Keir Starmer open to making government time available for private member’s bill to allow assisted dying – UK politics live | Politics

Derek Draper, the former political adviser and lobbyist who became a therapist, has died at the age of 56. The news was announced by his wife, the Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway.

Draper had been extremely ill ever since getting Covid after the pandemic struck. Although he was best known in recent years because of his marriage to Garraway, who cared for him through his debilitating illness, in the political world he first became prominent as a New Labour spin doctor, working for Peter Mandelson before the party won the 1997 election.

Subsequently he was embroiled in one of the party’s first lobbying scandals. At that stage he was a lobbyist, and he was caught boasting: “There are 17 people who count in this government, and to say I am intimate with all of them is the understatement of the century.”

Like his former boss, Draper staged a comeback as a political operative – only to resign from another post in 2009, after being linked to the Damian McBride smear scandal.

In a post on Instagram Garraway said:

I’m sad to have to tell you all that my darling husband Derek has passed away.

As some of you may know he has been critically ill following a cardiac arrest in early December which, because of the damage inflicted by Covid in March 2020, led to further complications.

Derek was surrounded by his family in his final days and I was by his side holding his hand throughout the last long hours and when he passed.

I have so much more to say, and of course I will do so in due course, but for now I just want to thank all the medical teams who fought so hard to save him and to make his final moments as comfortable and dignified as possible.

Sending so much love and thanks to all of you who have so generously given our family so much support. Rest gently and peacefully now Derek, my love, I was so lucky to have you in my life.

A reader asks:

Genuine question. Why would a bill for assisted dying need to be a private member’s bill? Surely the government of the day can table it and then allow a free vote anyway?

That’s a good question. In practice, there is no reason why the government shouldn’t make it a government bill – subject to a free vote. In some respects that would be preferable because government departments are more inclined to work on government bills (although in practice they do help out with private members’ bills, when they are on matters that have government support) and this is an area where you would want to be sure the legislation was legally robust. That means you would want it drafted by parliamentary counsel, the lawyers who write government bills, not some random backbencher.

But Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have both said recently any change on assisted dying should be via a private member’s bill. And that is what leaders normally say on proposals to change the law on “conscience matters” – matters traditionally subject to a free vote, normally because they involve moral choices problematic for some religious groups.

Partly they are saying this because, generally, this is what always happens. “This is the way we have always done it” is a surprisingly powerful argument in Westminster politics – despite, rationally, being a very bad one. The landmark liberal changes introduced by the Wilson government in the late 1960s – legalisation of abortion, divorce reform, partial legalisation of homosexuality etc – were private members’ bills.

(When the abortion law was revised in 1990, with the 28-week limit reduce to 24 weeks, it was still a free vote, but this time they were voting an amendment to a government bill.)

But the reason these were private members’ bills in the 1960s was because Harold Wilson was wary of adopting them as official government/Labour causes, and the same argument applies today. Starmer would be happy for MPs to back assisted dying. But he might be more nervous about Labour adopting that as a policy, because then anyone opposed to the idea would have a good reason not to vote for his party. In theory, making it a government bill subject to a free vote ought to neutralise that line of attack, but in practice it wouldn’t, because opponents would just say it was a government bill. If Starmer were to make it a government bill, it is not hard to imagine the Conservatives whipping their MPs against it, particularly if led by a social conservative like Miriam Cates. Then it would become fully party political, and the chances of it passing the Commons would be reduced.

During his LBC phone-in Keir Starmer said Israel alone should not be allowed to decide what happens to Gaza once its war with Hamas is over.

As PA Media reports, Israeli’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has outlined proposals for Israel to keep security control of Gaza once Hamas is defeated, while a Palestinian body runs day-to-day administration.

Asked about the plans, Starmer said:

We cannot have Israeli occupation, we cannot have people displaced who cannot go back to where they came (from), because two million have been displaced in the last four months, that is intolerable.

I don’t think, frankly, it is for Israel to determine what happens in Gaza. There has got to be much more international agreement on this, otherwise it simply isn’t going to work.

Starmer cited the rulers of Qatar and Jordan as among those who should be involved in negotiating a peace solution.

He also reiterated his call for a humanitarian truce, saying he would like to see that lead to a ceasefire. He told LBC:

At the moment what we are seeing is a horror that has gone on for the last few months, far too many civilians being killed in Gaza, far too many people displaced, and not enough aid going in.

We all want to get to a ceasefire. So the question is: how do we get there?

I think we need a humanitarian truce. We did have a short truce earlier on, let’s get back to that immediately.

Let’s use that for intense diplomacy to deal with the obvious issues – Hamas has got to release the hostages, aid has got to get in – and to work our way to a political process for a two-state solution.

This is what Keir Starmer said in his LBC phone-in about a Labour government making time for MPs to fully debate a private member’s bill to allow assisted dying.

When I was chief prosecutor, director of public prosecutions, I looked at every single case that the police investigated of assisted dying … So I’ve looked at probably more files or circumstances here than many others.

