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Opposition to a bill attempting to legalise assisted dying appears to be growing despite promises that it will include the toughest safeguards anywhere in the world by its proposer Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.
Health secretary Wes Streeting has already indicated he will oppose the legislation, which is a free conscience vote in parliament, and now he could be joined by an improbable alliance of Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Labour leftwing veteran Diane Abbott.
This comes as an open letter from thousands of doctors and nurses opposing the Bill has been published today warning that safeguards cannot be strong enough.
Writing in The House magazine, Ms Leadbeater said her proposal “offers hope to those terminally ill people with a clear, informed and settled wish to have a better death, while at the same time protecting all those approaching the end of their life from coercion or pressure to make a decision that isn’t right for them; indeed my Bill will contain the strictest protections and safeguards of any legislation anywhere in the world”.
She added: “I have been consulting very widely over the past few weeks, mainly because I’m not the sort of person who would embark on a task like this without delving deeply into the issue first.
“But also because I am clear that if we are to have a new law it must be a good law.”
Speaking to The Independent ahead of details being published, Ms Badenoch, who is yet to make a final decision, made it clear that as a former patron of Conservatives for Choice she does not oppose the principle of the Bill. But she claimed that issues she had come across affecting children in the trans debate meant she did not trust the NHS with safeguards.
She said: “I do support the principle in very limited circumstances where somebody wants to choose how they go, they can do so because of what I saw happen to a family member, and she died in the most awful way.
“But – and this is where a lot of people think that I’m overly nuanced – I think that this system, a lot of the systems in this country, are broken. The NHS needs reform. We can’t deliver social care. Can we actually handle assisted suicide on top of all that?”
She added: “And this is where my biases and political prejudices come in. If it was a Conservative government, I would feel more confident that we are better at this. It’s a Labour government. It’s a private member’s bill. They’re rushing it through.”
When Ms Leadbeater revealed she would be publishing details of the Bill, Ms Abbott also expressed her concerns.
She posted on X: “I do not share the reported enthusiasm for the Assisted Dying Bill. And it is painfully late to be bringing forward a draft bill, with so little time to consider its contents.”
Meanwhile an open letter to Sir Keir Starmer, who backs the legislation, signed by 3,400 doctors and nurses and organised by the campaign group Our Duty of Care (Odoc), warned about the potential consequences of the Bill.
The letter said: “We write with great concern regarding the introduction of a Bill to legalise doctor-assisted suicide. The NHS is broken, with health and social care in disarray. Palliative care is woefully underfunded and many lack access to specialist provision,” it says.
“The thought of assisted suicide being introduced and managed safely at such a time is remarkably out of touch with the gravity of the current mental health crisis and pressures on staff.
“Any change would threaten society’s ability to safeguard vulnerable patients from abuse; it would undermine the trust the public places in physicians; and it would send a clear message to our frail, elderly and disabled patients about the value that society places on them as people.”
