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Press release – Assisted suicide being rushed into law with Bill released barely two weeks before vote

Press release - Assisted suicide rushed into law with Bill released barely two weeks before vote

PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press release – Assisted suicide being rushed into law with Bill released barely two weeks before vote

11 November 2024 – Kim Leadbeater MP will be publishing her assisted suicide Bill on Tuesday 12 November, only giving MPs and the public just over 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, MPs and the public were given almost two months to scrutinise the Bill before it was voted on. (Published wording of Bill: 24 July 2015; voted on at Second Reading: 11 September 2015). 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 (Published wording of Bill: 26 July 2024; Second Reading: 15 Nov 2024 – he has since decided not to proceed with his Bill).

More than half of the current sitting MPs were newly elected at the General Election this year, and have spent much of that 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 – and 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.

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 barely 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”.

ENDS 

Background

  • MPs share concerns about publishing Bill with little time to scrutinise
    • Mother of the House and Labour MP Diane Abbott:
      • “…it is painfully late to be bringing forward a draft bill, with so little time to consider its contents”.
    • Treasury minister, Darren Jones, said he will not be supporting the Bill, citing wider concerns about having the proposal brought forward as a Private Member’s Bill:
      • “My view is that a Private Member’s Bill is not the right way to try to introduce a change in law on such a complex issue. This is because Private Member’s Bills, which are introduced by backbench MPs, don’t get anywhere near the same level of scrutiny and debate as the Bills put forward by the Government – and legalising assisted dying is far from a straightforward issue. I therefore plan to either abstain or vote against the Bill on these grounds”.
  • Fewer than half of the Cabinet support the assisted suicide Bill, despite the PM’s backing. High-profile members of the cabinet who are not supporting the Bill include:
  • The Leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Ed Davey opposes the Bill as does the former Leader of the Party Tim Farron. Opposition to the Bill cuts right across traditional political divides with MPs such as Sir John Hayes and Danny Kruger effectively joining forces with MPs considered to be on the left of the Labour Party such as Diane Abbott. 
  • No doctors’ groups in the UK support changing the law to introduce assisted suicide or euthanasia, including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Physicians, the British Geriatric Society, and the Association for Palliative Medicine.
  • Similar changes to legislation overseas have been a disaster
    • Oregon – a model often cited by UK assisted suicide campaigners:
      • the latest official data shows that 47% of people who had an assisted suicide said they were doing so because they were concerned that they were a “burden on family, friends/caregivers”. 
      • eligibility criteria in the law have expanded via the interpretation of ‘terminal illness’ so that assisted deaths have been granted for anorexia, diabetes, hernias and arthritis.
    • Canada
    • Closer to home, in the Netherlands and Belgium, euthanasia laws and/or practice have been extended to allow euthanasia for children and newborn babies.

Past relevant coverage on issue: