Assisted dying: what (the hell) is going on in Parliament?

Mo Lovatt on how a hugely important bill has been deprived of the scrutiny and debate it deserves.

It is still a matter of bemusement why, with a ­struggling economy, war in Ukraine and the NHS in crisis, this government has chosen to expend so much political energy on the question of assisted dying.

This was the view in an editorial in The Times last week on the government’s attitude towards Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

The Times makes a fair point. Starmer’s government is in freefall – from a dismal performance on the economy to the rise of Reform UK in the polls, not to mention its poor handling of restrictions on winter-fuel payments for the elderly, farmers’ inheritance tax, the Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius and the prisoners early release scheme. In fact, it’s hard to remember an incumbent government becoming so widely unpopular in such a short space of time. Yet, despite firefighting on so many different fronts, the Bill is being pushed through with vocal support from Keir Starmer – even though, according to one opinion poll, the issue is of low priority to the majority of the population.

A flawed process

Introduced less than six months ago, Leadbeater’s team is forging ahead with the Bill’s passage through parliament at breakneck speed, after only five hours of debate in the Commons. This is despite the widespread criticisms that have been levelled at both the way the Bill was introduced and Leadbeater’s use of parliamentary procedures.

Of these criticisms, perhaps the most notable was the opposition from the UK’s longest-serving MPs: Labour’s Diane Abbot and the Conservative Sir Edward Leigh. Despite their political differences, the ‘mother’ and ‘father’ of the house took the unusual step of issuing a joint statement in The Guardian warning that this new piece of legislation has been ‘rushed and puts vulnerable people at risk’. Like many, they argue that the Bill has been badly thought-through and subject to insufficient scrutiny.

Indeed, as its passage through the committee stage progressed, it became clear to many that a number of elements within the Bill are wholly impractical, that there are worrying inconsistencies in the language, and that the committee itself is being controlled by the sponsor (Leadbeater) with an iron grip.

Criticisms include stacking the committee with a majority of supportive MPs, hearing a disproportionate amount of testimony from those in favour of the Bill and hearing from only a minority of opposing voices – often either weak on the legislative process or ill-equipped to give robust testimony. These are alarming revelations as a group of only 23 MPs is set to begin the process of undertaking a line-by-line scrutiny of the proposed legislation in the next two months.

Reducing safeguards

Not to mention the fact that there have now been over 200 amendments tabled to the Bill which continue to leave important questions unanswered or which have rolled back on previously stated safeguards. For example, one much-trumpeted safeguard was the requirement for a High Court judge to approve each request for assisted dying. However, this has now been replaced by the approval of a panel of ‘experts’ (possibly to be overseen by an existing or former High Court judge, although this remains unclear). This change comes despite the fact that, only last week, Leadbeater’s spokesman had outright denied that would happen.

On Monday, Leadbeater herself told Sophy Ridge of Sky News: ‘I’m not proposing we take out the rule for a judge at all. There will be a [High Court] judge involved’. But, she suggested, other experts could be brought in, in what the MP termed a ‘judge plus’ model. Less than 24 hours later, the proposal to remove the safeguard was made public, causing Ridge to issue an unusual piece to camera on X calling the legislative process ‘a bit of a mess’ and stating on record her concern that it was impossible to know what was going on.

The removal of the High Court judge requirement is deeply worrying. And, for a party so fond of safetyism and with a predilection for safeguarding reviews, this is a strange concession that represents a major watering down of the Bill’s protections.

It’s no wonder, then, that some MPs have expressed their reservations about the scrutiny of the Bill. In the past week alone, there have been over 400 pieces of correspondence sent to the committee. ‘I find it difficult to believe any member of the committee has been able to read that number of correspondence in any detail’, the Labour MP, Daniel Francis, told the Public Bill committee on Tuesday, while the Lib Dem’s Sarah Olney MP took to X to ask:

How can we properly scrutinise this legislation when new amendments are being made at the last minute, which potentially change the entire nature of the legislation that we’re attempting to scrutinise?

An ethical dilemma

This is clearly very worrying for a piece of legislation which Professor Kevin Yuill, academic and author of Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalization, calls ‘the crossing of a moral Rubicon’. In an article for the Independent, he wrote: ‘If we are to place value on even the most wretched of human lives – an important marker of civilisation – neither the death penalty or assisted suicide can be justified.’

