Kim Leadbeater MP’s assisted suicide Bill is set to be published at 10.00 PM tonight, giving MPs barely two weeks to scrutinise this significant and complex change to legislation before it goes to a vote on 29 November.
When MPs last voted on the issue in 2015, MPs and the public were given almost two months to scrutinise the Bill before it was voted on. Having had sufficient time to scrutinise the detail of the Bill, it was overwhelmingly rejected by MPs by 330 votes to 118.
Similarly, earlier this year, Lord Falconer introduced an assisted suicide Bill in the House of Lords (his seventh attempt at a law change) and gave almost four months for scrutiny of the Bill before Second Reading was scheduled to take place.
However, the text of Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill will be published on 11 November, barely two weeks before MPs will vote on the Bill on 29 November.
More than half of the current sitting MPs were newly elected at the General Election this year and have spent much of their time since the election on recess. This means they have had very little time to hear from both sides of the debate on this significant change to the law. Now they will be only given barely two weeks to scrutinise the Bill.
A recent landmark poll reported in The Telegraph found that the public does not support making legalising suicide a priority, with the general public placing legalising assisted suicide at 22nd out of a list of 23 possible priorities for the new Government.
Medical professionals oppose assisted suicide Bill
More than 3,400 medical professionals have signed an open letter to the Prime Minister warning that assisted suicide cannot be introduced safely while the NHS is “broken”.
In particular, there is strong opposition to introducing assisted suicide from doctors who specialise in working with people with incurable conditions at the end of their life.
A survey of palliative care doctors who are members of the Association for Palliative Medicine found that 82% oppose the introduction of assisted suicide. The results of the Association for Palliative Medicine survey have been mirrored in a more recent survey of doctors by the British Medical Association, which found that 83% of palliative care doctors oppose a change in the law to introduce assisted suicide, while only 6% supported such a change.
The vote on the Bill comes as many elderly people go into winter with their Winter Fuel Payment cut by the Government, as palliative care services are in crisis, with Marie Curie reporting that 100,000 people are dying each year needing palliative care but not receiving it, and a wider healthcare system also in a state of crisis, with Labour’s own Health Secretary describing the NHS as “broken”.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “It’s outrageous that MPs and the wider public are only seeing this Bill just over two weeks before it goes to a vote. What is being proposed is a monumental change to our laws, and it’s totally unjustifiable and fundamentally undemocratic to try and rush it through without proper public scrutiny”.
“With an NHS described by the sitting Health Secretary as ‘broken’, and the 100,000 people who need palliative care each year dying without receiving it, this rushed assisted suicide legislation is a disaster in waiting”.
