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AGRICULTURE EDITION 63 REVIEW OF PARLIAMENT | After a marathon ten-hour debate that saw speeches from 130 peers, the House of Lords gave a second reading to a carefully-limited Bill intended to allow terminally ill people choice over how they die. It was an impressive, intense debate, with speakers including an archbishop, an ex-archbishop, senior lawyers, doctors, judges and a severely disabled peer. Personal experiences were related and the theological, philosophical and practical implications were discussed. The Bill was presented by Lord Falconer, who served as lord chancellor under Tony Blair. He proposed that doctors should be permitted to prescribe lethal medications to patients judged to have The Lords debate assisted dying Mr Cameron said it was a point of principle for him that the EU presidency should be determined by national leaders who want to leave and what he can negotiate … The Prime Minister has failed over Mr Juncker; he was outwitted, outmanoeuvred, out-voted.' Mr Cameron retorted that previous British leaders would have been able simply to veto an unacceptable candidate for the presidency. But Labour governments had given that right away. And it was a point of principle for him that the presidency should be determined by national leaders, not by the voting in the European Parliament elections – that was an erosion of national sovereignty. A series of MPs – notably pro-EU Conservative Sir Nicholas Soames – suggested there was a potential pro- reform alliance within the EU, and urged the Prime Minister to seek like-minded allies. The Liberal Democrat Charles Kennedy rebuked Mr Cameron for taking the Conservative MEPs out of the pan-EU European People's Party, where he might have been able to block Mr Juncker's candidacy before it had even started. He could have had 'influence in private rather than impotence in public', Mr Kennedy said. Meanwhile, some on Mr Cameron's own side put down markers for that renegotiation. Sir Peter Tapsell criticised the free movement of labour across the EU. Christopher Chope called for 'revision, if not abolition' of the Working Time Directive. Jacob Rees-Mogg called for Britain not to opt into the European Arrest Warrant, and Robert Halfon called for a cut in the EU budget. Some backbench Tory voices hinted at problems to come. Douglas Carswell asked simply: 'What would have to happen for my Rt Hon Friend to come back from his negotiation and recommend that people vote "Out"?' Mark Reckless recalled the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson's promise to win 'big and significant improvements on the previous terms' in his 1975 renegotiation of British membership, with the implication that what was actually delivered was only cosmetic. Mr Cameron replied that he was confident he could deliver the changes he sought. These exchanges were just another episode in the continuing debate over Britain's place in – or out of – the EU, a debate which has become increasingly important with the rise of UKIP, and the approach of the general election.