Private Members bills are the Cinderellas of the legislative process – they get to go to the ball but very often have to leave early and unfulfilled. Still, every so often one comes across a bill that seems well worth the Parliamentary time afforded to it, and the Care of Older and Incapacitated People (Human Rights) Bill, introduced by Lib Dem MP, Paul Burstow, looks to be just such a bill.

For those unfamiliar with the conventions of Parliament, each Parliamentary session a ballot of backbench MPs is held with the first 20 MPs drawn being permitted to introduce a bill for consideration by Parliament – there are other methods by which backbench MPs may introduce new legislation (10 minute rule bills, Ordinary Presentation Bills and, occasionally, handout or ‘Whips’ bills given by the government to its own backbenchers) but other than the ‘Whips’ bills, which may include legislation that the government of the day supports but cannot timetable in its main programme – or maybe does not want to lead on – it is rare that any of these other types of private bill go on to become law.

Ballot bills, as they are called, tend to be serious attempts to create new, and sometime controversial, legislation, usually in a clearly defined field/area in which an MP takes a particular interest; for example, we recently highlighted the presence of the Prohibition of Abortion (England and Wales) bill on the Parliamentary schedule – a bill to which we object, by the way. Others, particularly 10 minute rule bills, tend to put forward simply to raise the profile of a particular issue or to ‘test the water’ in advance of, hopefully, introducing a more serious bill via the ballot in a future session, should the MPs name come up.