In other words, the legalisation of assisted suicide is a devastating attack on the idea that every life is of equal value and moral worth – a cornerstone of liberal, Enlightenment thought. Moreover, once we accept that certain lives are of less moral worth than others, the concepts of justice and equality are called into question.

As Yuill noted at last year’s Battle of Ideas festival: ‘Once you introduce the idea of assisted dying as a medical treatment for suffering, how can you then deny it as a treatment for anyone who suffers?’ In light of the infected-blood scandal, Grenfell, the Post Office IT scandal and, perhaps most importantly, Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) notices placed on the elderly during Covid (without consultation), Yuill asks, how can society trust the state with such power?

You can watch the full Battle of Ideas discussion on Assisted dying on the NHS? below (or click here to watch on YouTube).

If the suggestion that this Bill would result in a cost-benefit analysis of human life seems hubristic, it is worth remembering the column by Matthew Parris in The Times in March last year. Parris explicitly suggested that we should see assisted dying as a good thing for society: ‘[H]ow are our economies going to pay for the ruinously expensive overhang that dare not speak its name: old age and infirmity? It may sound brutal, but I don’t apologise for the reductivist tone in which this column treats human beings as units — in deficit or surplus to the collective.’

In January this year, the committee heard from American assisted-dying advocates who argued that doctors should be able to suggest assisted death, even if the patient hasn’t raised it themselves. All part of ‘taking care’ of patients said one – then proceeding to suggest that we should criminalise families who try to ‘interfere’ with a patient’s decision to die. So, persuading your sick or elderly loved ones they are not a burden to you could well become a criminal act.

Talk about saying the quiet bit out loud.

It was precisely these concerns – about the instrumentalisation of human life – that prompted me to contact my MP last December. Her response was admirable, ‘I do not take my responsibilities lightly’, she said. ‘While I voted for the Bill at its Second Reading, I did so to ensure that the topic receives the further discussion and scrutiny it deserves in Parliament.’

Curtailing debate

She was not alone in assuming the introduction of the Bill would generate more debate. According to grassroots campaigners, Lance Price (Leadbeater’s chief of staff), spent the weeks prior to the Bill’s introduction encouraging Labour MPs to vote for the Bill at the first reading, precisely because it’s an issue that deserves widespread debate – despite the fact this was never going to happen with a private member’s bill (PMB) and failing to mention to new MPs that it is incredibly difficult to vote against a bill once it has passed the committee stage.

The Hansard Society has cast doubt on allowing backbenchers, rather than the duly elected government of the day, being able to bring forward PMBs, raising questions about whether the process provides the rigour required for sufficient scrutiny or allows for proper debate before they become law.

From the way in which this bill was introduced, weaving its way around the democratic processes of allowing proper debate in parliament and with the public, to its tight curation of the committee hearings, the Bill’s supporters – with the tacit support of the government – seem hellbent on getting this legislation passed – and soon. I asked Professor Yuill if this was really simply an issue of cost-benefit, of the elderly and seriously ill being a burden on the economy. ‘Yes’, was his reply.

The dangers of technocracy

But there is a wider context too. It is perhaps not surprising that the Labour government has scant regard for the democratic process, or that decisions about life and death would be placed in the hands of ‘experts’. It is no secret that Starmer favours a technocratic approach to government – one that bypasses the public and gives political power to scientific and technical experts. In addition, it is clear our political elite have little enthusiasm for the liberties enjoyed by Western civilisation since the Enlightenment. From the doubling down on ‘non-crime hate incidents’, with their chilling effect on free speech, to the watering down of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech Act) and the consideration of a blasphemy law – our prime minister is no friend of freedom.

But no less important is the fact the Bill has been introduced in an era of increasing nihilism and stands aloof from any programme of political change. Instead of a society focused on providing the conditions for a meaningful and comfortable life, and improving palliative care for the terminally ill, we may be about to turn a corner where we are prepared to accept state-sanctioned suicide as a medical solution to the hardships of life and death, where one’s life is considered in terms of its economic cost to society. It is my own pessimism that makes me fear this bill will pass.

Despite that, this issue needs more public debate and more thoughtful consideration of its potential outcomes. It’s why Newcastle Politics in Pubs will be debating the topic in March for a second time. Some of us still believe issues of such moral importance, deserve wider debate. You find out more about the event here.

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