Stop Assisted Dying Bill Campaign - UPDATE

News from the Committee Stage Hearings

In the weeks leading up to the Parliamentary debate on Kim Leadbeater’s Assisted Dying Bill in November 2024, UKMFA ran a campaign to oppose this serious threat to medical ethics and the intrinsic sanctity and dignity of every human life.

Regrettably, the second reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed, with 325 votes for the bill and 270 votes against. This bill then moved into the committee state to be scrutinized more closely and for amendments to be proposed and considered, before the bill has its third reading and final vote on 25th April 2025.

The committee called for evidence to be submitted before the hearings started in January. UKMFA put in a 2000 word submission to the committee (which we are not allowed to publish) on 15th January 2025, detailing our serious ethical and practical objections to the Bill.

The committee commenced their meetings on 21st January 2025. Despite Kim Leadbeater’s promise that there would be rigorous scrutiny of her Bill, and there have been a number of serious concerns about bias and worrying developments over the last 4 weeks - articulated in this open letter sent by four Labour MPs to party colleagues. Key concerns include:

• The committee initially met in private to discuss who to call to give oral evidence, preventing public scrutiny of these important decisions. The witnesses who have been called are heavily skewed in favour of the bill.

• The committee initially voted NOT to hear evidence from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, even though their role would be vital in ascertaining capacity and assessing for coercion. Following a public outcry, Kim Leadbeater backed down and allowed the Royal College to give evidence.

• There were initially no witnesses called to represent disabled rights. Public pressure led to a U-turn as Disability Rights UK were called to give evidence

  

  Graphic - National Down’s Syndrome Policy Group

• Other important voices such as British Geriatrics Society and the Government’s chief Suicide Prevention Strategy Advisor have not been allowed to give evidence. Professor Louis Appleby, who chairs the Suicide Prevention Advisory Group, raised concerns that allowing Assisted Suicide will undermine suicide prevention work by accepting that suicide can be something that should be enabled.

• The promised safeguard of a High Court judge in the process was quickly dropped as it was considered unworkable and would overload the court system. To be replaced by a 3-person Assisted Dying Review Panel (consisting of a lawyer, social worker and psychiatrist), overseen by a voluntary Assisted Dying Commissioner, to make this life-or-death decision. However, eminent psychiatrists have already warned that there are not enough psychiatrists to make the Assisted Dying Bill work due to serious current staff shortages. The British Association of Social Workers has also stated that their profession does not currently have the capacity to populate these panels. In addition, there is no input from experts in clinical ethics - assisted dying is not just a legal or medical issue.

• Despite 34 representatives from eating disorders charities writing to the Committee, the Committee voted to reject an amendment to specifically exclude people with anorexia from the eligibility criteria for Assisted Suicide.

• The committee have voted AGAINST multiple amendments designed to increase safeguards (see table below). Rebecca Paul MP said “We asked for amendments to exclude people with impaired judgment, the depressed, and the suicidal. This committee said no.”

  

Source: Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens on X

• Even the proposed amendment to ensure that all applicants are referred to a palliative care consultant was rejected, to the disgust of Danny Kruger MP who is on the committee.

• Shockingly, Danny Kruger MP and Rebecca Paul MP got Kim Leadbeater to admit that under her Bill a person would be able to get an Assisted Death for the sole reason of saving their relatives money.

• Worryingly, the Bill includes the provision that a proxy will be able to sign someone off for euthanasia. As explained by Danny Kruger MP (video below), this proxy would not need to know the person concerned and will not need any training to ensure that the applicant understands what is being signed for.

Some positive points

• The President of the Association of Palliative Medicine, Sarah Cox, told the committee on 28^th January that palliative care needs to “massively improve” before we should even consider assisted suicide. Otherwise, patients will have no real choice. She stated that currently 25% of people who die in the UK (around 100,000) do not get adequate palliative care and that 80% of APM members oppose assisted dying.

• The Health Secretary Wes Streeting is not in favour of Assisted Dying and has been vocal in his views, including that assisted suicide would come at the expense of other NHS services

• An amendment to WIDEN the eligibility criteria to include those with neurodegenerative disorders with 12 months or less to live – the slippery slope beginning before the Bill is even signed! - was withdrawn following a lack of support in the Committee when debated.

Informed Consent and Capacity

Concerns have been raised that the Mental Capacity Act could be abused to make the presumption of capacity over this life-or-death decision. Professor Gareth Owen said that relying on the MCA alone “means someone could be approved for assisted dying even if they did not understand the relevant information, as long as they do not have an identifiable impairment or disturbance in mind.”

The lack of serious reference to the need for and adherence to informed consent, a cornerstone of ethical medical practice, has been pointed out by Professor Allan House, a consultant psychiatrist in the NHS, in his evidence to the committee. He states:

“In relation to explaining possible side effects and complications - none of the declarations signed by the involved doctors or by the person requesting assistance confirms in writing that this criterion has been met. Clause 9.2.b.iv indicates that the nature of the substances to be provided and their action must be explained but says nothing about side effects or complications. Clause 9.2.c requires the doctor to discuss the person’s wishes in relation to complications without requiring that the nature of such complications has been previously explained.”

Professor House also raised the important question of the Bill’s failure to specify

“…what actions can or cannot legally be taken in the event of greatly prolonged time to death or even failure to die, especially if the person has been rendered unfit by initial actions…In summary, careful inquiry is justified because a statement about wanting to end one's life cannot be simply taken as the result of a straightforward rational decision to choose one type of end-of-life care over others. Simply checking mental capacity and asking about coercion is not adequate.”

Important Briefing Paper

The Together Declaration Health and Social Care Campaign team, led by Amanda Hunter, have just published an excellent briefing paper, laying out in great detail the complex issues that make assisted dying unethical, practically unworkable and a grave danger to all of us when we are interacting with the health service in times of suffering or approaching the end of our lives. This is their conclusion:

“It is our belief, based on the extensive evidence available, that if assisted suicide legislation were to be introduced, it would be used to coerce patients into agreeing to end their lives prematurely, either due to lack of appropriate treatment and care, discriminatory treatment decisions that ration or withdraw care, or in response to clinically unsound end-of-life prognoses.

If passed, it is our view that assisted suicide legislation would become yet another tool to justify utilitarian resource allocation and discriminatory end-of-life treatment decisions. It would provide opportunities for unscrupulous decision makers to cover up the abusive practices we have described at length in this document and evidenced in the accompanying case dossier.

In addition, we believe assisted suicide legislation would provide hospital Trusts with the opportunity to cover up instances of medical negligence and poor care, by convincing concerned families that their relative’s sudden deteriorating health is the product of natural causes, of the progression of disease, and that death is imminent. This is already happening, as our case-histories attest.”

CALLS TO ACTION

• Write to your MP – there are template letters on the Together Campaign page, and the Care Not Killing campaign page

• Send the Together Briefing Paper to your MP

• Sign this Government petition calling for a referendum on Assisted Dying

• Sign up for UKMFA Newsletters for email updates on our Campaigns and Calls to Action