Support for the Assisted Suicide Bill is "ebbing away" in Westminster.
In a welcome further blow to Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill, another MP who initially backed the Bill at Second Reading has indicated he has changed his mind, and will vote against it at next month’s Third Reading vote.
Explaining his reasoning, Liberal Democrat MP Brian Mathew expressed his concerns about terminally ill people feeling they “have become a burden upon their family”, saying “I share the concerns of many constituents that individuals facing terminal illness will take the 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”.
Mathew was critical of the Bill for “inviting interference of the judicial process into the delicate and pressing needs of the end of life where many, who will be unlikely to have considered assisted dying, may now face worries from it”. Stating that “the current state of end-of-life care cannot be described as optimal”, Mathew warned that, due to the “patchy” provision of hospices, “an assisted death might be seen as the preferred option”.
Mathew, who voted for the Bill at Second Reading last November to allow “time and opportunity to scrutinise and improve the Bill”, blasted the Report Stage debate for “inadequately” answering his concerns, saying “Coming to the third reading, I am minded to vote against the Bill, as I have several concerns I feel have been inadequately answered by the report stage”. The Report Stage debate was branded by critics as “chaotic” and “a disaster” after MPs debated only two of over 100 amendments put forward before running out of time.
The Guardian described Mathew’s apparent change of mind as a “sign” that support for the Bill is “ebbing away”. Critics now believe there is a good chance of the Bill failing during the “knife-edge” Third Reading vote in June, with Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell citing “many colleagues who voted for the Bill at second reading but are now having doubts”.
Rosindell added “Momentum is against Leadbeater’s Bill and there is every reason to believe we can defeat it at third reading”.