UK politics live: vote on assisted dying bill impossible to predict, says minister | PoliticsMPs will have a free vote on assisted dying, the government is neutral, and that means cabinet ministers are on different sides of the argument. But when asked about this on LBC this morning, Jess Phillips, the Home Office minister, denied suggestions that this was causing acrimony. She said:
The i has splashed today on the cabinet splits over assisted dying. It says 14 cabinet ministers support the bill, but eight are opposed. More than 20 police forces in England and Wales are sending plainclothes officers into bars to look out for predatory sexual behaviour, Keir Starmer is being told at the meeting in Downing Street he is hosting on spiking this morning. In a statement released in advance, assistant chief constable Samantha Millar, the National Police Chiefs’ Council violence against women and girls strategic programme director, said:
To coincide with the meeting, the British Transport Police says it is relaunching text-to-report number, 61016, which “is now free across all major networks, allowing women to discretely contact British Transport Police for help if they are or someone else is being harassed on the train”. Russia plotting to use AI to enhance cyber-attacks against UK, Pat McFadden will warnRussia and other adversaries of the UK are trying to use artificial intelligence to enhance cyber-attacks against the nation’s infrastructure, Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, will warn at a Nato conference in London later today. Dan Sabbagh has the story. Vote on assisted dying bill impossible to predict, says ministerGood morning. There is plenty happening today. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, and Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, are both speaking at the CBI conference, where the CBI chief executive Rain Newton-Smith is warning about the impact of the budget on business. Keir Starmer is hosting a meeting at Downing Street about plans to protect women from spiking. “My government was elected on a pledge to take back our streets, and we will never achieve this if women and girls do not feel safe at night,” he says. There will be tributes to John Prescott in the Commons this afternoon. But one issue is going to dominate the week, the vote on the assisted dying bill on Friday, and already that is a big topic of discussion. Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, has been giving interviews this morning and she told the Today programme she is finding it impossible to predict if the bill will pass the second reading vote. She said:
Phillips is not the only person finding the vote hard to call. Eleanor Langford from the i has been keeping a tally of how MPs intend to vote and last night she published her figures on social media.
According to Janet Eastham’s story in the Daily Telegraph today, supporters of the bill think it will pass – provided MPs who have said they support it are willing to vote for it.
When MPs last voted on assisted dying, in 2015, the bill was easily defeated by 330 votes to 118. After the election many people assumed that the Labour landslide, and the drastic change in the composition of parliament, meant that there is now a majority for assisted dying. But in recent weeks there have been indications that opponents of the bill are gaining ground, in part because Wes Streeting, the health secretary, and Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary (the two cabinet ministers who would have most responsibility for implementing assisted dying) have come out against it forcefully. In interviews this morning Phillips said she would be voting for assisted dying, as she did in 2015. She also rejected the suggestion that Mahmood’s criticism of the bill could be disregarded because it was motivated by religion (something Charlie Falconer, the former Labour lord chancellor, suggested yesterday). Asked if it was wrong for Mahmood to impose her faith on others, Phillips said:
Here is the agenda for the day. Morning: Keir Starmer hosts a meeting in Downing Streeting on measures to protect women from spiking. 10.05am: Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI chief executive, speaks at the start of the CBI’s annual conference. After 11am: Keir Starmer is due to be interviewed on ITV’s This Morning. 11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing. 1.30pm: Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leaders, speaks at the CBI conference. 1.40pm: Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, speaks at the Nato cyber defence conference. 2.30pm: Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, takes questions in the Commons. 3.30pm: Amanda Pritchard, the NHS England chief executive, and Chris Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care, give evidence to the Commons public acccounts committee about NHS finances. After 3.30pm: MPs are expected to pay tribute to John Prescott in the Commons following his death last week. 4.10pm: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, takes part in a Q&A at the CBI conference. 5pm (UK time): John Healey, the defence secretary, speaks at a press conference with his German, French, Polish and Italian counterparts after they hold a meeting in Berlin. If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word. If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I have still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary. I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog. Source link Posted: 2024-11-25 11:12:04 |
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