Ex-supreme court judge says high court signoff for assisted death unnecessary
A former supreme court judge has told MPs that applications for assisted dying should not need high court approval.
Lord Sumption told a committee scrutinising the assisted dying bill that the requirement for signoff by a high court judge was 'unnecessary and in some respects undesirable'. No other jurisdiction in the world that allows assisted dying has such a requirement, he said.
The terminally ill adults (end of life) bill would allow adults in England and Wales with less than six months to live to end their lives, subject to approval by two doctors and a high court judge.
Sumption, who served in the UK's supreme court until 2018, said: 'It is not entirely clear what the judge is supposed to do … Is he there to ensure that the two doctors have done their job and the ducks are all in a row, or is he there to form his own view on these matters, completely independently of all those who have given certificates?
'If the latter, one is talking about quite a time-consuming process, involving a lot of additional evidence. It seems to me this is a protection which no other country, so far that I am aware of among those who have authorised assisted dying, have included.'
He said a proposal for a special panel of judges to deal with assisted dying applications might 'resolve the problem of the shortage of capacity in the high court. It would not, however, resolve the problem of the overengineering of the procedural provisions of this bill.'
The clause 'infers a protection that is largely illusory and undoubtedly very time-consuming … It involves the intervention of the state in an intensely personal agonising process, which to my mind is inappropriate.'
MPs also heard doctors from Australian states which have legalised assisted dying argue that the criterion of six months to live should be increased to 12 months.
Dr Cam McLaren, a Melbourne oncologist, said: 'I always say to people, we do not know they have six months left to live until they have six weeks left to live. And we as oncologists know, in the matter of one CT scan, we can change a person's prognosis from 18 months to three months.
'All of a sudden they see their life ending and then they begin an [assisted dying] application that takes a month to apply.'
Dr Clare Fellingham, the deputy director of medical services at Royal Perth hospital, said the UK had a 'golden opportunity to look across every jurisdiction that already has laws in operation, and cherrypick the very best bits of what is working well in those jurisdictions to create the very best, most robust but also most patient-centred legislation you can.'
Sign up to First Edition
Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters
after newsletter promotion
Other witnesses raised concerns about the bill. Chelsea Roff, the founder of Eat Breathe Thrive, said at least 60 people with eating disorders had successfully applied for an assisted death in other jurisdictions. People with diseases such as diabetes and HIV/Aids may also be able to circumvent terminal illness criteria by refusing medication or sustenance, she said.
Richard Robinson, the chief executive of Hourglass, said there was 'an epidemic of abuse against older people at the moment' which was 'vastly underplayed'. Older people would be vulnerable to pressure to opt for an assisted death despite the safeguarding provisions in the bill, he said.
Sumption said: 'I think we must all be conscious of the fact that coercion, even when it is overtly applied, is extraordinarily difficult to detect.'
He added: 'We have to live with the limitations of what human beings can do.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BreakingNews.ie
5 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Taoiseach says every effort will be made to bring Robert Pether home as soon as possible
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said that every effort will be made to get Robert Pether home to his family in Roscommon as quickly as possible, following his release from custody in Iraq after four years in prison. Mr Pether, who is an Australian citizen, has been in prison in Iraq since April 2021, after he was arrested on fraud charges following a contractual dispute involving his employer that arose out of the building of a new Central Bank building in Baghdad in Iraq. Advertisement The United Nations says it has been an arbitrary detention. Speaking during a school visit in Passage West, Co Cork on Friday morning, Mr Martin welcomed Mr Pether's release. He said that the imprisonment of the resident of Elphin, Co Roscommon, has been 'very distressing' for his wife, children and other family members. 'I don't want to say things that may in any way hinder his eventual arrival back to Ireland, but I believe this is a good first step. "We have to work very hard with countries such as Iraq and others in terms [of] the treatment of Irish citizens. He is an Australian citizen, which is a complicating factor in all of this, but both ourselves and the Australian Government have been working together in terms of endeavouring to get him out.' Advertisement Mr Martin said that he remains concerned about the health of the 49-year-old. 'I certainly do (share the concern of his wife) and the knock-on impact, the significant impact, on the well-being of the family. I have met with (his wife) Desree, and I think it's very upsetting. It is very difficult, as she said herself this morning, to see him now in terms of what the impact of prison has had on his life.' Meanwhile, Desree Pether told Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1 this morning that she was shocked at the poor physical condition of her husband when she spoke to him by video link. She said that Mr Pether is 'not well at all' and 'really needs to just come home so he can get the proper medical attention he needs.' Advertisement She said that he has fainted a few times over the last few months. 'He is not eating properly because he can't keep anything down. It is a shock to the system to see how far he has declined.' Ms Pether and other family members have been actively campaigning to get Robert Pether out of prison since 2021. Mr Martin met with Mr Pether's family in January of last year in his capacity as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He also raised the case with Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2023. The Department of Foreign Affairs raised the issue with Iraqi embassy in Dublin on numerous occasions whilst the detention of Mr Pether was also raised in Baghdad by Ireland's Ambassador to Iraq, Marianne Bolger.
