Kim Leadbeater MP: speeches

Speeches

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman has made the point for me: within a robust system, we will check for coercion, but we do not have any of that now. At the moment, the person will be definitely be dead. We have to look at the status quo. Putting in layers of safeguarding and checking for coercion must be better than the system that we have now.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. How many people will go through the situations I have described if it is another 10 years before we address this matter?

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance on correcting the record. I said in my speech that I have consulted with the highest levels of the judiciary and the medical profession. [ Official Report , 29 November 2024; Vol. 757, c. 1019.] I have received correspondence from the Judicial Office and wish to clarify my earlier comments. Although I have spoken to lawyers and judges, I should not have implied that the serving judiciary have in some way indicated their agreement with the Bill; they have not. The serving judiciary have been very clear that they have made no public comments about the Bill one way or the other. I apologise if I implied anything to the contrary.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, that the Bill be now read a Second time. Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you to everyone who is attending this hugely significant debate. It is a privilege to open the debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, a piece of legislation that would give dying people, under stringent criteria, choice, autonomy and dignity at the end of their lives. I welcome the debate on this hugely important issue. Let me say to colleagues across the House, particularly new colleagues, that I know this is not easy—it certainly has not been easy for me—but if any of us wanted an easy life, I am afraid we are in the wrong place. It is our job to address complex issues and make difficult decisions. I know that for many people this is a very difficult decision, but our job is also to address the issues that matter to people. After nearly a decade since the subject was debated on the Floor of the House, many would say that the debate is long overdue. For my part, I have tried incredibly hard to ensure that the tone of the debate has been—and continues to be—robust, of course, but most importantly respectful and compassionate. I am pleased that, for the most part, that has been the case. I can be confident that that same tone of respect and compassion will be adopted by colleagues today, whatever views they hold. That is particularly important as we have people in the Public Gallery who have a strong personal interest in this issue. They hold a range of views. Some of them have lost loved ones in difficult and traumatic circumstances, and others are themselves terminally ill. I want to pay a huge and heartfelt tribute to those families and to every single person who has contacted me about this issue, and in many cases shared their own very personal stories of loss and death. I know from my own personal experience of grief that telling your story over and over again takes energy, courage and strength. I am incredibly grateful to them all. It is their voices and their stories that have inspired me. Such stories are difficult to hear, but it is vital that they are heard as they are at the heart of the debate. They show that the law is failing people. Where that is the case, we have a duty to do what is right to fix it. Those here today or watching at home are dealing with the real consequences of the failings of the current system. I will start by recounting just a few of their stories. Warwick was married to his wife Ann for nearly 40 years. She had terminal peritoneal cancer, which meant that she could not breathe properly. She spent four days gasping and choking, remaining awake throughout despite being given the maximum dose of sedatives. She eventually died of suffocation. She had begged Warwick to end her life, but as he stood over her with a pillow he could not do what she asked as he did not want that to be her final memory of him. Ann had excellent palliative care, but it simply could not ease her suffering. Tim fell in love at first sight when he met his wife Louise—he proposed after just three days. But Louise got cancer, twice, and at the end, the morphine simply could not control her pain. In desperation, she managed to smash a small glass bottle and tried to take her own life, not realising that her toddler daughter had got into bed with her. Tim found her. He says, “You get to a point where you stop praying for a miracle and start praying for mercy.” Former police officer James waved is mum off as she embarked on her final trip, to Dignitas. She had terminal vasculitis. James desperately wanted to accompany his mum and hold her hand during her final moments, but he knew, because of his job as a police officer, that it was just not possible. Indeed, she insisted that he must not go with her, so she went alone—no one to hold her hand, and no proper goodbye or funeral. Those are just a few examples of the heartbreaking reality and human suffering that far too many people experience as a result of the status quo. the public know this. I have always been keen to ensure that my politics stays rooted in the world beyond Westminster. It is clear that public opinion is very much in favour of a change in the law. Polling shows consistently that around 75% of people would like to see the legalisation of assisted dying for terminally ill, mentally competent adults. These findings are significant, but it may not be that surprising that most people believe, as I do, that we should all have the right to make the choices and decisions we want about our own bodies. Let us be clear: we are not talking about a choice between life or death; we are talking about giving dying people a choice of how to die. Let us examine what that choice currently looks like. I do not have a legal background but I have always been driven by a strong sense of injustice. If I see a problem, I will do everything I can to try to solve it. Indeed, in this job, we all do that every week and every day, whether here in Parliament or in our constituencies. When four former directors of public prosecutions, including the Prime Minister, two former presidents of the Supreme Court and many lawyers all agree that the law needs to change, surely we have a duty to do something about it. Intentionally helping another person to end their life is currently illegal under the Suicide Act 1961, and carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. This includes family and friends helping someone who is terminally ill to die, both in the UK and overseas. Existing guidance does not stop people from being investigated by the police, adding fear, guilt and further trauma to grieving families. The law is not clear, and it does not protect individuals, families or medical professionals. That drives people to very desperate measures. What about coercion? Senior King’s Counsel have said: “There is currently no established system for identifying abuse or coercion in advance of a person’s death or for helping vulnerable people to make end of life decisions.”

