High Court Oversight Considered Key Part of Assisted Suicide Bill Scrapped

MP Danny Kruger said High Court approval was sold to Parliament and the public as an integral safeguard.

Kim Leadbeater (centre) is joined by campaigner and cancer sufferer Sophie Blake (left) and Rebecca Wilcox daughter of Esther Rantzen Rebecca Wilcox (right) after hearing the result of the vote in Parliament for her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in Westminster, London, on Nov. 29, 2024. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

A committee reviewing the assisted suicide bill has voted to remove the requirement for final approval by a High Court judge, a safeguard MP Danny Kruger said had been essential in securing the support from dozens of MPs who backed the proposals in November.

On Wednesday, MPs voted 15 in favour and seven against to remove this clause from the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, sponsored by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

When the Private Members’ Bill was introduced in November, it proposed allowing terminally ill adults in England and Wales with less than six months to live being given assistance to commit suicide, subject to approval from two doctors and a High Court judge.

Leadbeater said at the the time the proposed law “will contain the strictest protections and safeguards of any legislation anywhere in the world.”

She now proposes replacing this layer of scrutiny with a Voluntary Assisted Dying Commission, to be chaired by a senior legal figure and include a social worker and psychiatrist. Amendments relating to this panel will be voted on in the coming weeks.

Substantial Change to Bill

Leadbeater says the amendments will strengthen her bill, but opponents have said it breaks the promises made to MPs who backed her plans at second reading.

Kruger, who is opposed to a change in the law, quoted Leadbeater’s remarks to the House of Commons on Nov. 29, 2024, that those being considered for assisted suicide would go through a “thorough and robust process involving two doctors and a High Court judge” and that “no other jurisdiction in the world has those layers of safeguarding.”

The Conservative MP for East Wiltshire told the committee that this aspect of the bill “was not a trivial detail” and was presented to both MPs and the public as the central piece of safeguarding.

Kruger said that there were 60 MPs “who have cited the traditional safeguard as a reason for supporting the bill.”

“It was always presented as—if not a very significant aspect of the safeguarding regime—the most significant because it was the one that enabled people to argue that this was the strongest bill in the world, because members have said other regimes do not have a judicial element to them,” he said.

‘Weird Creature’

“This is a very, very substantial change to the bill presented and voted for at second reading,” Kruger said, arguing that there has not been sufficient evidence presented in favour of the proposed changes and that such fundamental alterations of the bill should be made at report stage, in front of the whole House of Commons.

He also said that the proposed multidisciplinary panel was being introduced at the wrong stage of the process and should instead come earlier, with a focus on assessment. Additionally, while the panel would include a psychiatrist, there was no requirement for a medical doctor specialising in the applicant’s condition to be present.

Kruger said: “This bill has neither the powers nor the safeguards, nor the accountability nor the independence of a tribunal, let alone of a court. And as [Leadbeater] has candidly said, it’s not a judicial entity in any sense.

“It’s a weird creature, neither one thing nor the other; a quasi multi-disciplinary team at the wrong stage in the process for the wrong purpose.”

Danny Kruger MP arriving at 10 Downing Street, London, on March 27, 2023. Yui Mok/PA Media

Leadbeater said that the committee had heard evidence “from a range of different professionals,” including legal and medical, and defended the influence that input from specialists had had on the design of her proposed changes.

She said that the panel “strengthens the bill by adding more and varied expertise to the decision making process with judicial oversight,” adding that there would need to be unanimous decision by the commission for applications to be granted.

“This bill is already the strongest of its kind anywhere in the world, and with these proposed amendments, it will be made even more robust,” the Labour MP for Spen Valley said.

‘Dangerous Bill’

My Death, My Decision said the move was a “welcome step forward,” with director Claire Macdonald saying, “We support the move towards a specialist panel that can provide expertise and fairness in assisted dying decisions.”

However, the spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said in a statement: “Despite a major backlash, Leadbeater has now astonishingly gone ahead and scrapped this centrepiece safeguard in her Bill. She has removed the very provision that 60 MPs identified as a key reason for their support at Second Reading.”

“This dangerous Bill would place thousands of vulnerable people at risk in the coming years if it is passed. Just 28 MPs changing their stance to oppose the Bill would ensure it is defeated at Third Reading. We must now see this Bill defeated,” Robinson said.