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- The Guardian
Worried about the tax on $3m plus super balances? Here's how you'll survive
Imagine you have $3m in super and have just retired, only to hear that Labor plans to hit you with a new tax. Or perhaps you're worried (dream?) that at some point in the near or distant future you might cross that multi-million-dollar savings threshold. Either way, you might be wondering whether the government's proposal to whack an extra 15% tax on earnings on balances over $3m is going to put a major crimp in your retirement plans. Breathe easy, your annual trips to Europe are safe, as are your smashed avocado brekkies. According to Guardian Australia's analysis, a wealthy Australian retiring with $3m in super today would pay an extra $2,355 in tax. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email And that's from annual retirement income of more than $170,000, based on an estimate from Asic's MoneySmart retirement calculator. In other words, the tax represents barely 1% of your income. If that doesn't make you feel better, then remember that the median full-time salary in Australia is $88,400, according to the ABS, and $72,590 across all employees. So you are making nearly twice the median full-time salary – and those suckers are paying income tax! Well, consider this: The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia reckons that a single person with a paltry $595,000 in savings can generate a 'comfortable' lifestyle in retirement with $51,807 in income a year. You're making more than three times as much, even after paying Labor's damned extra tax! What's that? You only have $800,000 in savings? Gosh, how sad. (If it makes you feel any better, that's still four times the median super balance among 65-69 year-olds, according to the ATO). Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Don't worry, though, you won't be paying the proposed extra 15% tax - remember it only starts kicking in on balances over $3m. And anyway, you can still live pretty well on $67,000 a year, tax-free. That all sounds OK for the small-fry with $3m in super. But what about the serious savers with $5m? How much extra tax will they have to suffer in the name of making the super system 'fairer'? Bad news. They could be paying something like an extra $25,000 in tax under the proposed policy, if they earn the average 7.5% annual return in the year. The good news is that they'll still have nearly $270,000 left over to … wait, can a single retiree even spend that much in a year?
Powys County Times
19 hours ago
- Powys County Times
Fact check: More people leave than arrive on current youth mobility schemes
On the BBC's Today programme on May 19, from around two hours and 21 minutes, Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the UK's youth mobility arrangements with other countries reduce net migration. Asked 'how do you know there will be fewer people coming here than leaving?' Mr Reynolds said: 'Well, I've got 13 schemes in action already and that's the evidence of them.' He later added: 'I tell you the evidence of the current schemes just so you know is that they're a net negative on immigration.' Evaluation Around 24,400 youth mobility visas were issued to people wanting to come to the UK in 2024. Although figures are patchy for how many Britons go abroad, data from just three countries – Australia, New Zealand and Canada – suggests that 68,495 British citizens travelled to those countries in 2024 (the Australian data is for the 12 months to the end of June 2024). That would suggest that Mr Reynolds is right. However it does not take into account that Britons going abroad on these temporary visas will sooner or later come back, as will those who come to the UK. It is also not clear that this pattern will repeat in any similar deal with the EU. The UK population is much larger than those of Australia, New Zealand and Canada, so there are more Britons who can go to those countries than can come here. With the EU that is reversed. The facts How many people come to the UK on a youth mobility visa? Government data shows there were 24,437 people who were handed a youth mobility visa last year. Most of these were from one of the 13 countries with which the UK has a reciprocal arrangement. A small handful of visas – 131 in total – were for people from countries other than the 13. The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford has suggested that these are the result of errors in data recording, or due to people having dual nationalities. The top three countries that sent people to the UK on youth mobility visas between January and December 2024 were Australia (9,754 visas), New Zealand (4,304 visas) and Canada (3,060 visas). How many Britons go abroad on youth mobility type schemes? Figures are patchy on how many British people have gone abroad on a youth mobility scheme. The Department for Business and Trade was unable to share data. Australia publishes a twice-yearly report into what it calls its working