Assisted dying bill reveals 'strict' safeguards on protecting patients

Historic legislation will include hardline rules on coercion and eligibility

- Jessica Elgot, Harriet Sherwood

A historic bill to legalise assisted dying will set out hardline safeguards that include lengthy prison sentences for coercion and powers for judges to cross-examine patients.

The Labour MP Kim Leadbeater said she believed she had put forward "the best possible legislation" but warned wavering MPs that parliament may not get another chance to vote again on the issue for a decade.

She pledged it would contain the "strictest protections and safeguards of any legislation anywhere in the world", amid growing concerns among some MPs over the potential for mission creep and coercion.

The bill is expected to run to 40 pages - believed to be one of the longest ever private members' bills - and Leadbeater will stress to colleagues in the coming days that the bill has been the subject of exhaustive consultation.

However, critics in parliament have raised the alarm about the bill's process - with limited time for debate - and many hold significant concerns about the potential for undue pressure and the risk of the scope of the bill widening under legal challenges.

The details of the bill revealed for the first time yesterday include:

● Patients must be over 18, have the mental capacity to make a choice about the end of their life and must be terminally ill and expected to die within six months.

● They must express a "clear, settled and informed" wish in two separate witnessed declarations.

● Two independent doctors must be satisfied that the person is eligible.

● The application must be approved by a high court judge who hears from at least one doctor and may question the patient or anyone else involved.

● Medicine cannot be self-administered - and doctors will be banned from assisting.

● Coercion of a patient would be a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.