Filibusters: MPs talked out First Aid bill at the same time cadet used training to treat injured boy

Two miles from the Prime Minister’s constituency home in Oxfordshire, an 11-year-old, Lewis Harrison, was hit by a car and dragged along the road after stepping off the school bus. The year seven student will not be able to walk properly for about six months, until plates are removed from his leg.

But it would have been a lot worse had it not been for Rowan Truelove. Armed with first aid training he had received as an air cadet, the 16-year-old got another student to call for an ambulance, raised the injured boy’s legs, squeezed his toes to check for a reaction that would rule out internal bleeding, and treated him for shock.

The accident took place at 3.30pm on 20 November. An hour earlier, Conservative MPs had defeated a Private Member’s Bill, that would have made first aid training a compulsory part of the national curriculum, by talking non-stop so that there was no time for a vote.

“Filibustering” is one of the most controversial means of blocking Bills from reaching the next stage of debate – and a handful of Tory MPs are masters of this dark art.

Most adept of all is arguably Philip Davies, who spoke for 52 minutes during what little real debate took place on the first aid Bill, declaring: “The point I am trying to make is that I do not agree with the principle of compulsory first aid education in schools. Why on earth would I allow a Bill, the principle of which I don’t like, a second reading?”

Although proposed by Labour’s Teresa Pearce, the Bill had plenty of support from other backbench Conservatives and organisations such as the Red Cross.

But the education minister Sam Gyimah didn’t like it and was criticised by the deputy speaker for sounding as if he was reading the telephone book out loud during his 17-minute speech. Mr Gyimah argued that its length was not unusual and defended giving schools greater freedom to “shape” the curriculum.

Ms Pearce has described as “puerile” the practice of filibustering and The IoS recently revealed that the House of Commons’ powerful Procedure Committee, led by the prominent Tory Charles Walker, is determined to curb it. Other Private Member’s Bills that have been talked-out recently would have given free hospital parking to carers and ensured that the NHS had access to cheap drugs.

Rowan’s mother, Sharon Truelove, said: “Filibustering the first aid Bill just seems so undemocratic and out of date; they should have allowed for proper debate. I’m not sure the economic argument even makes sense.If you equip young people with the basics of first aid from a young age, then they won’t be admitting themselves into A&E for small cuts and grazes, because they’ll know what to do. But I’m not sure those MPs even considered that.”

Rowan added: “Had I not been there it would have been a lot worse. I used first aid training to support him until the paramedics turned up after about five or 10 minutes. It was just by chance that I had the first aid training to help him.”

A spokeswoman for the BritishRed Cross said: “Rowan’s brave actions on the same day that the first aid education Bill was ‘talked out’ … show just how important these skills are. We know students, teachers and parents are overwhelmingly in favour of first aid being taught in all schools, so the fate of such a crucial and potentially life-saving issue shouldn’t have been left to the whim of a couple of MPs. We urge Parliament to look into filibustering and its role in preventing a democratic decision being made.”