Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (Twenty First sitting)

Marie Tidball Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Naz Shah]

I agree: there is not a judicial process, so to speak. There most definitely is not. As I make progress, I will outline my concerns about that very clearly.

Let us take the second point raised by Sir James. He asked who will go about

“testing and, if need be, challenging the evidence”?

New clause 21 finally gives the panel the power to call people to give evidence who are neither the applicant nor the doctor. New clause 21(4) says that the panel

“may hear from and may question any other person”

and

“may ask any person appearing to it to have relevant knowledge or experience to report to it on such matters relating to the person to whom the referral relates as it considers appropriate.”

I welcome that as a start, because it acknowledges that there will be cases in which people other than the applicant and the doctors have vital information. But that really should not be where we finish—not if we want a genuinely robust assisted dying Bill with strong safeguards for vulnerable people.

The ability of the panel to hear evidence from other parties would indeed be one step towards detecting whether people are, for example, being coerced towards an assisted death. That would be one step towards being able to detect whether people were choosing assisted death because of a lack of palliative care or social care. But how will the panels know which witnesses are most likely to have or be aware of the significant evidence they seek?

The panel members will have the statements by the applicant and the doctors, and they will have the answers to any questions they have of the applicant and the doctors. I ask Members to think through how certain it is that those sources alone will be enough to find all the people who might have significant knowledge of a person’s circumstances. I would argue that it will not be certain. Yes, in some cases there will be no hidden circumstances that a panel would hear of from a witness only if they were called, but in other cases there will be, and those circumstances are much more likely to occur in the cases of people who are coerced or who feel like a burden to their families. They will be more likely to occur for those who have poor mental health, who are isolated, or who lack the social care they need. The panels are not likely to find witnesses with relevant information if what they have to go on is the statement of witness evidence of a person who has, for example, been successfully and skilfully coerced.

[Dr Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

New clause 21(4)(e) says that the panel

“may ask any person appearing to it to have relevant knowledge or experience to report to it on such matters relating to the person to whom the referral relates as it considers appropriate.”

Does my hon. Friend not agree that the expertise of the three panel members, as set out in the new clause, will mean they will very much have the ability to identify, on the basis of that subsection, the kind of individuals and the knowledge required?

[Naz Shah]

As I have stated before—I will make reference to that very point later—I would argue the safeguards are just not robust enough.

There should be a mechanism for trained and experienced people to find witnesses who might have relevant information. This could relate to another criticism that Members have made of the panel system: there is no provision for the Official Solicitor to act on behalf of the applicant. Sir James Munby argues that we should strongly consider this, saying that

“there must be a rigorous procedure in every case for testing and if need be challenging the evidence, including an independent evidential investigation, perhaps by the Official Solicitor, of the kind discussed in Conway. There are two reasons why this is essential in every case…Without this, it will not be proper for a judge to be involved in the process as a member of the panel.”

He goes on to make it plain that by “judge” he means the legal member of the panel.