Assisted dying bill vote will be ‘very close’, says Kim Leadbeater – UK politics live

Key events

Show key events only

Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature

Kim Leadbeater rejects claim her assisted dying bill flawed because it does not fully set out legal scrutiny process

In her Today programme interview Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who tabled the assisted dying bill rejected claims from a former lord chief justice that the legislation is flawed because it does not explain how judges would deal with hearings where they would have to decide whether or not to approve an assisted dying application.

Asked about the comments from Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd in an interview on the same programme yesterday, Leadbeater said:

Judges do these sorts of cases in other very delicate matters all the time. So they look at things like turning off life support machines for terminally ill people.

So this is not going to be, it will be a new area of work for judges, but they are used to making these difficult and complex decisions and being part of this process.

Leadbeater also said the bill was supported by four former directors of public prosecutions (DPPs) “who have got huge amounts of legal experience between them”.

She was referring to Max Hill, Alison Saunders and Ken Macdonald, who have all spoken out recently in support of the bill, and to Keir Starmer, who voted for assisted dying in 2015, who has confirmed he remains in favour provided proper safeguards are in place, but who has said little about the Leadbeater bill because he wants the government to be seen as neutral.

Good morning. We have got PMQs later, which means party politics will probably dominate for much of the day in the chamber, but increasingly MPs are preoccupied with a free vote, non-partisan matter, the vote on the assisted dying bill on Friday. This morning there are at least two interesting developments on that story.

• Three former Conservative prime ministers are all opposed to the bill, the Telegraph is reporting. The paper has a quote from Liz Truss who says:

It is wrong in principle: organs of the state like the NHS and the judicial system should be protecting lives, not ending them.

No doubt, as we have seen in Canada, vulnerable people would be put under appalling pressure to end their lives early. The law would be ripe for being exploited by the unscrupulous. MPs should vote this terrible bill down and instead focus on improving health services.

The Telegraph has also been told that Boris Johnson does not support the legislation in its current form, and that Theresa May has not changed her mind since 2015, when she voted against an assisted dying bill. Normally three ex-PMs would be quite a lot, but these three only comprise half the Conservative party’s stock of former prime ministers and, as Sam Blewett writes in Politico’s London Playbook briefing, there are plenty of other ex-PMs yet to express a view.

Added to Gordon Brown’s intervention last week, that makes four former PMs opposed to a change in the law. There’s still no word from Rishi Sunak, David Cameron, Tony Blair or John Major … or really from Keir Starmer, for that matter.

• Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who has tabled the private member’s bill being debated on Friday, has criticised the MPs who have called for the bill to be voted down to allow time for a full policy review. Four Labour backbenchers are among the seven MPs who have tabled an amendment to this effect. The amendment does not oppose assisted dying in principle. In an interview with the Today programme this morning, Leadbeater said the amendment was “disappointing” because, if passed, it would stop the Commons voting on the substance of the bill. She explained:

The route of the private member’s bill is absolutely the right route for taking this legislation through. That means that there can be a free vote by all MPs. It is not a government bill.

The government has a neutral position on this and, sadly, the amendment that a handful of MPs have put forward is disappointing in that the public clearly want this debate to take place, and I think we’ve got responsibilities as parliamentarians to make sure that that debate does take place.

Leadbeater also said she did not accept that argument that parliament needed more time to consider the issues before having a vote.

In terms of time and scrutiny, look, this is not a new debate. This debate has been going on for decades. It’s been going on, as you quite rightly said, particularly in recent years, in no short part to due to high-profile campaigners like Esther Rantzen.

But I think we can already see from what’s happened in the last few months, this bill will receive more scrutiny and more discussion and more debate, probably, than any piece of legislation.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The Office for National Statistics publishes data about domestic abuse in England and Wales.

Morning: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, and Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, are due to visit a mental health charity in London.

Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.

After 12.30pm: Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, makes a statement to MPs about Vauxhall’s plans to close its van factory in Luton.

Afternoon: Starmer is due to do an AI-related visit in London.

3.30pm: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.

If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I have still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.