According to amendments proposed by supporters of the bill, cases of assisted dying will no longer require approval from the High Court in the future. Currently, the proposed law stipulates that a High Court judge must verify that each applicant is eligible and has made the decision to die without coercion.
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02-11, 2025According to a BBC News report, Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP behind the bill, will recommend replacing the High Court's approval with a panel of experts responsible for overseeing applications. This move comes amid concerns about the court's ability to handle each individual case.
Leadbeater stated that these amendments "will make the system more robust." However, some opponents of the bill may criticize this move as weakening safeguards. If approved, the bill currently under consideration by parliamentarians would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales, if expected to die within six months, to seek assistance to end their lives.
Under Leadbeater's proposal, the panel reviewing each application would be chaired by a senior legal professional, but not necessarily a judge, and would also include experts such as psychiatrists and social workers. Their decisions could be reviewed by the High Court if necessary. These panels would be selected by a voluntary Assisted Dying Committee, led by a High Court judge or former senior judge. The committee would oversee all assisted dying cases and report annually on the number of applications, as well as the number approved and rejected.
Ministers and officials have been closely consulted on this amendment, although the government technically remains neutral on the bill. Civil servants are drafting the amendment, which will be published later this week. Leadbeater believes that this is not a removal of judicial review, but rather a change to a "judge+" model. However, she had previously praised the High Court's role as part of a "three-layered check," making it "the strongest and most robust legislation in the world on this issue."
The committee began reviewing the bill line by line on Tuesday. Two weeks ago, they heard three days of oral evidence from experts, including some who expressed concerns about the High Court's proposed role in approving applications. Sir Nicholas Mostyn, a retired High Court judge, told the panel that he did not believe it was possible for the High Court to rule on every assisted dying case. "You are talking about pretty much the entire family division [court] doing this," he said. He added that the matter should be "done by a panel set up for each case... a doctor and a lawyer, who have to agree, and they check that everything is lawful."
Leadbeater said she agreed that other professionals needed to be involved in the checks. "This bill already contains the strongest safeguards in the world, but I promised to listen carefully to suggestions we received about how to make the bill even stronger, and that is what I have done," she said. "Many of those who gave evidence to the committee, either in person or in writing, suggested strengthening the role of professionals such as psychiatrists and social workers. I agree that their expertise in assessing whether a person is able to make a voluntary decision free from coercion or pressure, in addition to the necessary legal checks, will make the system more robust."
More than 300 amendments have been tabled, and more are expected to be proposed in the coming weeks. One of these, to be debated on Tuesday, is proposed by Liberal Democrat MP Tom Gordon, allowing people with neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's, to access assisted dying if they have 12 months to live. The bill currently restricts assisted dying to those with terminal illnesses and no more than six months to live.
Gordon told BBC News: "This bill is about ensuring that people facing a painful death from a terminal illness have a choice about how they die. For those with neurodegenerative diseases, in the last six months of their lives, it may already be too late for them to engage in the application process." Labour MP Jess Asato, who opposes the bill, has expressed concerns about the "very late amendment." She told BBC's World Tonight program: "I am very worried that this U-turn means we are losing safeguards, and I know that there are many MPs who may have voted for it at second reading because of the promise that there would be a High Court judge, who will now be asking whether we are really going into legislation that has not really been thought through." It is understood that Leadbeater does not support extending the scope of the bill to include those with 12 months to live.
MPs backed the proposal to legalize assisted dying in England and Wales by a majority of 55 votes in November. However, it will be further debated by the House of Commons and the House of Lords later this year, and the final version needs to be approved by both to become law.
