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Sat, 02 Nov 2024 16:33:35 GMT

I don't want to enter the argument about assisted dying on one side or the other, but the debate prompted me to say something about parliamentary procedure in making legislation. I am often a critic of current legislative procedure, but here I want to defend some aspects.

What follows is all basic stuff, not clever philosophical or legal argument. But since many people who do not usually follow Parliament closely will have strong feelings about this Bill, I wanted to explain why they should not fear that it will be treated carelessly by MPs.

Much attention is focused on the 2nd reading of the Bill on 29 November. There have been complaints it still hadn't been printed at the beginning of the month. That concern is not unjustified, though given the resources available to backbenchers the delay is understandable.

But the concern is largely misplaced, in my view. The 2nd reading debate is not the time for simple choices. It is the beginning of the process, not the end, and I am going to argue that the process should be allowed to take its course.

At 2nd reading the House of Commons is asked whether the process of making the law in a particular area should begin. If it agrees, then the Bill is sent to a committee. That committee can take pretty much as long as it wants to examine the Bill from every angle.

If Ms Leadbeater is wise, she will seek to ensure the committee (of around 16 MPs) represents a reasonably broad range of opinion, though there is not much point in including irreconcilable opponents at this stage.

Some may say the Bill is too restrictive, others that the safeguards it includes are insufficient protection for the vulnerable. Those who say it is a slippery slope can have their claims tested. Those who wish to draw on comparative international examples will be able to.

The public will be able to engage with the process in committee. Expert bodies and ordinary people will be able to follow and comment on the arguments and suggest changes, not directly but by seeking to influence the committee in the media and social media and directly.

The committee may amend the text of the Bill in the light of these debates. When it has finished, it returns the Bill to the plenary Chamber where, in due course, the whole Bill can be examined again by the whole House of Commons at the so-called "report stage".

(This stage is less reassuring than the committee because for a bill put forward by a backbencher the time available for debate is very limited, though it could be extended with the co-operation of the government. But if time runs out the Bill will be terminated.)

The almost final stage is 3rd reading. The Bill may have been amended in Committee and on Report. This is when MPs as a whole must decide whether to let it go to the House of Lords to be further examined. It is at this stage that they will make their final choice.

So what I am arguing for is for doubters not to focus too much on the 2nd reading on 29 November. Legislative procedure is designed to let proposed laws be thoroughly examined, and for alternative means of reaching related but distinct ends to be considered.

It allows for breathing room, gives the opportunity to listen to those with different views, enables people to test their own views, and allows those outside Parliament who want to to see the arguments laid out in public and recorded for all who wish to follow them.

Those MPs who are opposed in principle to any form of assisted dying could vote at 2nd reading to stop the Bill before it had even started. But I think there is also a principled argument for allowing the debate to run its full course. They could abstain.

And those MPs who aren't wholly opposed or haven't made their minds up should be ready to allow the debate to continue, and save their final decision for 3rd reading, when the Bill may be very different, and the arguments for and against it will have been fully heard.

So there are many weeks and months before the Commons has to make its final decision, and I think that the more the arguments are exposed and tested the more all those who are affected, directly or indirectly, will feel Parliament has given them a fair hearing.

And don't forget - if the Commons does give the Bill a 3rd reading, it will have to go through all these stages again in the Lords, and then the two Houses will have to agree a single text. There is nothing about this process that is going to be superficial or over-hasty.

Unlike with most laws.

Sat, 02 Nov 2024 15:34:17 GMT

I was researching the notorious Rooker-Wise Amendment, which took me to the Finance Act 1977 (incidentally the year I graduated). The Act revealed that the basic rate of income tax was 34%.

The higher rate kicked in at £6K, which according to the BoE inflation calculator is about £32K in current money (I realise that wage inflation would be more appropriate here but someone cleverer than me will have to do that, but that figure is very close to the current median wage.) The average wage in 1977 was around £3,700. There was a table of steps in the higher rate:

This went: first £1K over £6K, 40%; next £1K, 45%; next £1K, 50%; next £1K, 55%; next £2K, 60%; next £2K, 65%; next £2K, 70%, next £5K, 75%; everything over £21K, 83%. According to the BoE, £21K in 1977 is around £120K now.

Could this, I wondered, go anyway towards explaining why the ratio of CEO pay to average pay in the 1970s was maybe 10-15 times the median wage and is now about 120x? And was the UK in 1977 a better or worse place than now? (I have my own opinion.)

Incidentally, the average house price in 1977 was £12,500 (108K adjusted) and is now about £265K, apparently.

Sun, 27 Oct 2024 16:24:58 GMT

I was researching the notorious Rooker-Wise Amendment, which took me to the Finance Act 1977 (incidentally the year I graduated). The Act revealed that the basic rate of income tax was 34%.

Incidentally, the average house price in 1977 was £12,500 (108K adjusted) and is now about £265K, apparently.