Kill This Bill

The Times editorialises:

Sir Keir Starmer likes to see himself as a serious prime minister for serious times. On occasion the actions of his government measure up to his self-regard. To say he had approached the torturous and unseemly debate on assisted dying legislation with due seriousness, however, would be darkly amusing were the matter at hand not so consequential.

It is often said that Sir Keir is deeply invested in the passage of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, the legislation brought forward by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater. If that is the case, it is difficult to take his government seriously on that most vital question: the right of the state to sanction medically-assisted suicide.

This week, as a legislative process that has revealed both the best and worst of parliament dragged on, it emerged that assisted dying may not be introduced in England and Wales until 2029, two years later than promised by Ms Leadbeater. The Department of Health and Social Care fears that it is unworkable. Of course, 2029 will be an election year, and supporters of the bill fear it will politicise the legislation and put paid to its chances of ever taking effect. Those opposed to state-sanctioned suicide may be forgiven a bittersweet sense of vindication. The delay is nothing if not a tacit admission that the bill is not fit for purpose, its provisions a mess, and its journey through parliament an unconscionable waste of time.

For this, much of the blame must lie with Ms Leadbeater, the hapless pilot of the bill during its choppy passage, and those who egged her on. Attempting to establish a state suicide service via a private member’s bill was always wildly inappropriate. The committee scrutinising its provisions has left itself open to accusations of bias as expert witnesses opposed to the measure have been ignored or demeaned. And, of course, this dog’s breakfast of a process was initiated with the connivance of Downing Street.

If Labour wished to rewrite Britain’s social contract in such a profound way (it was Sir Keir who relaxed prosecution guidelines for those involved in assisted suicide when he was head of the Crown Prosecution Service), then it should have had the guts to put the issue to the electorate last year. Instead, an unqualified backbencher found herself being used as a stalking horse, introducing assisted suicide through the legislative back door to satisfy a personal promise made by the prime minister to a former television presenter.

Patching up the bill on the hoof, as Ms Leadbeater has done repeatedly, is not serious politics. Allowing Dame Esther Rantzen to become the  arbiter of public policy on such a vital issue, as Sir Keir has done, is equally unserious. Citing Canada, the Netherlands and Oregon as models for a British system, when all three are now permitting the depressed and the anorexic to kill themselves courtesy of the state, is positively chilling. Cheerleaders for this looming horror, like the Royal ­College of GPs, which switched from opposition to neutrality despite increasing numbers of its members declaring themselves opposed to the bill, have done themselves no credit.

The thankless task of scrutinising this sinister and half-baked proposal has fallen to a few brave MPs on the committee, among them Labour’s Naz Shah, the Conservatives’ Danny Kruger and the Liberal Democrats’ Sarah Olney. Thanks to them its flaws have been fatally exposed. It remains only to administer the coup de grâce and kill this bill.