DPAC

Statement for Press – return of assisted dying bill co-sponsorship by Marie Tidball MP

From Disabled People Against Cuts

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

17.06.26

Lauren Edwards, MP for Rochester and Strood, has announced her intention to uphold Parliamentary democracy through returning the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) private member’s bill to Parliament, claiming the House of Lords blocked the will of the Commons in failing to pass the bill earlier this year.

Disabled People Against Cuts [DPAC] joins Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations [DDPOs] across the UK in fearing this move.

She has stated her plan not to allow the Commons to amend the bill this time around.

The bill’s previous passage through the Commons was beset with multiple breaches of democratic principle, none of which she has any plans to address.

These breaches prevented Deaf and Disabled people including those with terminal illness and our representative organisations from having our concerns heard over the content and quality of the bill as well as the process by which it was passing until it reached the House of Lords.

Our concerns were not motivated by an opposition to the principle of assisted dying nor by any lack of ability to understand the bill nor by mistaken beliefs that the bill would impact us, as supporters of the bill regularly claimed.

There are many ways in which the bill would impact Deaf and Disabled people – not least because many of us are Disabled by terminal conditions and also because Deaf and Disabled people die from terminal conditions too – in fact we are statistically more likely to die earlier and from preventable illness.

Legislation dealing with terminal illness therefore has an arguably even greater significance to us than to non-Disabled people.

We are extremely anxious – indeed distressed – at the prospect of another attempt to legalise assisted suicide via Private Member’s Bill and in particular via the same seriously flawed attempt at legislation as before.

We are not at all reassured by co-sponsorship of the bill with Marie Tidball MP, herself an openly Disabled member of Parliament.

We see this as nothing short of a cynical attempt to gas light DDPOs and terminally ill people with concerns about legislation.

This is the same role played by Tidball in the passage of the previous bill when her involvement in the Commons’ public bill committee served to block amendments that would have provided greater safeguards.

Opposition to the bill in the House of Lords was primarily motivated by the fact that the bill itself is not fit for purpose. In its current form it will undoubtedly serve to remove choice and control from terminally ill people and shorten the lengths of time that they are able to live from the point of diagnosis.

Terminally ill people cited by bill proponents and featured in the media who voice support for legalisation only ever comment on the principle of assisted dying and never on the specific concerns with the content of the bill which DDPOs and professional bodies have raised.

Using their voices to discredit the voices of DDPOs and concerned individual terminally ill people is another example of the gas lighting we have endured.

If Lauren Edwards MP had a genuine concern for democracy and had even the vaguest interest in Parliamentarians appropriately fulfilling their responsibilities as legislators and duties of scrutiny, she would not be attempting to bring in such a monumental legislative change via a process that is unfit for this purpose, she would instead be looking to legislate for provision of a Royal Commission into the issue.

 

For more information contact:

Disabled People Against Cuts – mail@dpac.uk.net

Ellen Clifford – 07505 144371

 

END

 

Notes for Editor

1. Disabled People Against Cuts is a UK-wide grassroots campaign group set up to oppose the brutal and disproportionate impact of austerity and welfare reform on Deaf and Disabled people. The context of continuing cuts and regression of our rights is directly relevant to the level of threat which the Terminally Ill Adult (End of Life) poses to our lives.
2. There is not a single Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisation [DDPO]across the whole of the UK who supports the TIA bill. DDPOs are organisations run and controlled by Deaf and Disabled people.
3. Below is a list of democratic failures of previous bill which we call on Lauren Edwards MP to remedy with the new bill. Although these are not legal requirements for a private member’s bill, the magnitude of the legislative change that such a bill would require makes these essential in order to avoid breaching the human rights of Deaf and Disabled people. The role of a Disabled MP as co-sponsor is not an adequate substitute for provision of the below.

