than 1,000 amendments proposed there is a risk it will not pass all its parliamentary stages in time.

Supporters of assisted dying have raised concerns that the number of amendments put forward - which experts believe is a record for a bill proposed by a backbench MP - is a delaying tactic aimed at blocking the bill from becoming law.

Opponents insist they are not obstructing the bill but believe significant changes are needed to make it safe and to protect vulnerable people.

The legislation proposes allowing terminally ill adults in England and Wales with fewer than six months to live to apply for an assisted death, subject to certain safeguards.

Lord Falconer, who is leading the bill's passage through the upper chamber, put forward the proposal for extra time to allow peers to consider the legislation.

Speaking during a debate on the motion, which passed without a vote, he warned that if peers failed to reach a conclusion "it would significantly damage the reputation" of the House of Lords.

Former Lord Justice of Appeal Baroness Butler-Sloss also warned the reputation of the House was "at stake"

Supporting the proposals for more time, she told peers: "I don't like the Bill, but we have it, and we have to deal with it."

However, Conservative peer Lord Shinkwin, who has rare brittle bone disease osteogenesis imperfecta, argued that peers had already "been generous with our time".

"We can only ever work with what we have been given, the volume of amendments, and the time taken to consider them, therefore, reflect the quality or lack thereof of the bill that was sent to us," he said.

"If any bill is so poorly drafted and so unsafe, surely the question is not so much whether the bill deserves more time as whether yet more time could transform it."

A source close to peers concerned about the bill said: "Supporters of assisted dying seem determined to keep complaining about the process in the Lords rather than engaging with significant failings in the bill."

They added that the motion was not accompanied by "any acknowledgement of the scale of the problems identified by Lords committees and external experts or of what amendments Lord Falconer is willing to accept to address those problems".

The government's chief whip in the Lords, Lord Kennedy, said he would look to hold "urgent discussions" early next week "to seek to find a way forward to deliver on what the House has just agreed".