After a morning of debating the Assisted Dying Bill has passed the final hurdle in the Commons – the third reading. Off to the Lords…
So ends months of lobbying and skullduggery in parliament. Second reading was 330 ayes vs 275 noes, majority 55. Wes Streeting will be breaking a sweat…
This time:
- Ayes: 314
- Noes: 291
Down to a 23 majority. Thin…
MPs are debating the Assisted Dying bill in the Commons. So far Leadbeater has insisted the bill is “safe”…
The main opposition point raised so far is that this is a Private Members’ Bill and hopes that it will be amended properly in the Lords are deeply flawed. James Cleverly pointed out there are a “number of professional bodies which are neutral on the topic of assisted dying in general but are opposed to the provisions within this Bill”…
Things are close. The results should be known by 2:30 p.m. Watch along…
Kim Leadbeater’s Assisted Dying Bill is back in the spotlight, with reports suggesting the Third Reading will be set for 25 April, and Committee scrutiny finishing off this Tuesday and Wednesday. Last week, the Public Bill Committee voted through Leadbeater’s proposal to scrap High Court oversight in favor of a so-called “Voluntary Assisted Dying Commissioner”. Critics are already dubbing the role the “Death Czar”…
With the bill creeping closer to law, campaign group Dignity in Dying – bankrolled by mystery donors and backing Leadbeater’s push – has restarted its spending spree. Having not advertised in England since after the Second Reading in November, Dignity and Dying has dusted off the credit card, splashing £1,637 on Facebook ads in the last ten days. In their call to arms the group states that “we have two more votes to win in Spring this year. We have until then to lobby MPs to support amendments and vote it through,” proudly touting their “experience of the Second Reading victory” . The fight begins again…
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”…
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…
After backbench debating since 9.30 a.m. the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 2024-25 has passed its second reading in the House of Commons. Through to the committee stage…
MPs say Starmer and Reeves voted for the bill. Not unexpected…
Sunak and Jeremy Hunt voted in favour. Corbo, Farage, Ed Davey, Lammy, Rayner voted against…
330 in favour 275 opposed. A majority of 55…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”
