DISABLED activists have criticised inadequate scrutiny of the Assisted Dying Bill after the committee overseeing evidence gathering finally allowed them to be witnesses. 

The UK Deaf and Disabled People’s Monitoring Coalition welcomed the decision to include Disability Rights UK (DRUK) in the list of those giving oral evidence to the Commons general committee this week.

But it said that the move came too late in a process that has been “inaccessible and dismissive” of deaf and disabled people’s concerns.

DRUK represents 350 organisations and is an active member of the coalition.

Coalition co-ordinator Ellen Clifford said that organisations run and controlled by deaf and disabled people have expertise in a “number of the very complex and difficult issues at the heart of this Bill.

“These are key issues that MPs need to understand before they can be expected to vote in an informed way, for example: the lack of any clear line between terminal illness and disability, the difficulties that even very experienced professionals have in detecting coercion, issues about capacity and so on,” she said.

“It is vital that the committee does not look at the legalisation of assisted dying as an abstract question, but fully considers the range of evidence that could be at their disposal about the workability of the Bill and its implications.”

DRUK chief executive Kamran Mallick, who will address the committee, said that no deaf and disabled people’s organisation is in favour of assisted suicide, with DRUK recently changing its position from neutral to opposed.   

“This is on the basis of deaf and disabled people’s lived experiences, backed up by robust evidence and expertise in disability issues,” he said.