holiday visa programme. That is the Australian equivalent to the UK's youth mobility scheme. The latest such report covered the 12 months to the end of June 2024. That report showed that Australia issued 48,973 working holiday visas to UK citizens. Data from New Zealand is available on the website of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Using its migration data explorer produces a spreadsheet which shows that there were 9,486 working holiday visas granted by New Zealand to UK citizens in between January and December 2024. Canadian data does not appear to be publicly available, but the figures were provided to the PA news agency by the Canadian Department for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. The data shows that in 2024 there were 9,972 work permits issued to UK and UK overseas territories citizens under the country's working holiday scheme, and a further 64 people had their permits extended. How do incoming youth mobility visas compare to outgoing? Net migration is a figure which subtracts the number of people coming into the country from the number of people leaving. The data cited above suggests that while 9,754 Australians came to the UK on youth mobility visas, 48,973 Britons went in the opposite direction. It must be noted that the time periods measured here are different, the Australian data is for the 12 months ending June 2024, while the UK data is for the 12 months ending December 2024. Meanwhile the data suggests that 4,304 New Zealanders came to the UK while 9,486 Britons went in the other direction. Data further shows that 3,060 Canadians came to the UK in 2024, while 9,972 Britons went in the other direction. This suggests that for each of these three countries the youth mobility schemes are – as Mr Reynolds suggested – reducing net migration. In fact Australia alone appears to receive twice as many Britons (48,973) as all people who the UK receives from all 13 countries added together (24,437). However, it should be noted that because youth mobility schemes are time-limited, Britons going abroad and people who have come to the UK on such visas will eventually be forced to return. This means the UK's inbound migration figures should take into account not just Australians and Canadians – for example – coming to the UK, but also Britons returning from Australia and Canada after their youth mobility visas expire. If it is assumed that everyone returns then over a longer time frame the youth mobility programmes will have a neutral impact on net immigration because every Briton who leaves the UK will come back and every non-Briton who comes to the UK will leave. This does not take into account the people – both Britons abroad and non-Britons in the UK – who apply for a different visa to stay in their adopted country. Do these conclusions also apply to the EU scheme? The impact on net migration of the potential EU scheme will depend on the details of the agreement between London and Brussels. Madeleine Sumption, director at the Migration Observatory, told the PA news agency that the size of the cap on the programme would be vital for the impact on net migration. She said the fact the UK sends more people to Australia, Canada and New Zealand than it receives from them 'probably results from the fact that the UK has a much larger population than they do, so we just have more young people potentially interested in moving'. With the EU scheme, Ms Sumption said, the population sizes are flipped – that is to say the EU's population is much bigger than the UK, leaving more young people who might be willing to come here. Therefore the smaller the cap on the number of visas is, the more likely both the EU and UK will fill their quotas. If both fill their quotas – and the quotas going both ways are the same – then the impact on net migration will be zero. However if the cap is large then it is more likely that there will not be as many Britons going to Europe as are coming in the opposite direction, which will bring up net migration. But, as with the existing schemes, both Britons in Europe and Europeans in the UK will eventually have to leave unless they find another visa, which over the long run should mean that the programme has a neutral impact on net migration. Links BBC – Today, 19/05/2025 Migration Observatory – What is the Youth Mobility Scheme and how does it work? (archived) – Entry clearance visas granted outside the UK (archived page and spreadsheet, using tab Data_Vis_D02) Australian Department of Home Affairs – Visitor visa statistics (archived) Australian Department of Home Affairs – Working Holiday Maker visa program report (archived) New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment – Migration data explorer (archived page and downloaded spreadsheet. To download the correct spreadsheet, instructions can be found at (archived): In dataset select 'W1 work decisions', in time period select 'calendar year' and in variables select 'application substream', 'application criteria' and 'decision type')
