Sir Desmond Swayne tops private members bill ballot

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Sir Desmond Swayne tops private members bill ballot

The Conservative MP Sir Desmond Swayne has won first place in the House of Commons' private members bill (PMB) ballot, giving him the best chance to create his own piece of legislation.

The PMB ballot is held at the start of every parliamentary session, where each backbench MP who enters is allocated a numbered white ball, and 20 balls are randomly pulled from a goldfish bowl.

What Sir Desmond Swayne will do is yet to be decided, but in 2024 he wrote of how he hoped "like hell" to be unsuccessful each time he entered the ballot.

Last session, the winner was Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who brought forward the controversial Assisted Dying Bill, which ran out of time to pass into law.

House of Commons

The PMB ballot is the best way a backbench MP can hope to bring forward a new law by winning cross-party support for a cause or, ideally, having the bill adopted by the government.

Notable PMB successes include the legalisation of abortion (David Steel), homosexuality (Leo Abse) and securing the abolition of the death penalty (Sydney Silverman).

However Sir Desmond's 2024 blog railed against the PMB system, saying his view is "we already have too many laws and that we should be taking time to repeal some of them rather than making even more".

He added: "Nevertheless, every year I obey the instructions of my whip and put my name into the ballot, then I hope like hell that, once again, I will be unsuccessful.

"The unfortunates, who do come in the top ten, will be inundated with pleas from every good cause to sponsor a bill to address some perceived evil."

Only the last seven MPs selected are guaranteed debating time, and there are only 13 sitting Fridays set aside in the parliamentary session to deal with PMBs, so they are vulnerable to running out of time.

This is what happened last month, when Leadbeater's Assisted Dying Bill that had been approved by MPs last summer was effectively talked out in the House of Lords and failed to pass its final legislative hurdle.

Supporters will now be looking for a backbencher willing to take that unfinished legislation forward for a second go.

That could see second PMB pick Lauren Edwards, the Labour MP for Rochester and Strood, who voted in favour of the Bill last time, picking it back up.

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