Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill is losing support fast, as her latest amendment sparks outrage from MPs and campaigners who say it guts key safeguards. The new proposals, the full wording published late last night scraps High Court oversight in favour of a so-called “voluntary assisted dying commissioner” to oversee review panels. Opponents are calling the role the “death czar”…
Yesterday, Leadbeater refused to rule out whether patients might opt for assisted dying simply to save on care costs. The latest wording also means that applicants wouldn’t have to inform their families. The Sun has now come out against the bill, while Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty was forced to row back, admitting he was wrong to claim the bill required a higher mental capacity threshold for assisted dying than for other, less serious medical decisions. Five Labour MPs—Antonia Bance, Jess Asato, James Frith, Melanie Ward, and Meg Hillier—slammed the amendment in a late-night statement, warning that “a civil servant deciding on life and death” is a step too far. The timing of the announcement—conveniently as MPs disappear for recess—hasn’t gone unnoticed either…
Leadbeater is dismissing criticism as just “noise”, while an ally insists the commissioner would be “wholly independent” and must be a current or former senior judge—making the system, they claim, the strongest in the world. As one campaigner put it, “a judge turning up to a restaurant for dinner doesn’t make it a court”…
Former Treasury minister and adviser to Burnham in the Makerfield campaign Lord Jim O’Neill, who has turned down a role in his government, said Burnham’s first statement Commons was:
“The last thing investors wanted to hear… gilt yields have risen by a 0.25% in one day, which is a lot. We’ve not had that since Liz Truss days… If your country is under the focus of ‘can they come up with a sensible fiscal strategy’ on a day when the markets think ‘well no, you’re not showing any sign of it’ you’re going to have a tough day…if it stays like this your mortgage rate is going up.”