Expand assisted dying bill to help those with Parkinson’s, MPs to hear
Assisted dying must be expanded to help those with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s in England and Wales, a former high court judge will tell MPs this week.Sir Nicholas Mostyn, who has Parkinson’s, will argue that under the current terms of the law passing through parliament, the vast majority of people would need to have terminal cancer before being allowed an assisted death.Mostyn said end-of-life suffering for Parkinson’s patients was “intolerable”, with some unable to swallow or breathe.“This is what I’m facing.And I’d like to know why opponents are determined to condemn me to that,” he said.
The former senior family judge said that in his opinion there was no legal possibility of challenging the assisted dying bill, once it became law, to include those with neurodegenerative diseases, as the European court of human rights had already ruled there was no specific right to die.He will also tell the bill’s committee that plans to have assisted deaths signed off by a high court judge would add an enormous burden to the family courts.Two full-time judges would need to spend their time authorising possible assisted deaths, he will say.A number of amendments will be submitted to the committee this week, including by the former home secretary, James Cleverly, and the Conservative MP, Ben Spencer, a psychiatrist.Evidence will be taken in public from more than 50 witnesses, including the chief medical officer, Sir Chris Whitty, the British Medical Association, disability campaigners, and judges and representatives from other countries where assisted dying has been legalised.
Alex Greenwich, an MP from New South Wales in Australia, where assisted dying was introduced 12 months ago, will tell MPs the system is similar to the UK’s proposed one and that an independent audit has found it is working well.Greenwich said he will stress that the legislation was intended to regulate a practice that had been going on behind closed doors.“There are stories, particularly from paramedics and police, of the people with a terminal illness who [kill themselves] because they feel they have no other option or no choice, in horrifying ways,” he said.“We felt we needed to put regulation in that space.”On Monday, Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who is sponsoring the private members’ bill to legalise assisted dying for those with a terminal illness, wrote to MPs saying she was “open to any and all suggestions for how those safeguards can be made even stronger, while never forgetting the lack of clarity, pain and injustice that the law as it currently stands imposes on too many terminally ill people as they approach the end of their life”.
Opponents of assisted dying on the bill’s committee say they are concerned that the balance of evidence being submitted this week is skewed in favour of the change.Naz Shah, a Labour MP on the committee who voted against the new law, said the committee had no plans to hear evidence from any jurisdictions about the downsides.“What are the pitfalls that other countries have experienced? If we can’t hear those, that’s not a fair balance,” she said.Shah also raised concerns that the committee was not hearing enough evidence from mental health experts or those with experience of domestic abuse on the subject of coercion.Cleverly, the former foreign secretary, is among those seeking to amend the private members’ bill so that those who wish to die can demonstrate it is solely their wish and not for the benefit of others.
“The right to die must not become the duty to die,” he told the Times,Spencer said he hoped to amend the bill to ensure those seeking an assisted death were seen by a psychiatrist and palliative care specialist,But he also said he hoped the bill would be amended to allow cases to come before a tribunal to assess the patient’s capacity,This article was amended on 28 January 2025 to remove from the headline an erroneous reference to dementia,
‘Some steal to order’: on the frontline of UK shoplifting epidemic
UK retailers are warning that crime in their stores is “spiralling out of control” with 55,000 thefts a day and violent and abusive incidents rising by 50% last year to 2,000 a day.What is it like to be on the frontline? We speak to a supermarket worker, a security guard and an independent shopkeeper.Shoplifters have become a bit more brazen about what they do and it is not just specific things. Quite a few don’t hide it as they know staff are not allowed to stop them and some stores don’t have security staff. They come in and just cut security tags off
UK car production falls to lowest level since 1954
British car production fell in 2024 to its lowest level in seven decades – barring the coronavirus pandemic – as the industry struggles with weak demand and prepares to shift away from fossil fuels to electric vehicles.The number of cars made in the UK fell to 780,000 during the year, the lowest since 1954, except for during the pandemic when first factories were forced to close and then supply chain problems caused shortages of computer chips, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a lobby group.Mike Hawes, the SMMT’s chief executive, said the decline last year was down partly to factories pausing while they switched to electric production. However, he added that the industry is still struggling with weak global demand, and slower-than-expected growth in electric car sales.In 1954, the UK car industry was dominated by the recently formed British Motor Corporation, a merger of the Morris and Austin brands
Dowlais deal shows crisis in the UK stock market is getting worse
There goes another hidden gem of the UK stock market, and the mini-tragedy in this case is that the deal ought to be structured the other way around. It should be Dowlais, the FTSE 250 company whose main business carries the grand historic UK manufacturing name of GKN Automotive, buying its US rival, the Detroit-based American Axle & Manufacturing.Instead, the transaction is a cash-and-shares offer for Dowlais at £1.16bn, or 85p a share. The terms cannot be described as punchy when you remember that the business was demerged from the FTSE 100 firm Melrose at 120p as recently as 2023
US rival agrees £1.2bn deal for British car parts firm in new hit to UK stock market
The British car parts maker Dowlais has agreed to a £1.2bn takeover by its US rival American Axle & Manufacturing, in the latest departure from the London stock market.The main operation of Dowlais, which has been listed on the FTSE 250 index since 2023, is GKN Automotive, which formed part of the GKN engineering business that was bought by the private equity group Melrose in an acrimonious £8bn takeover battle in 2018.American Axle & Manufacturing will pay £1.16bn in cash and shares for Dowlais as the two companies aim to weather the transition to electric vehicles
Supersonic prototype jet breaks sound barrier on US test flight
A US-made prototype jet has broken the sound barrier, in the first commercial venture to achieve supersonic speeds since Concorde.Boom Supersonic, a startup that seeks to build the world’s fastest airliner, flew a test flight of its fighter jet-sized XB-1 demonstrator over the Mojave desert in California on Tuesday.At an altitude of about 10,700 metres (35,000ft), the jet accelerated to Mach 1.1, or about 845 mph (1,360 km/h), faster than the speed at which sound travels.“She was real happy supersonic,” Boom’s chief test pilot, Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg, said after landing
Lloyds Banking Group to shut another 136 UK high street branches
Lloyds Banking Group has revealed plans to shut another 136 branches, weeks after a policy allowing customers to do their in-person banking across any of its three brands prompted fears that bosses could close up to a quarter of its high street sites.The move will cut the group’s branch network by a further 15%, accelerating a strong shift towards digital and mobile banking that is core to a five-year strategy being pushed by its chief executive, Charlie Nunn.It will result in the closure of 61 Lloyds-branded sites, 61 Halifax locations and 14 Bank of Scotland branches, and leave the group with 757 branches by spring next year.Lloyds said the closures reflected customer usage across those 136 branches, and on-site transactions had tumbled 48% on average – and up to 78%, in some cases – over the past five years.The decision comes weeks after the bank rolled out a new policy allowing customers to use any of its Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Lloyds branches, regardless of which lender they held accounts with
Rise of Chris Philp tests the limits of the Peter principle
China’s top diplomat to visit UK in February for talks with David Lammy
MPs in new freebie row after accepting darts hospitality from betting firm
‘I sense Brussels is ready to be bold and ambitious’: hope mixes with anger on Brexit’s fifth anniversary
Animal spirits: Labour want to unleash them – but what do they actually mean?
Ex-Tory Brexit minister Lord Frost rejects party’s claims over Europe-wide customs scheme – as it happened