Thread by @nmdacosta

What did we learn from the final day of evidence?

1. This is far more complex than bill backers (and frankly No 10) anticipated and want to admit.

There are huge problems with writing a bill, and then asking the policy questions.

e.g. capacity

Professor Gareth Owen is a Professor of Psychological Medicine, Ethics and Law at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College

2. This will be a profound cultural shift. Australian assisted dying specialists, like US witnesses, believe 'feeling a burden' is a valid reason to choose assisted suicide.

3. That there is a big division between those that think capacity is enough - as in this bill - and those (e.g. psychiatrists, social workers, palliative care doctors) that want to look at what else may be going on when somebody wants help ending their life

Professor Meredith Blake, University of Western Australia; Professor Gareth Owen, Professor of Psychological Medicine, Ethics and Law, King's College

4. That for medical practitioners that participate in assisted dying/suicide it is "just another treatment option" to be raised

5. GPs do not want Assisted Dying to become part of their normal practice and think - as others have suggested - the Government should create a separate service to provide it

Michael Mulholland, Honorary Secretary, Royal College of General Practitioners echoed the BMA

6. The judicial stage needs to be "completely rethought" in the view of Professor Laura Hoyano, and the appeal stage is completely one-sided. Other legal witnesses have suggested entirely different approaches.

7. There's a 'record no evil, hear no evil' approach to record keeping and national reporting - you cannot look behind the veil

[Nor did the Committee get the chance - only overseas practitioners that are positive about assisted dying/assisted suicide got invited

8. We heard moving testimony from several people whose family members had died by suicide or sought assisted dying. They were supportive of the bill but did not go into bill specifics.

The Committee did not hear from any that had opted for assisted dying and developed doubts

9. The Bill is cavalier with Welsh devolution, a situation worsened by the Senedd's recent vote against Assisted Dying.

I cannot stress enough how much outcry there would be if this was the government doing this.

Professor Emyr Lewis

10. The Committee will get no assistance from the Government in understanding how the vulnerable will be affected (as suggested by Baroness Falkner, Chair of EHRC).

Daniel Francis MP asked for assessments prior to line-by-line scrutiny. Ministers said no.

11. Our words will be redefined

Alex Greenwich, MP for Sydney, Parliament of New South Wales (did for NSW what Kim Leadbeater hopes to do for England and Wales)

Hansard link here (at time of posting the afternoon session wasn't uploaded yet) hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-0…