Assisted dying Bill safer, says MP but ‘chaotic’ scrutiny process criticised
Changes to the Bill include a provision for assisted dying to be provided on the NHS and expert panels replacing High Court judge approval.
The assisted dying Bill will come back to the Commons in a “safer, fairer, and more workable” form, the MP behind it has claimed, as two months of committee scrutiny came to a close.
But while Kim Leadbeater insisted her proposed legislation has been strengthened, opponents repeated criticism that it has been watered down and branded the scrutiny process “chaotic”.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, covering England and Wales, will likely return for a debate and vote by all MPs in the coming months.
It has been suggested some MPs who supported the Bill in the Commons in November could change their stance after a High Court judge safeguard was scrapped in place of expert panels.
The committee, sitting until 12.30am on Wednesday for its final session, approved the establishment of a voluntary assisted dying commissioner alongside three-member panels featuring social workers, psychiatrists and legal professionals to approve applications from terminally ill adults.
The change followed amendments revealed by Ms Leadbeater last month and a formal vote earlier this month to remove the High Court approval element.
Speaking at the conclusion of the committee’s last session, Ms Leadbeater said: “Support for a judge-led multi-disciplinary panel came from experts who gave evidence and has received strong backing across all parties, including from committee members who were previously opposed to the Bill.
“We are not removing judges from this process. Rather, we are adding the expertise and experience of psychiatrists and social workers to provide extra protections in the areas of assessing mental capacity and detecting coercion while retaining judicial oversight.”
Ahead of the amended Bill returning to the Commons, she said: “MPs will now be able to consider a Bill that is even safer, fairer, and more workable and which provides choice to eligible adults who want and need it at the end of their lives.”
The session also saw the maximum length of time for an assisted dying service to be in place if the Bill is passed into law doubled.
Ms Leadbeater said she was disappointed to propose the extension from two years to four and acknowledged the “upset” felt by some supporters of the Bill who have criticised the further wait for terminally ill people, but said it is “more important to do this properly than to do it quickly”.
A majority of committee members also approved new measures under the Bill, which would see assisted dying available free on the NHS.
Ms Leadbeater said this would give choice to all but leading opponent Danny Kruger argued it fundamentally changes the principles on which the health service was founded.
The Conservative MP said the NHS would, if the Bill passes into law, become the “national health and assisted suicide service” as he accused those behind it of taking a “red pen to Bevan’s legacy”, referring to the NHS’s chief architect Aneurin “Nye” Bevan.
The two new clauses impose a duty on a Secretary of State in England and give power to ministers in Wales – where health is devolved – to ensure the provision of voluntary assisted dying services.
Ms Leadbeater said it is “crucial that the option of a voluntary assisted death remains part of a holistic approach to end-of-life care” and added that private provision should also be available.
She told MPs: “NHS trusts and ICBs (integrated care boards) may, as they already do, use private providers in some circumstances.
“This provides flexibility, which is important, but chair, what matters is that the safeguards and protections in this Bill will apply no matter where the service is supplied.”
She added that the same requirements will apply to all medical practitioners that they “cannot benefit financially or in any material way from the death of a person and can only receive reasonable remuneration for providing a service”.
Labour MP Jess Asato, who voted against the Bill last year, said the scrutiny process had been “chaotic” with “substantial last-minute changes to core sections of the Bill”.
She added: “We’ve seen the NHS’s founding principles amended, the High Court protections ditched and now the timeline for the whole process changed. This isn’t how good laws are made.”
Meanwhile, the Isle of Man’s parliament became the first part of the British Isles to pass assisted dying legislation on Tuesday, with its Bill being sent for royal assent and the potential for an assisted dying service in place on the island by 2027.
