I almost didn’t get to speak to Kim Leadbeater. The 48-year-old Labour MP for Spen Valley is in such high demand that she rescheduled our interview – twice. In fact, in the lift on the way up to her parliamentary office on an inconspicuous wood-panelled corridor of Portcullis House, I was told by a member of her team that she had nearly cancelled. It was a bracing day in February, and she fitted me in after another commitment, racing back from the Ministry of Justice, bristling with energy.
Her animated air is easy to understand. Leadbeater has risen to national attention in recent weeks as a result of her ongoing sponsorship of a private members’ bill to legalise assisted dying, currently making its way through the Commons. This back-bench form of legislation doesn’t usually demand quite so much of its sponsor’s time, nor does it typically make the MP in question headline news: other ongoing, and more anonymous, examples currently include a bill to outlaw deepfake porn while another aims to relax alcohol licensing hours. But Leadbeater’s proposed law is different. Tabled towards the end of last year, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has triggered something quite rare in politics: a national debate about our collective ethics. If it passes into legislation later this year, terminally ill patients with six months or less to live will be legally permitted to end their own lives. It could fundamentally change our attitude towards medicine and concepts of care in our society – and our relationship with death itself.
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