The House of Lords Constitution Committee has issued an important report on the Terminally Ill Adults Bill on assisted suicide. They don't hold back. Here's a summary of what they've said.🧵 1. The absence of any pre-legislative scrutiny for the Bill and the delayed production of impact assessments by the government mean "[t]he degree of deliberation, assessment and scrutiny is ... significantly less than we would expect to see for an equivalent government bill."

I think this, from Dr Henry Who-Cares-If-a-Few-Grannies-Get-Bullied-Into-It Marsh might be the worst column I've read on assisted suicide in some time, as arrogantly brazen as it is ill-informed. Let's unpack some of it. observer.co.uk/news/opinion-a… 1. Marsh says "there is ­little, if any, evidence of [assisted suicide] leading to significant abuse or moral harm" in places where it's legal. Tell that to the group who helped legalise it in Canada, who admit it has been abused there. telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/1…

It's really concerning to see an argument from some of the MPs scrutinising the assisted suicide Bill that judicial review will offer an effective safeguard for families concerned by a panel's approval of an assisted suicide request made by their loved ones. JR takes time and costs money. It's usually retrospective. Injunctions to stop an assisted suicide going ahead would have to cross a high threshold of apparent illegality. Normally the courts presume an administrative decision to be lawful until the substantive JR hearing.

Plans for Assisted Dying Review Panels have be released. It's a massive change to the Bill, and I can't believe it can be made and accepted without hearing new evidence and starting scrutiny again. It turns out "Judge-plus" is no such thing. publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill… The judge doesn't play any role in the panel hearing, but will only have a very minimal role reviewing panel decisions on restricted judicial review grounds. This isn't the same as an appeal. There won't even be a hearing.

What sort of protections could be put in @kimleadbeater's assisted suicide Bill to make it safer and deal with some concerns over the inadequacy of safeguards? Here are ten initial thoughts on how the Bill could be made better: 🧵 1. That doctors can raise the issue of assisted suicide first is really problematic, and could open up the law to much of the abuse we've seen in Canada and elsewhere. There should be a proscription on doctors taking the initiative in conversations on assisted suicide.

I've asked a colleague who teaches stats in the University to run constituency deprivation scores and assisted suicide votes through some independent statistical analysis. The results are quite interesting. Here, for example, are how Labour MPs split on assisted suicide: There's a clear link between the deprivation ranking of an MP's constituency and their vote. On the index of multiple deprivation, where 1 = most deprived, the higher the level of deprivation in their constituency, the more likely the MP was to vote No to assisted suicide.

I've been wary of writing this, as it's still so raw. But I really think that, as a society, we should be extremely wary of normalising suicide, even in supposedly 'exceptional' circumstances of terminal illness and acute physical pain. A while back a close friend took their own life. Aside from the shock and trauma of it, and the real sadness in learning that that friend had felt so trapped and lost, I continue to live with the way the event 'normalised' suicide for me in ways I didn't imagine possible.

There's quite a bit bubbling up on social media about whether @Keir_Starmer, who was Director of Public Prosecutions from 2008 to 2013, should have intervened in the @PostOffice's prosecutions of sub-postmasters during the Horizon scandal. Is this fair? 🧵 To start, it's worth noting that the @PostOffice didn't have any special prosecutorial powers. The Horizon prosecutions were brought pursuant to any private person (inc companies) has to bring a prosecution. They have no obligation to inform the DPP or Crown Prosecution Service.