And I, as a chief prosecutor, drew up guidelines to try to make the law we’ve got work reasonably well, on the basis that we had to protect people from being exploited. But on the other hand, there were obvious cases of compassionate acts, usually by loving family members, in accordance with the wishes of somebody who wanted to end their own life.

We tried to make the current law work. I totally feel that we ought to actually change the law. It shouldn’t really be for the prosecutor to try and make the law work when it doesn’t really. It’d be better for parliament to actually change the law.

So I am an advocate of a change to the law. Obviously that change has to be very carefully crafted.

And I think the best route would probably be a private member’s bill, which is normally dealt with on a Friday in parliament. And yes, I would be open to making time for that. I think it should be a free vote.

Asked to confirm he would vote to change the law, Starmer said he would, “subject to it being the right change”.

Q: Should the Metropolitan police be investigating potential war crimes in Gaza?

Starmer says he was “surprised” to learn about this. He did not know this was happening until Boris Johnson spoke about it in a Daily Telegraph story yesterday.

The Met told the Telegraph that it had a duty to support the international criminal court, which is investigating war crimes in Gaza.

Starmer said the brother of a close friend of his was involved in the Post Office Horizon scandal. He said it was a gross miscarriage of justice. The government should speed up the payment of compensation, he said.

UPDATE: Starmer said:

I did see a bit of the ITV programme (about the scandal). It’s very powerful.

I should also say I know personally some of those caught up with this. One of them is the brother of a very close friend of mine, and I know the mental impact that has had on him and others.

So I feel this very strongly. It is a gross, very wide-ranging miscarriage of justice. Not only was it wrong in the first place, but the Post Office, when it began to be obvious that it was wrong, didn’t do the right thing, which is to say ‘We got this wrong, let’s sort it out’. And so I do think all of those involved at the time have questions to answer.

Asked if he thought Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader who was postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012, had questions to answer, Starmer said he had not studied what Davey has said on this. But he said all those involved had questions to answer.

All of those who were involved do need to answer some basic questions.

Not everyone came through. Many of those who did come through severe mental health issues as a result. I know that personally.

Personal compensation has been set aside for them. It should have been paid in December. The Treasury have put the money aside but it hasn’t all been paid. I say to the government now get on with it, do at least that bit right.

Starmer says he would be “open” to making time available for a private member’s bill to allow assisted dying. He says this is the sort of matter that should be dealt with by a private member’s bill. There should be a free vote, he says. And he says he would vote in favour of changing the law, provided there were sufficient safeguards.

This is significant because, without the government being willing to make extra time available, private member’s bills on controversial issues like this can normally be talked out.

Starmer has said before that he favours a new vote on this, but he has not suggested Labour would guarantee time to allow it to pass (assuming a majority of MPs were in favour – which is not a given at this point.)

UPDATE: See the post at 9.52am for the full quote.

Starmer says junior doctors have a “good case” when they say they deserve a pay rise.

He says Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, should be negotiating with them now.

Q: What do you think about the BMA saying junior doctors should not go back to work during the strike when hospitals call an emergency?

Starmer says he is “troubled” by this. Until now the system for an emergency override has been working well. He says he does not know why that has broken down now.

Q: How will you decide what level of borrowing is sensible?

Starmer says Labour will put money into its green energy plan, but it will be “an agile investment”. He says he wants to know what the money will be for. It is designed to bring in private sector investment.

Q: Can you guarantee that Labour will get investing up to £28bn a year at some point during the first term?

Starmer says that will be subject to Labour’s fiscal rules.

He says he is “confident” he can get to that figure. But the fiscal rules come first.

Q: So it’s a gold-plated ambition, not a pledge?

It’s a “confident ambition”, says Starmer.

Good morning. Keir Starmer will be doing his “Call Keir” phone-in on LBC shortly. We heard quite a lot from him yesterday, but there is always more to ask, and he might have more to say about the timing of the general election. Despite Rishi Sunak saying yesterday that he does not expect to call a May election.

Labour sources, who spent the last few weeks talking up the prospects of a spring poll, almost certainly to roll the pitch for attacks on Sunak for “bottling” it, are claiming they are not convinced. In her London Playbook briefing for Politico, Eleni Courea reports:

Senior Labour strategists tell Playbook they still think that’s when it will take place. One senior party official bet £100 last night that the GE will happen between April and June.

But Prof Sir John Curtice, Britain’s leading elections expert, told the Today programme this morning that for a long time he has been planning his schedule on the assumption that he will need to be on duty for an election in October or November. He said:

Now, there is beginning to be a consensus it might be 14 November.

All the parties have decided to hold their party conferences rather early next autumn.

The prime minister will end the Conservative conference on 2 October. That might be the starting gun.

Starmer is on LBC at 9am. Otherwise, the diary looks quiet today, but Sunak is doing a visit in northern England in the late morning.

If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often 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 in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.