Changes to the assisted dying Bill including the appointment of a voluntary assisted dying commissioner are a “real strengthening” of the proposed legislation, the MP behind them has insisted in the face of criticism it is being “massively watered down”.
Newly published amendments to the Bill include the setup of an expert panel to approve applications for assisted deaths “instead of the High Court”, and the possibility to have a refusal reconsidered by a different panel.
There is also an option for panels to sit in private if the person seeking an assisted death requests this and the panel chair agrees.
Kim Leadbeater had hailed the requirement, when the detail of her Bill was first published in November, for approval of all applications by a High Court judge as the main reason her proposed legislation was the strictest in the world.
She has now proposed the changes after saying she had “listened carefully” to expert evidence last month on concerns around the pressure on judicial resources if each case was to automatically go before the High Court and on calls to involve psychiatrists and social workers in assessing mental capacity and detecting coercion.
The amendments published this week would see an assisted dying review panel, including a psychiatrist, a social worker, and a legal member – a KC, Court of Appeal or High Court judge, or someone who “holds or has held high judicial office” – approve applications for an assisted death.
In a letter to MPs this week, Ms Leadbeater said the supervision of the expert panels by a judge-led commission and the process being subject to judicial review in the High Court “retains the judicial element which many colleagues were supportive of, while adding the extra safeguards provided by this multidisciplinary approach and is a real strengthening of the Bill”.
The voluntary assisted dying commissioner would be appointed by the Prime Minister and must be or have been a Supreme Court, Court of Appeal or High Court judge.
The commissioner would appoint people to the expert panels, determine applications for reconsideration if they had been refused by a panel, and monitor and report annually on how the law was working.
Opponent Danny Kruger, who is a member of the committee scrutinising the Bill, has criticised the proposed changes.
Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, he said: “The new plan: drop the judicial safeguard, replace it with a panel – not a court – without a judge, sitting in private, without meeting the patient, without family informed or able to appeal against an approval; and approval must be given if the easy test of ‘capacity’ is met.”
Ms Leadbeater defended the changes, saying proceedings would be public but would also be “taking into account patient confidentiality”.
An amendment states that panels “are to determine referrals in public”, but the chair “may, at the request of the person to whom a referral relates, decide that the panel is to sit in private”.
Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing which is opposed to assisted dying, said they are “extremely troubled by the detail of the amendment”, claiming there was “little or no clarity about reporting structures and accountability” of the new commission and panels.
He added: “It is risible to claim that this massively watered down, and opaque replacement will be safer.”
The latest proposed amendments will be considered in the coming weeks.
A committee of 23 MPs is undertaking line-by-line scrutiny of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill before it returns to the House of Commons – most likely towards the end of April – for further debate and a vote.