Six times Leadbeater promised a high court judge safeguard

Back to the assisted dying bill. It has emerged that the legislation’s requirement for a senior judge to approve whether someone should be allowed to end their life has been removed over concerns about the toll it could take on Britain’s struggling courts. An amendment put forward by Kim Leadbeater, the bill’s sponsor, has now proposed that, instead of having a high court judge investigate each case, a panel of social workers and psychiatrists among others should oversee applications. How curious.

It’s certainly quite the turnaround. While Leadbeater has now claimed the changes will ‘make the system even more robust’, prior to her amendment, the bill’s sponsor and her supporters were vocal proponents of the high court judge method. In fact, here are six times Leadbeater promised the safeguard would be in place…

The initial bill

In the first version of the bill put forward by Leadbeater, the text states that under a section headed ‘court approval’ that after a patient wanting to end their life has had their decision approved by two doctors, their case would then got to the High Court ‘for a declaration that the requirements of this Act have been met’ – part of what Leadbeater went on to describe as the ‘strictest protections’.