Kim Leadbeater MP is set to publish her assisted suicide Bill during the first half of next week, barely two weeks before Second Reading of the Bill, leaving very little time for MPs to scrutinise this significant piece of legislation before voting on it at Second Reading on 29 November.
Leadbeater had initially planned to publish her assisted suicide Bill only a week before it was set to be voted on but now, after pressure from MPs, the Bill will be published ten days sooner.
In what could be the biggest social change on life issues since the Abortion Act was passed in 1967, the text of Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill will be published in full during the first half of next week.
If Leadbeater’s Bill becomes law, hundreds of thousands of vulnerable lives will be at risk over the coming decades. According to The Telegraph, Leadbeater had intended to publish her Bill just a week before the vote on 29 November, which would give MPs little time to scrutinise such a monumental Bill.
More time needed to scrutinise legislation of this “magnitude”
This change comes as MPs raised concerns about the lack of time they would have to scrutinise the Bill ahead of the vote at Second Reading. Conservative MP for Runnymede and Weybridge, Dr Ben Spencer, was one among a number of MPs co-ordinating an open letter to Leadbeater to raise concerns over how the Bill is being introduced.
Spencer told The Telegraph it was vital for MPs to have “as much time as possible” to discuss the details of the Bill with constituents, as well as medical and legal experts, ahead of the vote.
However, the updated schedule has reportedly done little to ease the concerns of MPs opposed to the legalisation of assisted suicide who maintain the legislation should be given more time.
Dr Spencer said “Given the complexities involved in the debate on physician-assisted dying, it’s important MPs get as much time as possible to discuss proposals with their constituents and experts including clinicians, the judiciary, health and care charities and religious and community groups”.
“Private Member’s Bills have limited time for scrutiny and debate, so while I understand and empathise with the intent behind the Physician Assisted Suicide Bill, I strongly believe legislation of this magnitude should be brought forward in Government time to enable full scrutiny, and to ensure, if passed, adequate safeguards are in place”.
Labour MP Rachael Maskell, who sat on the Health and Social Care Committee’s Assisted dying/assisted suicide inquiry, said “To publish such a critical Bill, just three weeks ahead of a short debate is not providing sufficient time by which MPs have to wrestle with the intricacies of this complex matter”.
“Something that could change the practice of medicine needs a far more considered approach”.
While MPs will be given a free vote on assisted suicide, the Prime Minister has made his support for a change in the law clear, having previously voted in favour of making assisted suicide legal in 2015, and has been an outspoken supporter of a change in the law since. Earlier this year, Starmer assured the former presenter Esther Rantzen that he would make time for a vote on assisted suicide.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “It is atrocious that the assisted suicide Bill was intended to be released only a week before a vote on it. It remains astonishing that, even after the text of the Bill is set to be released ten days earlier, MPs will have little over two weeks to scrutinise a piece of legislation that will radically alter the social fabric of our nation for the worse”.
“The Bill, if it becomes law, will completely transform how we care for people at the end of their lives, and all the consequences of this, both intended and unintended, must be thoroughly worked out and understood. Two weeks is not enough time for MPs to thoroughly scrutinise the Bill and seek expert opinion ahead of the debate at Second Reading”.
“Even before the Bill received its First Reading last month, prominent voices were calling for the scope of the Bill to be widened”.
“The UK should heed the warning signs. Residency requirements for assisted suicide in the state of Oregon were recently removed, leading to concerns about ‘suicide tourism’, and the interpretation of terminal illness in Oregon has been broadened to include anorexia, arthritis, hernias and diabetes”.
“MPs must reject introducing assisted suicide and instead put resources into high-quality palliative care”.