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Absolutely not. I respectfully disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. In countries where a Bill of this nature has been implemented, the safeguards have been in place and the boundaries have never changed. I will come on to talk about that.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I am so sorry to hear that story from her constituency. We all have stories from all our constituencies, and she is absolutely right that we are here to make difficult decisions. On her example there, I have been astonished by the number of people who have been in touch with me to tell me about the terminally ill loved ones who have starved themselves to death out of desperation—something that takes far longer than we may imagine and is just horrific for everyone involved. That is currently legal, and doctors are required to assist the patient through this agonising process. How can we allow that, but not a compassionate and humane assisted death?

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I will come on to some of those points later in my speech. Let us be very clear: the title of the Bill refers to terminally ill adults, not disabled people or elderly people, as another hon. Member referred to. The criteria are very clear. I come back to the status quo, which is the problem we are trying to address. If people want to avoid the trauma of some of the harrowing circumstances I have described, they can have an assisted death—just not in this country. If they have £10,000 or £15,000, they can make the trip to Switzerland or elsewhere but, because of the current legal position, it is often a deeply distressing and very lonely experience, shrouded in secrecy, with people feeling like criminals as the fear of prosecution hangs over them. Ilana’s husband Crispin had late-stage motor neurone disease. He was paralysed, and Ilana is a wheelchair user, but at his request she took him on a traumatic and difficult journey to Switzerland. She describes the intense stress and anxiety she felt due to the total secrecy of their plan—and we can only imagine what the journey home was like, on her own, with an empty seat beside her. There are also those terminally ill people who take matters into their own hands. Gareth’s father Norman served in the Welsh Guards. He was a strong man, but his final five years were full of pain and discomfort. He had prostate cancer, which he lived with for 15 years. He was given good initial hormone therapy and chemo, but the cancer spread everywhere and the pain could not be eased. One day, when it all became too much, he went into his garden with the gun he owned and shot himself. Gareth’s sister rushed to his house and found him. Gareth said his father just wanted the pain to stop. Then there is Peter, from Mirfield in my own constituency, who stopped me in a car park a couple of weeks ago to tell me the harrowing story of his beloved wife, who was diagnosed with metastatic cancer aged 52. The treatment was ineffective and her symptoms were unbearable. She took an overdose of her medication, and Peter found her and took her to hospital. She recovered and he brought her home, but the following day she made another attempt to take her own life, in a way that is too awful to describe. Peter found her dead, and he spent the next eight hours being questioned by the police. It is estimated that more than 600 terminally ill people take their own lives every year. Often patients will store up medication. Josh, a 33-year-old from Huddersfield went to coach his local kids’ rugby team one Saturday and came back to tell his mum all about it. He found her dead. Lisa, who was terminally ill, had stored up her medication and taken her own life. Our former colleague Paul Blomfield, the previous MP for Sheffield Central, has campaigned tirelessly on this issue since his dad Harry took his own life in 2014, alone in his garage, after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Language matters: Harry was not suicidal; he loved life, but he had watched too many of his friends have lingering, degrading deaths and he did not want that for himself. But, like the others, he could not tell Paul and his family of his plan, as they would have been complicit and could have faced prosecution. How many precious days and weeks did Harry miss out on as a result of having to take action while he was still physically able to do so? Hearing these stories is not easy, but it is important.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree absolutely. Those conversations, which are not taking place at the moment, are very important. I will make some progress. There has rightly been a lot of discussion about palliative care in recent weeks, and I am convinced that a significant amount of that discussion would not have taken place without the introduction of the Bill. It is a long overdue conversation, and I am very pleased to see it happening. I have met with the Association for Palliative Medicine, Hospice UK, Sue Ryder and Marie Curie, and last week I was delighted to attend the inaugural meeting of the all-party parliamentary group for hospices. I also attended the fantastic Kirkwood hospice, which serves my constituency of Spen Valley. I pay tribute to the dedicated staff and volunteers across the country in the palliative care sector, who do some of the most vital work in society. We must do more to support them, and I look forward to working with the Government and colleagues across the House in that important endeavour. That is why I have included in the Bill a requirement for the Secretary of State to report to the House on the availability, quality and distribution of palliative care. Of course, assisted dying is not a substitute for palliative care—it is not an either/or. We have some of the best palliative care in the world in this country, and, when it can meet the needs of terminally ill people, it is second to none. However, when it cannot, surely the choice of an assisted death should be one component of a holistic approach to end of life care. The comprehensive report by the Health and Social Care Committee, published earlier this year, found no indications of palliative care deteriorating in quality or provision in places where assisted dying had been introduced.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will take one more intervention and then I must make some progress.

