The bill stipulates people will have to have been given six months or less to live, must have two doctors saying they are eligible and a High Court judge would have to make a final decision.
Lawyer Alexa Payet, who has represented the families of British people who have chosen assisted dying overseas, told Sky News the costs could run into “tens of thousands of pounds”.
She also said because the scope of the bill is so narrow, people who are terminally ill but have longer to live will still choose to go overseas to die.
“Nothing about legal procedure has been set out in the bill yet but I can imagine the process could be tens of thousands of pounds,” she said.
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“That begs the question as to whether any funding will be made available.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeve this week refused to say if assisted dying would be made free under the NHS, ahead of a committee of MPs being formed on Wednesday to scrutinise the bill and propose amendments.
Image: Labour MP Kim Leadbeater introduced the assisted dying bill to parliament, which passed its second stage last month
Ms Payet, partner in the disputed wills and estates team at Michaelmores LLP, has successfully fought for the families of British people who have gone to places like Dignitas in Switzerland.
As assisted dying is currently a criminal offence, British people who help someone to die at an overseas clinic are can commit a crime which means they are not allowed to benefit from the proceeds from wills or shared assets.
Helping could entail filling out the Dignitas form or organising transport.
Ms Payet has worked on, among many others, two cases that have become case law, which has allowed judges to dismiss other cases – but people still have to go through a criminal investigation before.
She said the cost of lawyers to get a High Court judge to approve the application would be considerable.
Then there would be the legal costs family members might need for helping the person to die, because the Suicide Act may still apply so anybody encouraging or assisting suicide would be criminally liable.
They would then need to pay for lawyers to fight for their right to claim inheritance.
Image: Lawyer Alexa Payet, who specialises in relief against forfeiture, warned the cost of assisted dying could be very high. Pic: Michaelmores LLP
Ms Payet said: “Any family members who provide any form of assistance getting them to that stage of assisted death, they don’t seem to be covered by this bill as drafted.
“I think there’s a question mark over what would happen with those individuals, both from the criminal aspect, but also from the forfeiture.
“It seems to me that the law, as it stands, may apply to those people, and that’s something else that should be given some consideration.”
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Opinions remain divided after assisted dying vote
She added there has been no mention of whether legal aid would be available, but said many people would not be eligible yet still could not afford the legal fees.
“This bill is incredibly narrow,” she said.
“Anecdotally, most of the people that go off to Dignitas are not people that fit this category of the terminally ill with six months or less to die.
“So, even if that bill was passed, it’s not going to affect the large majority of people who are currently taking steps to obtain an assisted death.
“Those people are presumably still going to go off to these overseas clinics which cost around £10,000 to £15,000 but then there’s also the associated costs like travel, with some people needing an air ambulance.”
The Reform Party is on track to get the most seats if an election took place this year – with combined support for the Conservatives and Labour collapsing to less than half of the national vote, new in-depth polling suggests.
Analysts at YouGov have carried out their first Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification (MRP) poll since the last general election. The research is based on thousands of people, and links voters and characteristics to help with its projection.
It is not a forecast, but an estimate of what could happen. The next election is not set to happen until 2029.
This is the first such piece of research published by YouGov since the last general election, and is more in-depth than standard polling where people are just asked who they want to vote for.
With a sample size of 11,500 people, it found that if a general election were to happen tomorrow, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK would win 271 seats – the most of any party.
Labour would secure just 178 seats, less than half of the 411 it won last year.
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The Tories would fall to fourth place behind the Liberal Democrats, with just 46 Conservative MPs projected.
The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, would gain nine extra seats to build a Commons caucus of 81 MPs, while the SNP would once again be the largest party in Scotland.
Both the Greens and Plaid Cymru would gain three seats each to both hold seven slots in parliament.
If this scenario were to materialise, it would mean a coalition government would be needed, as no one party would have a majority.
It is unclear what any such coalition would look like. If Reform and the Conservatives teamed up, they would only have 317 seats – short of the 325 needed.
Theresa May won 317 seats in 2017, and attempted to govern with the support of the Northern Irish DUP support.
YouGov said: “Reform’s meteoric rise to becoming comfortably the largest party in a hung parliament is driven by impressive performances right across the country – including in Scotland.”
The two major political parties of the last century would between them have just 224 seats, fewer than Reform is set to take by itself.
Image: Neither Starmer nor Badenoch fare well in the poll. Pics: PA
Possibility of rainbow coalition
Labour and the Conservatives would together have the support of just 41% of voters – down from 59% last year.
The report released by YouGov said: “That a clear majority would now vote for someone other than the two established main parties of British politics is a striking marker of just how far the fragmentation of the voting public has gone over the past decade.”
It added: “According to our data and methods, 26% of voters would opt for Reform UK, 23% for Labour, 18% for the Conservatives, 15% the Liberal Democrats, 11% the Greens, 3% the SNP, 1% Plaid, and 2% for other parties and independent candidates.”
According to YouGov, Reform came out top of the polls in 99% of their simulations, with the rest having Labour at the top.
Some 97% of simulations had a hung parliament – where no one party has a majority – as the outcome.
In around 9% of simulations, Reform and the Conservatives have enough seats together to form a government, while in only “a tiny fraction” do Labour and the Lib Dems have enough together to govern.
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YouGov says “rainbow style coalition possibilities do appear”.
“For instance, combining the Labour, Liberal Democrat, and SNP totals produces a majority in just 3% of simulations. “Adding the Greens brings this figure to 11%, while adding Plaid pushes it up to 26%.”
Cynthia Lummis said she expects the CLARITY Act and GENIUS Act to pass through Congress and be ready for the president’s signature by the end of the year.