Leadbeater Bill: who's warning against?

23rd November 2024

Former PM Gordon Brown joins the Health and Justice Secretaries, Lib Dem leader, disability rights groups, and medical bodies in urging the Bill’s rejection on 29 November.

As the real-world implications shine through, and the "safeguards" in the late-released text of Kim Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill start to unravel, an increasingly broad chorus of opposition and concern has emerged.

Politics

Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown

"With the NHS still at its lowest ebb, this is not the right time to make such a profound decision. Instead, we need to show we can do better at assisted living before deciding whether to legislate on ways to die." (Guardian, 23 October 2024)

Health Secretary Wes Streeting MP (Labour)

"I am not sure as a country we have the right end-of-life care available to enable a real choice on assisted dying." (Telegraph, 7 September 2024)

He's subsequently made clear that he will vote against the Leadbeater Bill, having voted for the Marris Bill in 2015.

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood MP (Labour)

"It cannot be overstated what a profound shift in our culture assisted suicide will herald. In my view, the greatest risk of all is the pressure the elderly, vulnerable, sick or disabled may place upon themselves… The right to die, for some, will - inexorably and inevitably - become the duty to die for others. And that is why I will be voting against this bill." (Observer, 23 November 2024)

Disabled People's Minister Sir Stephen Timms MP (Labour)

"As the party of the vulnerable, the voiceless and the victim, the stories that have emerged from these countries ought to give us significant pause for thought." (Labour List, January 2024)

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner MP (Labour)

Report, Daily Mail 16 November 2024

The Commons' longest-serving MPs, Sir Edward Leigh and Diane Abbott (Con & Lab)

"Our politics could not be more different - but we're united against this dangerous assisted dying bill." (Guardian, 20 November 2024)

Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick MP (Conservative)

"Having consulted with members of the judiciary and senior practitioners, there is significant concern that the assisting dying procedure outlined in the Private Member's Bill is unworkable." (Telegraph, 18 November 2024)

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey MP

'"I had to look after my mother when she was terminally ill as a young teenager … she had a very, very painful disease." It was in being there at the end of her life that "I came to the conclusion we should not have this (assisted dying)... we should focus on better palliative care."'(Independent, 12 November 2024)

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage MP

"I look at the way assisted dying is taking place in Canada and frankly, it gives me the shivers." (GB News, 8 November 2024)

Welsh Parliament

Rejected a motion in support of a change in the law 26-19 in September 2024.

Healthcare

Association for Palliative Medicine

"The APM opposes any change in the law that could lead to the supply or administration of lethal medications to deliberately end a person's life." (Position statement, October 2024)

British Geriatrics Society

"The BGS commissioned a working group of its members to review the evidence, gather the views of BGS members… and formulate an updated position on Assisted Dying. Following this review, the BGS… is opposed to the legalisation of Assisted Dying and is urging the government to be cautious in proceeding with any change in the law." (Position statement, 8 November 2024)

Royal College of General Practitioners

Position statement, adopted by Council following a membership consultation.

Eating disorder charity Eat, Breathe, Thrive

"In the U.S., assisted suicide is only legal for patients with a terminal illness and less than six months to live. Yet, a groundbreaking study shows that some doctors have misrepresented eating disorders as terminal in order to prescribe patients lethal drugs — denying patients and families the chance for life-saving treatment." (Report, 2024)

British Islamic Medical Association

"Traumatic care experiences, particularly in marginalised communities and those with high socioeconomic deprivation, will contribute to the fear of suffering at the end of life. The solution is not to legislate state-endorsed assisted suicide and euthanasia that is delivered by a healthcare system in crisis." (Position statement, October 2024)

Our Duty of Care

ODOC's open letter to the Prime Minister has been signed by thousands of healthcare professionals and is still open.

Human rights

Liberty

"The Assisted Dying Bill has been drafted with the best intentions, but there are serious concerns over how it places disabled people, people of colour and other marginalised communities at risk… Every single part of this Bill has to be the 'gold standard' - silver is simply not good enough. Liberty is calling on MPs to keep this in mind when they vote." (Issue FAQs, 21 November 2024)

Disability Rights UK

"Giving us dignified and equitable lives should come before putting in place ways of assisting us to die." - Kamran Mallick, Disability Rights UK Chief Executive, The Times 20 November, reinforcing DRUK's new position statement (12 November)

Inclusion London

"We know many in our society think our lives are not worth living and we see the consequences of this deeply entrenched view in the experience of other countries, such as Canada, where the conditions and criteria for assisted dying quickly become wider than only the terminally ill and now include many different groups of disabled people." (Statement, 8 November 2024)

Not Dead Yet UK (website)

Disabled People Against Cuts

"There is no straightforward way to legalise AS... There are no clear lines, only blurred boundaries. This is why no [deaf and disabled people's organisation] in the UK is in favour of legalisation. Additionally, all medical bodies remain opposed or neutral on the subjects. Doctors working in specialities such as oncology, geriatrics and palliative care, those where they are most likely to work with dying people, are the most opposed." (November 2024)

Legal experts

Former President of the Family Division of the High Court, Sir James Munby

"In relation to the involvement of the judges in the process, the Leadbeater Bill falls lamentably short of providing adequate safeguards… Only those who believe implicitly in judicial omniscience and infallibility - and I do not - can possibly have any confidence in the efficacy of what is proposed." (Transparency Project, 14 November 2024)

Former Chief Coroner of England and Wales, Thomas Teague KC

'Many of the promised safeguards amount to "nothing more than arbitrary restrictions" which would be subject to a "logically inexorable" erosion over time.' (Telegraph, 17 November 2024)

Alex Ruck Keene KC, who worked on Noel Conway's legal challenges

"The thing which increasingly troubled me, and has increasingly troubled me since, is it's not about an individual… That's the thing I think is very difficult in this space to think about. Because you have individual stories which are very, very powerful, and we've got lots of other individual stories out there in the public domain at the moment. But the law can't operate for individuals. The law has to operate for everybody." (The House, 11 November 2024)

Philip Murray, Assistant Professor in Law at Cambridge

"Once a blanket ban is lifted and assisted suicide is permitted for certain groups and not others, the force of any argument that exclusions from the law are necessary for the protection of vulnerable people becomes inherently weakened." (UK Constitutional Law, 30 October 2024)

Journalism

The Times

"Even apart from the dangers inherent in the bill, the lack of scrutiny and thought invested in it is cause for concern. It is a bad bill with potentially corrosive consequences." (Leading article, 18 November 2024)

The Telegraph

"Small wonder… that many MPs appear to lack confidence that this legislation is fit for purpose… When the time comes to debate the Bill, MPs should be wary of rushing into a decision they may regret." (Telegraph View, 17 November 2024)

Sonia Sodha, The Guardian

"A decade ago, I would have supported assisted dying out of a respect for personal autonomy and a desire to alleviate suffering. Today, I understand these objectives are not standalone but need to be weighed against the impact on those for whom an abstract liberal notion like autonomy is highly simplistic, and the state-sanctioned wrongful deaths that seem to me impossible to avoid." (April 2024, prior to further persuasive articles)

The Morning Star

"Socialists need to stand in solidarity with the most vulnerable. That means opposing Leadbeater's Bill." (Editorial, 11 October 2024)

And the public?

70% want to see a Royal Commission review palliative care provision before further debate on "assisted dying".
61% are concerned that some people would be pressured into having an assisted death if the law changes, including a majority (53%) of those who support a change in the law.
And 56% of those who expressed an opinion in a June 2024 poll said they supported a change in the law in principle but thought there were too many complicating factors for it to be safely implemented.