• 5 Sept 2024 · SEND Provision · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) on securing this important debate. Support for children with special educational needs and disabilities is an issue that has been raised with me consistently since my election three years ago. In Batley and Spen and now in my new Spen Valley constituency, I have had countless conversations and emails, held roundtables and had meetings with families, headteachers, teachers and teaching assistants, councillors and charities about the anger, frustration and, in many cases, deep trauma they have experienced trying to navigate the broken system that is SEND. All any of them want to do is get our children and young people the help and support they need and deserve, because, as our new Secretary of State for Education has said, every child should have the support they need and deserve. Instead, we have amazing children and young people being prevented from being the very best that they can be, not enjoying their education, struggling in school and falling behind, which often has a deeply detrimental impact on their mental health and wellbeing. It is not just the children themselves. I have had parents in tears in my office feeling like they have failed, as they have not been able to get an EHCP for their child. They have given up work so that they can support their child, meaning their own sense of identity and self-worth has suffered, and they feel guilty that they are not contributing to society and the economy. I have had headteachers and staff in schools feeling that it is their fault that they cannot ensure that every child in their care gets the education they deserve. The reality is that they are so desperately under-resourced and the system is so broken that they simply cannot do their jobs in the way that they want. It is not just schools; as a former college lecturer, I know that there are challenges there too. Colleges are often a lifeline for students with SEND, but, as the association of college lecturers says, there are real challenges in the way that the SEND system fits together through funding and student transitions. This is just not right. Like with so many other issues, this new Government are having to pick up the pieces of a broken system that is the result of years of schools and local councils being chronically underfunded and under-resourced. The previous Government did not give our education system the care and attention it needed. Ministers were just not listening to the sector and not providing the resources and funding that it so desperately needed. I have been supporting parents and schools over the last three years. Laura Riach, a mum of two, recently got in touch. Her children are both academically bright, but cannot cope with sensory overload and cannot be in a mainstream school setting that is noisy and bright. The parents are getting very little support to home-educate the children and the situation got so severe that one of the children tried to commit suicide. After battling with the SEND system, they are getting only six hours’ support per child per week, when they should be getting 25 hours. Many parents have contacted me about this issue. Children are losing vital education and the stories show just how broken the system is. I am very pleased that the new Government have already started to give SEND the care, compassion and understanding that is needed to address the crisis.

• 25 Jul 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Like many constituencies, in Spen Valley, we are intensely proud of our many towns and villages, all with their own unique identities. My constituents and I want to preserve the amenities at the heart of those communities, such as the town hall in Cleckheaton or the libraries in Mirfield and Kirkheaton. Does the Leader of the House agree that, as part of the very welcome devolution revolution that this Labour Government will deliver, we must ensure that every corner of our country is included in that mission of national renewal?

• 24 Jul 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q4. Welcome back, Mr Speaker. May I congratulate the Prime Minister on such as positive start to his premiership, and on resetting the dial on politics as public service and a force for good? Irrespective of our different views and opinions in this Chamber and beyond, it is a very important message. As such, will he join me in wishing the very best of luck to the 83 cyclists who have set off from West Yorkshire this morning on the ninth Jo Cox Way bike ride? They are travelling 280 miles down the country to London and celebrating all that we have in common through the power of cycling—including, sadly for the cyclists, probably quite a lot of sore legs and aching muscles.

