Lord Norton (see post below) expresses well peers’ sense of frustration when debates in the Lords have thrashed out an issue, such as the provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill and Lords have given the bill very good support and yet the passage through our House has been almost entirely ignored. Of course he is also right that I too should have been more confident of the votes in the Commons. I was not able to go down the ‘other end’ to listen and was restricted to listening to the reports on TV and radio, which created doubt in my mind as to the likely outcome. The media influenced my thinking when common sense should have told me that the votes were safe.
I was much cheered as I left Westminster yesterday by the huge crowd of women with pink balloons demonstrating in favour of leaving the abortion law as it is at present. Most of them would probably approve of even easier access by the removal of the necessity to have approval signed by two doctors, an outdated provision which creates a burden on the many charitable organisations which provide terminations.
Back to the Health and Social Care Grand Committee this afternoon; two long sessions ahead of us; hoping to finish tomorrow afternoon. Baroness Thornton, the Minister was complaining at our slow pace but compared with the European Treaty (Amendment) Bill, only now crawling through its seventh day to 160th amendment or so we are positively doing a quickstep to their slow foxtrot.
