Assisted suicide is to be legalised after MPs backed Kim Leadbetter’s bill by just 23 votes despite warnings the NHS does not have capacity to provide death services as well as medical services. The Telegraph has more.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was supported by 314 votes to 291, a majority of 23, as it cleared the Commons, paving the way for assisted dying services to be introduced by the end of the decade.
The legislation will now go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny but the decision by MPs to give the Bill its third reading means it is now almost guaranteed to make it onto the statute book and become law.
The bill will allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist.
Critics of the legislation have warned its safeguards are not strong enough and vulnerable people could be coerced or feel pressured into ending their lives early.
The margin of victory was significantly smaller than it was in November last year when MPs backed the Bill in principle by 330 votes to 275, a majority of 55.
Sir Keir Starmer voted in favour of the Bill but other Cabinet heavyweights, including Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner, voted against.
In the debate, Labour MP and former shadow minister for disabled people Vicky Foxcroft highlighted opposition from disabled people, who are among those most likely to experience pressure and coercion in relation to ending their lives.
I don’t claim that every disabled person opposes assisted dying but I do claim that the vast majority of disabled people and their organisations oppose it.
They need the health and social care system fixing first. They want us as parliamentarians to assist them to live, not to die.
Conservative former home secretary Sir James Cleverly highlighted “the number of professional bodies which… are opposed to the provisions within this bill” and the medical staff who say the NHS does not have capacity for providing assisted suicide as well as medical care.
Are members and right honourable members genuinely happy to write the blank cheque that this bill demands? Because it is normal for the Secretary of State of a Government department to decide when a piece of legislation comes into force and they make that decision based on the state’s ability to deliver that legislation.
Commencement dates matter, they are not just some arbitrary date on a piece of paper and I understand the desire of people to make sure this can’t be lost down the back of the sofa when it comes to government work but when people upon whom we rely to deliver this say they are not ready and they don’t feel they will be ready, they don’t have enough people, they don’t have enough capacity, they will have to take resource from current provisions to move across to this provision which will be driven by a statutory requirement and a locked in commencement date, we should listen.
We should listen and if the people who are going to make this work and work as well as we hope it will if it becomes legislation say that they are not confident that they can make it happen, we should be very, very careful about demanding that they prioritise this and that is what this legislation says.
Sir Jeremy Wright, the Tory former attorney general, said legalising assisted dying would “send a signal that society, through Parliament, believes that something that we used to think was unacceptable is now acceptable, in this case that assisting someone to die is now something of which we approve”.
I believe that is bound to have an impact on those who are in great distress at the end of their lives, who may already be thinking it would be better if they were out of the way.
I do not want to live in a society where anyone, including the terminally ill, is encouraged in the belief that their lives are not valuable and valued to their very last moments. I fear that this bill, though not its intent, brings such a society closer and that is why I cannot support it.
This is what packing the Commons with Labour MPs gets you.
Having said that, it wouldn’t have passed if 20 Tories, including Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, hadn’t backed it. Two Reform MPs – Richard Tice and Sarah Pochin – also voted to bring state-supported suicide to Britain, though Farage, Anderson and McMurdock opposed it.
Kemi voted against. But will the Tories commit to reversing it? Seems unlikely. Does Left-wing liberalisation ever get reversed by subsequent Conservative governments? Not that I’ve ever noticed.
Full MP voting information here.
Stop Press: Tory former Cabinet Minister Lord Harper has said it’s possible the bill may not “see the light of day”. He told the Mail: “It’s not a Government Bill and it wasn’t in anybody’s manifesto, so there is no constitutional reason why the Lords shouldn’t do its job properly and amend the Bill considerably if required.”
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.