Left image – Wikimedia Commons: Official portrait of Brian Mathew MP crop 2
Another MP has revealed that he is likely to vote against Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill because of ongoing concerns about inadequate palliative care and vulnerable people feeling pressured to take their lives.
Liberal Democrat MP Dr Brian Mathew says he is “minded to vote against the [Leadbeater] Bill, as I have several concerns I feel have been inadequately answered by the report stage”.
Leadbeater’s Bill proposes to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales for terminally ill adults given six months to live.
In a letter to a constituent, shared online by the Daily Mail, Dr Mathew said: “I share the concerns of many constituents that individuals facing terminal illness will take the [assisted suicide] decision based on concerns that they have become a burden upon their family.
“This is a serious concern for me; I worry that in someone’s final days, this question will loom heavy when it does not need to…
“Additionally, we must be honest, the current state of end-of-life care cannot be described as optimal.”
Dr Mathew is one of 15 MPs reported to have changed their minds about assisted suicide following the first vote on the Leadbeater Bill, approved by 330 votes to 275 last November.
Nine of these MPs previously voted in favour of the Bill, and the other six MPs abstained.
A House of Commons debate and second vote on the Bill is set to take place on 13 June (or possibly 20 June).
Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell said he knows “many colleagues who voted for the Bill at second reading but are now having doubts… and there is every reason to believe we can defeat it at third reading”.
Lord Stewart Jackson, a former Conservative MP, also said that “it does feel like things have changed in regards to the Leadbeater Bill… It looks like it will be a knife-edge vote next month.”
Secretary of State for Justice Shabana Mahmood recently warned that not enough time or scrutiny has been afforded to debate the enormity of legalising assisted suicide in England and Wales.
“I do think that this process has shown the inadequacies of private members’ bills as a vehicle for such wide societal change”, Mahmood said.
“There are huge implications here and the debate that we’re having is curtailed, it is short… I don’t think it’s the right thing to do.”
In March, six of Leadbeater’s fellow Labour MPs slammed her Bill as “irredeemably flawed and not fit to become law”.
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