Picture: Coffin from the walls of Kirstall Abbey

It is not often we knowingly get to watch the start of a scandal unfold in real time. But this is what’s happening with the Assisted Dying Bill. This is a serious societal change with huge implications for our approach to death, suicide, illness, palliative care, the doctor-patient relationship, society’s taboo against killing and much else. Whatever your views on the substance, something as important and sensitive as this needs the fullest proper scrutiny and consultation at every stage. A Private Member’s Bill is precisely the wrong route, not least when an MP with no previous experience or record of any interest in this topic, supported by a well-funded lobby group (whose history and backers need more scrutiny than they’ve been getting) and a PM who values a promise to a retired TV celebrity above more important considerations seeks to rush this into law with the minimum of consultation and effective scrutiny. Kim Leadbetter mistakes her strength of feeling with the strength of her argument.

Were this a government Bill, there would often be proper consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny ahead of the Bill’s introduction, review by the Cabinet’s Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee (the Bill requires public expenditure), an assessment of its compliance with human rights legislation (a former Attorney-General has said that it does not comply with the EHRC) and an equality impact assessment (remember that disability and age are 2 of the Equality Act’s protected characteristics and will be impacted by this Bill. There is also its impact on women, given what we know about coercive behaviour and who is mostly affected.)

None of this has happened. Instead, there was a 5 hour debate on a 40-page Bill which was only produced – after pressure – 18 days before a vote won by its proponents 330 – 275 (a 55/45% split). Leadbetter made 2 misleading statements during her speech: one about judicial support and that no equivalent law in other countries has ever been expanded (untrue – see Canada). Many MPs expressly stated during that debate that they voted in favour only on the basis that there would be detailed scrutiny of the various issues and concerns raised. Their support was conditional. Promises were made to this effect. There would be “full investigation” of all concerns.

How’s that going?

1. She has stacked the Committee with supporters, particular recently elected MPs with little Parliamentary experience. The balance in favour of the Bill is far greater than the vote’s split. It includes 2 Ministers, one of whom – Stephen Kinnock, the Minister for Palliative Care – will be responsible for implementing the Bill if passed. His obvious conflict of interest is being ignored because the government has yet to learn that all scandals have conflicts of interest at their heart. Or doesn’t care. (Shortly after the vote, the government acted to prevent further discussion about proper funding of palliative care, the majority of which is provided by charities. Social care too has been punted into the long grass. Still, priorities, eh!)
2. She has refused to have on the Committee any of the MPs with actual relevant medical or legal experience if they have reservations.
3. She has delayed for 6 weeks the call for evidence then used the lack of time as justification for not calling relevant witnesses.
4. The meeting to decide what evidence should be called has been in private (with the motion to do so proposed at the last minute without any explanation). The meeting to make this decision was public and can be viewed here. (Note Leadbetter’s prickly responses to concerns expressed about why scrutiny should be secret.) This decision means that not only was the public unable to hear the deliberations but no record of what was said will be made and kept.
5. She only sent round her witness list a week ago and then changed it at the last minute with the Committee only being told yesterday morning.
6. Of these witnesses, 8 are supporters from other jurisdictions. There are no opponents.
7. Of the 9 lawyers called, 6 are in favour of the Bill and 3 neutral. Again there are no opponents.
8. There are no witnesses from disability organisations, all of whom are against the Bill.
9. Astonishingly, the Committee refused to hear evidence from the Royal College of Psychiatrists because of a “lack of time“, despite the many issues the Bill raises about the interaction of mental capacity, mental ability (they are not the same either in law or fact) and mental illness, and issues of coercion. (You can see this refusal here.) This has just been reversed – and one wonders who realised the stupidity of this decision – and acted. Is the government behind this? Is this in reality a government bill being pushed through by a patsy precisely in order to avoid the scrutiny such bills should get? Little chance of getting a straightforward answer from the PM – shiftiness combined with a pedantic insistence on irrelevance (“I was DPP, you know.“) his now almost invariable response to any challenge.
10. She is refusing to hear evidence from Canada because, according to her, it comes from a jurisdiction that’s too legally dissimilar. This is garbage given the many similarities between English law and Canadian law. More importantly, Canada’s law was limited to terminally ill adults like the proposed Bill. Canada’s experience is precisely what our MPs should be considering carefully, not least because one of the groups behind Canada’s MAID law is now admitting that it has been abused. The real reason she does not want this evidence is that it would show precisely how such a Bill can be abused and how it can be expanded using anti-discrimination provisions available in English and ECHR jurisprudence. The latter, in particular, is precisely what Leadbetter has said cannot happen. That was a nonsense statement when she made it in the Commons – as a number of lawyers have pointed out.

Why the rush? Why the one-sided scrutiny? Why the secrecy? Why does the Bill allow a doctor to suggest death when the Bill’s stated purpose is only to respond to a patient’s clear demand? What of the recent finding that doctors are very bad at assessing when even someone with a terminal illness is likely to die with the sort of accuracy demanded by this Bill? Why no requirement to inform families or to allow an appeal against a decision to die? It hard to avoid the conclusion that – just as in the procedure in the Bill – she just wants it rushed through & wants the scrutiny to be no more than a confirmation of what she already believes and wants. In this Leadbetter is acting in precisely the same way as CEO’s in charge when problems started, were ignored and turned into bloody great scandals. She is behaving like a Paula Vennells: telling untruths to Parliament, showing contempt for Parliamentary scrutiny and those who have real concerns about what this will mean, a high-handed attitude to real investigation and scrutiny, what it is for and why it matters and a determination to listen only to those who will tell her what she wants to hear.

Parliaments in the UK have not had a good record in recent years. See the Covid Act, for instance. There was an emergency there. There is not one now. (Even the blessed Esther has been given a wonder drug which will allow her to live longer.) This Bill will undoubtedly lead to legal challenge, followed by the usual complaints that lawyers and judges are acting like legislators. Well, legislators should bloody well do their job properly then if they don’t like that. It is time for Parliament to rediscover its moral compass, its proper role in the democratic process and insist that this possible change be debated, consulted on and scrutinised properly, thoroughly and evidence called from all affected parties. If that takes time, so be it. This is more important than a promise to a TV personality or an MP’s ego. If we get this wrong, the harm cannot be reversed. That should trigger a demand for the greatest of care, not a petulant insistence that there is no time.

If not, in future we will be debating how such a scandal could have arisen and apologising to dead people – though the latter, alas, will be in the now well-established tradition of all such inquiries.

Cyclefree