The first committee meeting of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill confirmed what many disabled people already knew – and have been highlighting from the beginning. Specifically, that the bill and its proponents have disgracefully dismissed and sidelined disabled voices at every turn.
This was once again painfully evident when members overwhelmingly voted to exclude a leading disabled activist as a witness in its upcoming sessions. In particular, among other amendments, they shot down one which sought to include Ellen Clifford, who this January momentously took on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in the High Court over its dangerous plans to reform the Work Capability Assessment – and won.
Assisted dying bill: a stitch up from the start
On 21 January, the Public Bill Committee for the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life Bill) sat for the first time.
Including herself, Leadbeater has appointed 14 supporters of the bill to this committee responsible for scrutinising it.
These include health minister Stephen Kinnock and justice minister Sarah Sackman. Six other Labour MPs who supported the bill will join them. There’s also two Conservative MPs, two Liberal Democrats, and one Plaid Cymru MP that backed it as well.
The remaining nine – six Labour, two Conservative, and one Liberal Democrat – opposed the bill at second reading.
Immediately, it’s clear the weighting of the committee is heavily pro-assisted dying from the get-go. Now, it’s also already apparent that this is biasing the evidence-gathering process.
Snubbing a spot for a leading disabled activist
During this first session, it was quickly obvious that Leadbeater was moving to mothball scrutiny and genuine challenges to her bill.
She started by bringing a motion to make discussions on the proposed witness list private. In other words, she wanted to conceal this part of the meeting from the public. Naturally, the pro-assisted dying stacked members passed this through. It means that all matters pertaining to why Leadbeater selected the witnesses she has, happened behind closed doors.
To start, the committee will take oral evidence from around 42 witnesses during three upcoming sessions this January. At the time of writing, the committee has not yet published the witness list on the bills page – so we don’t currently know who this will include.
However, we do know who this won’t include already – and that’s legendary Ellen Clifford:
The first meeting of the Assisted Suicide bill committee confirms our worst fears: relevant experts, such as @EllenClifford1 and others from Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations, have been shut out. pic.twitter.com/RNxE04VEuC
— Ben Claimant 💚 Join a Union (@BenClaimant) January 21, 2025
Specifically, Labour MP Naz Shah brought a series of amendments to the witness list. One of these was to remove Irwin Mitchell partner and solicitor Yogi Amin from the line-up and replace him with Clifford.
Not a surprise over Assisted Dying
Predictably, the committee shot the amendment down with a resounding clamour of “no’s”. Evidently, fresh from her High Court win for disabled people’s rights, Clifford’s tenacity against the DWP has the pro-assisted dying proponents anxious to avoid her holding their feet to the fire in an evidence session on parliamentary record for all to see.
Of course, it’s also hardly surprising from a committee make-up that already failed to include a single disabled MP that voted against the bill. Moreso when you take into account that many of its members support the bill as is. And add to that, that some want to water down its so-called safeguards even further, and you have the recipe for more disastrous sidelining of disabled voices.
Effectively, like Leadbeater, they see little wrong in a bill with a swelling litany of issues. This is despite the fact that every single DPPOs – all 350 – has opposed it from the start. That mere fact alone should be telling enough.
Moreover, it’s obvious that Leadbeater and the largely pro-assisted dying panel would be reticent to remove Amin. The solicitor has supported a number of high profile court cases seeking to legalise assisted dying – most recently in 2018.
An unbalanced line-up
There were other witnesses the committee snubbed in Shah’s amendments as well. This included the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP). This was because the committee considered that the General Medical Council (GMC) and the British Medical Association (BMA) covered its remit.
As the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey pointed out, that wouldn’t have anything to do with psychiatrists majority concerned existing ‘safeguards’ on consent are woefully inadequate where coercion comes in:
65% of psychiatrists said they weren’t confident consent can adequately safeguard people being coerced into assisted dying so the committee decided they don’t want evidence from them. This is so horrifically stacked. https://t.co/6YSeG6QOj5
— Rachel Charlton-Dailey (@RachelCDailey) January 21, 2025
Arguably though, it’d be better to include mental health advocates with lived experience over the RCP. Certainly, it’d be a shameful oversight if the committee leaves out people living with mental health conditions who can directly speak to issues around coercion firsthand.
Leadbeater has since walked back on this decision to leave the RCP out. She has now added the RCP to the witness list. Naturally though, not without making a dig at people who oppose the bill:
Thanks Naz. I will always work collaboratively & listen to colleagues. The Bill Committee will hear from nearly 50 witnesses with a range of views & a huge amount of expertise. (Important to remember this will never be enough for people who are fundamentally opposed to the Bill) https://t.co/76wDCRsb8J
— Kim Leadbeater MBE MP (@kimleadbeater) January 22, 2025
The committee will still have to agree to this at a future session.
Ignoring chronically ill and disabled voices… again
It also looks to be the case that Leadbeater hasn’t included any experts from Canada either.
However, aside from spurning Clifford’s inclusion, the other most alarming revelation was that the witness list won’t be remotely balanced. Conservative MP Danny Kruger drew attention to this. He highlighted that there were 38 witnesses he considered supporters of the bill, and only 20 opposed.
He also noted that of the eight witnesses from “foreign jurisdictions”, all support assisted dying within their own countries. Multiple members weighed in here to defend the decision. They opined that it apparently only made sense to have people involved in the ‘successful’ operation of assisted dying bills elsewhere to make Leadbeater’s legislation “workable”. That is, they had no interest taking evidence from people and communities assisted dying laws have harmed and put at risk elsewhere.
Ultimately, Leadbeater and the committee’s choice to leave Clifford out speaks volumes. Despite the spiteful quip in her post about the RCP U-turn, Leadbeater is right about one thing – her list isn’t enough. Not when it’s looking likely that she has deliberately chosen not to include even a single representative from a DDPO on it.
Contrary to Leadbeater and her supporters repeated boasts to inclusivity, the committee proceedings are already shaping up to be anything but. After MPs voted it through second reading – it was clear Parliament was ignoring chronically ill and disabled people’s voices. Now, this whole sham scrutiny process is showing just how little MPs will listen to them when it really comes down to it.
Featured image via the Canary
