Rebecca Smith

Rebecca Smith

Conservative — South West Devon

Speaking in the House of Commons on 13 June 2025

Debate

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Contribution

I thank the hon. Member and I will come to that point very soon. I will now make some progress; I will not take any further interventions. I struggle to see how removing automatic oversight of assisted deaths squares with a commitment to enact legislation with the “strongest safeguards in the world”. By doing so, the Bill sets a lower bar for scrutiny and review, and creates an information deficit. Put another way, we simply do not know what we do not know. Implementing a novel piece of legislation such as this without ensuring the most robust possible scrutiny of deaths taking place under the Act is astonishing. Under the Bill, assisted deaths would be the outlier, as any other intentionally procured death would automatically be reviewed by a coroner. Why should deaths under this legislation be any different? Requiring automatic scrutiny from a coroner for assisted deaths should not be viewed as an add-on at the end of the process or perhaps just a safety net, although it is that.

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