Dismay as Leadbeater drops High Court Judge from Assisted Suicide Bill

A number of MPs have expressed their dismay after it emerged that the requirement for a High Court Judge to sign off someone’s assisted suicide is being dropped from the Leadbeater Bill.

The involvement of a High Court Judge was supposed to be a ‘safeguard’ to ensure against coercion, but concerns had been raised about the volume of work this would involve.

Instead, under new plans which have been drawn up, the Judge’s role is to be replaced by a panel, chaired by a legal figure (not necessarily a judge), which could include psychiatrists and social workers. A number of social workers have already expressed that they would not join such a panel for reasons of conscience, raising the possibility of those on the panel being self-selecting to a degree.

Kim Leadbeater, the MP behind the Bill, had previously described the involvement of a High Court Judge as one of "three layers of scrutiny" that made the Bill "the strongest, most robust piece of legislation on this issue in the world".

In response, a number of MPs have expressed their dismay, after the judicial scrutiny was cited on more than sixty occasions in the debate at Second Reading.

The Labour MP Paul Foster, who previously supported the Bill, has called the u-turn a "game changer" and said he was now reconsidering his support for the Bill, and Reform MPs Lee Anderson and Rupert Lowe have publicly stated that with the Bill in its current form, they will reverse their vote and will now vote against the Bill at Third Reading.

It is the latest controversy around the Leadbeater Bill, after concerns were raised about the uneven stacking of the committee with supporters, rather than providing proper scrutiny, and bias in the evidence presented to the committee, where it was estimated that 80% of witnesses called were in favour of Assisted Suicide.

A different amendment being debated this week surrounded the possibility for people with neurodegenerative conditions, such as Parkinson’s, to have the six-month timeline extended to twelve months.