Liz Truss’s right-hand girl ‘tries to show assisted dying invoice into regulation for the wealthy’

As the House of Lords again scrutinise the assisted dying bill, it emerges one amendment wants to see a ban on legal aid being used by terminally ill people going to High Court to seek permission to end their lives.

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The House of Lords has been blasted for trying to turn the assisted dying bill into a ‘law for the rich’ by banning legal aid.

Members of the House of Lords are currently debating a record-breaking 1,100 amendments to the controversial and historic bill. Supporters believed this is a delaying tactic and argued peers, who are not elected, should respect the will of the House of Commons which passed the bill last year.

But others deny they were deliberately stalling the bill and say the bill was ‘unsafe’ and needed significant changes before becoming law.

Former Conservative MP – and Liz Truss’s Deputy PM – Therese Coffey, now a Baroness, told the House on Friday how she’d tabled an amendment to stop legal aid being used by those seeking an assisted death in the courts. She spoke for 10 minutes and said: “I’ve specifically tabled an element basically which doesn’t allow state funding, taxpayer funding, to be used by the person applying to get this determination by the court.

READ MORE: House of Lords give Assisted Dying bill ‘more time’ after ‘time wasting’ accusationsREAD MORE: ‘I’m dying – and losing friends too soon because we can’t get vital drug’

“I think there will be plenty of other ways, charities, I’m sure, will evolve that can provide financial support if needed. I don’t believe this should be done by taxpayers. Of course, the running of the courts themselves has to be done by taxpayers.”

But campaigners reacted with fury, including Louise Shackleton, who went to Dignitas with her husband Antony more than a year ago. She says they were lucky enough to be able to afford for her husband to take his own life in Switzerland, to escape an ‘agonising’ death from motor neurone disease.

She told the Mirror after listening to the Lords: “They are trying to turn it into a law for the rich. Baroness Coffey has again offered an amendment that disqualifies a certain group of people from accessing an assisted death.

“She is proposing that legal aid will not be offered if it is demanded by the Lords that a person has to attend the High Court to ask a judge for permission to have an assisted death.

“This will be at great cost to the person who wants not to suffer at the end, the lower and middle classes again are targeted. So whilst the demand by Coffey and a few others is that a person on their deathbed is dragged to court the family will have to find costs of a solicitor and a barrister. This would cost thousands.”

During Friday’s debate, a top barrister argued courts should make the decision on whether to grant an assisted death. A previous draft of the Bill included a High Court judge safeguard, but this was dropped in favour of a three-member panel featuring social workers, psychiatrists and legal professionals.

Lord Alexander Carlile of Berriew KC argued a court-based process would “provide confidence-inspiring judgment in this important and difficult new area of the law”.

His comments came after a call for extra time to consider the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was backed by peers on Thursday.

For the Bill to become law, both the House of Commons and the Lords must agree on its final drafting – with approval needed before May when the current session of Parliament ends. If passed, it would allow people with terminal illnesses in England and Wales who have less than six months to live to apply for an assisted death.

It was supported by MPs in the Commons in June last year, and received an unopposed second reading in the Lords in September before proceeding to committee stage. Lord Carlile, an independent crossbencher, said designated family judges, of which there are 42 in the UK, could be responsible for the “momentous decisions”.

“That a judge should be involved is, I would suggest, self-evidently appropriate of what we should expect, given that third party participation in a death would otherwise involve the offence of murder,” he said.

The leading lawyer claimed there is “ample supply of skilled and diverse expert judiciary who would provide confidence- inspiring judgment in this important and difficult new area of the law”.

“The court has special powers, and they include: importantly, ordering the disclosure of documents such as relevant correspondence and medical records, power to examine in a balanced way the arguments and evidence of both sides of a question, and to make a reasoned decision as to what evidence to accept or reject”, he added.

Conservative peer Lord Shinkwin said this change to the Bill would “put immense strain on an already overloaded system”, as he referenced the current court backlog. Supporters of the law change have accused some opponents in the Lords of filibustering and trying to “talk out” the contentious legislation.

But opponents have insisted they are simply doing their job of scrutinising a Bill, which they argue is not safe in its current form and needs to be strengthened. Labour former minister Lord Falconer of Thoroton, who is shepherding the Bill through the Lords, pleaded with peers as the latest debates began, saying: “We’ve got to get through this in time.” There are 10 sessions listed for the Bill in the Lords between Friday and April 24.