• • • Timescales need to be much longer at ALL stages of the bill. For example, the first draft of the TIA bill was produced less than three weeks in advance of the second reading debate. This was not only inadequate for MPs but also prevented DDPOs and Deaf and Disabled people with terminal conditions from accessing the draft with time to lobby their constituent MPs with any concerns.
  • • Bill materials including draft text of the bill itself to be available in accessible formats including easy read and BSL.
  • • Impact assessments including equality impact assessment to be published at the outset including in accessible formats. EIA to be fit for purpose and actually address potential adverse impacts on all equalities groups rather than just focusing on ensuring good access to the assisted dying service. Timely publication to allow for DDPOs to raise any problems with the quality of the EIA.
  • • Call for written evidence to be available in accessible formats and to be publicly announced with targeted outreach to DDPOs.
  • • Targeted outreach by the bill sponsor to hear the voices of people with terminal conditions within scope of the bill who have concerns about the bill.
  • • Assurance of no messaging to MPs or the media that the bill does not affect/is not relevant to Deaf and Disabled people to discourage consideration of our views and concerns.

4. Issues which the majority of terminally ill people cited by politicians and featured in media have not seemed to be aware of: Big savings to health and social care budgets associated with introduction of a new voluntary assisted dying service as included in the bill impact assessment.

• The reasons why the vast majority of palliative care professionals are opposed to legalisation including the threat it poses to investment in palliative care services, especially within the context of inadequate investment in and ongoing cuts to palliative care services and how the combined impact will be to reduce choice for terminally ill people in a far more substantial way than legalisation will increase it.

 

• The fact that, according to experienced palliative care consultants, only a tiny proportion of terminally ill patients need to die in pain. Stories of individuals dying in pain put forward by supporters of the bill are, in the most case, situations that could have been avoided by access to adequate palliative care early enough. Supporters of the bill openly acknowledge that legalisation will inevitably mean wrongful deaths. We would ask how many members of the public would want assisted dying rather than palliative care for a loved one if pain were not an issue when the latter would mean longer with them?

 

• Safety issues with the drugs currently used for assisted suicide in other jurisdictions and occurrences/risk of unpleasant and/or prolonged deaths.

 

• Resistance by bill supporters to safeguard against people with terminal conditions choosing to end their lives not because they want to but because of: financial considerations of others; inadequate social care support; coercion by overstretched carers; quality of life judgements by medical professionals [amendments on all of which were voted down].

 

• Lack of provision for identification of changes to a terminally ill person’s life able to alter their wish to end their life prematurely, for example through access to counselling, palliative care, social care or peer support.

 

• Legal loophole passed in the Commons regarding promotional advertising of assisted dying.

 

• Range of vested market interests in legalisation of assisted dying.

 

• Implications for those with anorexia who are covered via a loophole in the bill.

 

• Significant professional opinion that the mental capacity test used in the bill is inappropriate and fails to provide sufficient protections within the context of the bill.

 

• Concerns raised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission as well as disability groups and organisations throughout passage of the bill, none of which were adequately addressed and most of which were dismissed out of hand by supporters of the bill. In addition to DDPOs, concerns were raised by groups and organisations representing, for example, people with anorexia, people with Down’s Syndrome, Mencap, and domestic abuse survivors.

 

• Terrible inadequacy of the bill Equality Impact Assessment not only with respect to disability issues but also with regards to potential adverse implications for women experiencing domestic abuse and people from radicalised minorities.

 

• Unwillingness by bill supporters to learn from the experiences of people with terminal illness/Deaf and Disabled people to improve the bill, for example the statistically evidenced role of fear over reality for new diagnoses and ways to alleviate that fear without recourse to premature ending of one’s life.

 

• Implications for Deaf and Disabled people in Scotland and Northern Ireland due to interesting legislation, for example where Westminster has power over NHS provision of expensive life-saving treatment drugs to which Disabled campaigners have to fight for access.

 

• The fact that data and research from jurisdictions where assisted suicide or euthanasia and assisted suicide are legalised (both are distinct forms of assisted dying) is severely limited but in every one, the original eligibility criteria for legalisation has widened.

 

• The impact of legalisation on overall suicide rates. Evidence from other jurisdictions shows that the rate of overall non-assisted suicides does not reduce when assisted suicide is legalised but instead indicates that this rate increases. This is due to the normalising impact it has on suicide within wider society and because most suicides of terminally ill people occur straight after diagnosis rather than closer to death within a timeframe that comes within scope of legislation. This is an especially important concern for legalisation within the current UK context given the ongoing and only worsening crisis in mental health services. It is also a concern voiced by the UK Suicide Prevention Tsar, Professor Louis Appleby, and again disregarded by supporters of the bill.