Thinking about assisted dying / assisted suicide (the language, as the Health and Social Care Select Committee of the Westminster Parliament noted in its recent report, is itself problematic) is difficult, not least because people need to think at two levels:
(1) What they think about the idea in principle, as to which, this explainer may help (it was recorded a few months ago so at a point before it became clear that the Westminster Parliament was to be asked to think about it). Recent polling coordinated by the Complex Life and Death Decisions Research Group based at King’s College London (of which I form a part), shows the importantly nuanced views of a representative sample of members of the public, including among the majority of that sample who expressed support for the idea.
(2) Whatever they think about the idea in principle, what any law to implement it would look like. Parliament cannot pass a principle, but has to pass a law. At an event on 16 October 2024 organised by the CLADD group, one key issue that came through strongly was the challenge posed for Parliamentarians in this regard by the fact that the proposal is being put forwards as a Private Member’s Bill. That is not to criticise Kim Leadbeater MP for doing so, but rather to highlight a very practical consequence, namely that it is not supported by the type of policy materials that would accompany a Government Bill. By way of contrast, the proposals put before the States Assembly in Jersey in March 2024 by the Council of Ministers ran to 245 pages setting out what was required for the States Assembly even to be able to decide whether to take the proposals forward. As the Council of Ministers noted at paragraph 582, “[g]iven the detail and complexity of these proposals, it is anticipated that the law drafting process will take 12-18 months”. The proposals put forward in Jersey differed in some important regards from those which may be put forward by Ms Leadbeater (although she has not yet published her Bill, and is I understand it under no obligation to do so at any specific point before the second reading on 29 November), but the view of the Council of Ministers might be thought to be of some interest as indicating the scale of the task.
Because this will be a free vote, many Parliamentarians are seeking to grapple with both issues simultaneously. There is, understandably, much focus on the first issue in the media / social media. I tried at the event on 16 October to pose some questions for those seeking to think about the second issue, but I cannot recommend too highly the website Making Laws That Work. It accompanies a book of the same title by David Goddard, a Court of Appeal judge in New Zealand. Whilst the (excellent) book is undoubtedly worth buying in and of itself, I would suggest that the checklists that the author has made freely available on his website to stress test legislative proposals would make invaluable reading for any Parliamentarian seeking to interrogate what ‘good’ law to implement (and I emphasise the word implement) assisted dying / assisted suicide in England & Wales would look like.