In the end, Kim Leadbeater had little choice but to drop her plan for a High Court judge to personally sign off every assisted dying case in the UK.
It was made very clear to the Labour MP, whose bill to legalise assisted dying is currently being debated in parliament, that her plan had neither the support of the judiciary or the government.
She was told, in no uncertain terms, that it would bring England’s already struggling family courts to a standstill and potentially result in many people dying of natural causes long before they could be given the go-ahead to end their own lives.
As a result, Leadbeater backed down and plans to amend her legislation so that it would be a panel of experts rather than a judge who would make the final decision on whether an assisted death should go ahead.
On one level the change appears sensible. As the former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption pointed out last month, the only way the previous plan was workable was if the High Court merely acted as a rubber stamp for decisions taken by doctors. This, he warned, would confer a protection which was “largely illusory”.
A panel — made up of a senior lawyer, a psychiatrist and social worker — it was argued, would have time and expertise to examine each case in detail and actually provide greater safeguards than an overworked judge.
Yet it was Leadbeater herself who championed the original plan, insisting that the judicial element would make her bill the “most robust piece of legislation in the world”.
There is now an impression at least that the change represents a watering down of safeguards — something the bill’s critics have made central to their arguments.
In particular they warned that assisted dying panels would ultimately be self-selecting from those who put themselves forward and less likely to provide rigorous independent scrutiny. That could be significant when the bill returns to the Commons for its third reading.
When it was first voted on in November, more than 60 MPs said that they were supporting the bill and cited the High Court element of the process as an element of the process which reassured them.
It would only take half those 60 MPs to change their minds and oppose the new plan for the bill to fall entirely when it returns to the Commons for third reading later this year.
MPs, some of whom are supportive of the bill, are also questioning whether Leadbeater is the right person to be shepherding such a continuous and complex piece of legislation through parliament.
The former physical education lecturer entered the Commons at a by-election five years after the murder of her sister, Jo Cox.
Last September Leadbeater was drawn first in the ballot for private members’ bills and announced she would introduce an assisted dying bill, despite having never spoken about it in Parliament and not being a prominent campaigner on the issue. Critics have claimed that she is acting at the behest of Downing Street, something she has denied.
Leadbeater has insisted that the safeguards remain strong. How well she is able to convince her colleagues of this will determine whether her assisted dying bill itself can survive.
