Proponents of the Assisted Dying Bill have already received fierce criticism as it has gone through the evidence-hearing committee stage. At 10 p.m. last night Leadbeater announced in the Guardian her intention to amend the bill to remove the requirement for High Court approval. A crucial element which reassured MPs at the second reading…
Instead the Labour MP proposes what she calls “Judge Plus” – a panel with no serving judge made up of a KC or a ‘person with similar qualifications’, psychiatrist, and social worker – to approve assisted deaths. A judge will be part of the “Assisted Dying Commission” to select the panels…
Leadbeater on BBC Breakfast this morning says the numerous scrutinising elements as part of her model are superior, before pivoting to insist that any oversight at all is better than the current none. Curious…
“We’ve also got to remember that this law is trying to fix a problem that exists in that at the moment nobody is checking for coercion or assessing capacity in terminally ill people who are in some cases taking their own lives, in some cases going to a different country – Switzerland – for an assisted death.”
Leadbeater adds that lots of people thank her in the street for her efforts. Today detailed scrutiny of the bill begins and its opponents on the bill committee are up in arms. Danny Kruger calls the change of tack “a disgrace.” Sarah Olney says this has come at a “really unfortunate time” because there isn’t enough time to scrutinise the extremely significant change. Some in SW1 see cloaks and daggers here…
Burnham confirms he spoke to Trump last night about drilling in the North Sea:
“I indicated in the phone call that we had a week last Monday that I would take a pragmatic approach when it comes to the North Sea, and that is my intention as we go forward from here. There is a resource there. When people are struggling, we can’t ignore that. Hence, me indicating that to the president…”