• 17 Jul 2024 · Debate on the Address · Hansard source

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  It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter), who is almost my namesake. It is a great pleasure to speak on His Majesty’s first King’s Speech under a Labour Government. We promised change and, as I look around Parliament, I see an awful lot of change, with people in new places and so many new faces. I am enjoying starting to get to know many of the newly elected Members, mostly from my party, but from other parties too. To them, I say welcome. And to you and your team, Mr Deputy Speaker, I say good luck learning everybody’s name and face. By coincidence, the 4 July general election that put me in this place as the first MP for the new Spen Valley constituency came just three days after the third anniversary of the Batley and Spen by-election in which I was first elected to this place. It is fair to say that a lot has changed in just three short years. I remember pounding the streets of Batley and Spen in 2021 during challenging times that were full of uncertainty, division and, for many people, fear. The dark cloud of the covid pandemic still hung over us, many people were struggling with the cost of living, and politics felt worryingly polarised in this and other countries. I think it is fair to say that the Labour party was not in a great place. Many doubted that we would see power again in 10 years, never mind three. If the result in Batley and Spen played its part in turning things around and getting us to where we are today, I am delighted that we were able to help. Although I was delighted with the result, the Batley and Spen by-election was not a pleasant experience. At times, we saw the worst of politics, including unacceptable behaviour from those who use our precious democracy to divide us rather than unite us. My constituents deserved better, and I hoped passionately that no other candidate would have to go through what I went through. Sadly, that has not been the case. Although I am relieved that the general election campaign in Spen Valley was mostly conducted in a civilised manner, the same cannot be said elsewhere. Many candidates and their supporters, often women, faced threats, harassment and abuse. None of this should be part of any job, and it is not what our politics should look like. We must not normalise it, and we must all do our bit to change it. On this, the first day of the first debate in a new Parliament, we all have the opportunity to reset the dial on politics and work towards a political culture that fosters robust, rigorous debate and scrutiny but does not allow fear, intimidation and abuse to become the norm. As His Majesty said, this Government “will take steps to…rebuild trust and foster respect.” I wholeheartedly agree with this approach and will work with colleagues across the House in this endeavour. I am a realistic optimist. I know it is not going to be easy to bring the change that our country needs, but this new Parliament fills me with hope. I see people around me who are determined to be part of the change to a better kind of politics. The Prime Minister rightly describes it as the return of politics to public service, and he correctly says that this can be achieved only through actions, not words. With so many new faces and so much new energy and commitment, I believe we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity in this place to change not only the Government, although that is certainly welcome, but the whole culture of politics, to restore the business we are all in to one that people can look at with respect. That starts with how we behave in here because, whether we like it or not, this Chamber is the window into our national politics. If we treat each other in here with courtesy, if we listen to the arguments of those we disagree with as politely as we listen to the arguments of those we support, and if we show that we can air our differences passionately but with genuine respect, people at home will notice. It would be the right thing to do even if they did not, but I believe they will. My constituents want to see change. They sent me here to deliver it, and I will not let them down. It is a wonderful part of West Yorkshire where people have a real sense of pride in where they are from, whether that is the towns of Heckmondwike, Mirfield, Birstall or Cleckheaton, or the many beautiful surrounding villages—too many to list, but I will certainly make sure they all get a mention over the next five years. I understand that pride because I share it. It is where I was born and have lived all my life. In Spen Valley, we tell it like it is. We are not easily fooled and we take no nonsense. So my constituents will only believe in change when they see it and when they feel it. This King’s Speech sets out the busy but exciting agenda to make that change happen, and the duty falls on us to make sure it does, whether it is affordable housing; safer streets and more police in our communities; tackling antisocial behaviour and violence against women and girls; shorter waiting times and better access to GPs and dentists on the NHS; better education and opportunities for the young—academic and vocational—including for those with special educational needs and disabilities; reliable public transport; support for people with mental health; or social care that offers dignity in old age and for the most vulnerable in our society. I am all for giving local people more power to make decisions that affect their lives, so I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s pledge to kickstart a devolution revolution, with the economic growth and prosperity that underpins all this and helps to give people a bit more at the end of the month, Another thing about Yorkshire people is that we do not waste money. We know that you can’t spend what you haven’t got. So when my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves)—my good friend and fellow Yorkshire MP, and our first female Chancellor—warns that we have to get the nation’s finances in good order and it has to be our first priority, people get it. Politics as public service relies, above all, on trust and honesty. Only if we are straight with people about the challenges we face as a country, and we have honest conversations with our constituents about what we can and sometimes cannot do—or cannot do straightaway—will they start to have faith in politics as a force for good in their lives. We have in our hands today a tremendous opportunity to begin the transformation of this country into a country that is looked on once again with respect around the world, ready to step up and play our part, whether on tackling climate change, defending democracy when it is under threat, or doing everything we can to end the appalling and devastating conflicts in the middle east, Ukraine and elsewhere—in short, a country of which we can all be proud. There is a lot of work to do, but the time starts now.