Early evening summary
No medics would be obliged to take part in assisted dying, under a change approved by MPs amid further impassioned debate on the controversial legislation. As PA Media reports, the amendment was passed after MPs debated the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill for four and a half hours. MPs voted for one new clause to be added to the bill, which will ensure “no person”, including any medical professional, is obliged to take part in assisted dying. Doctors already had an opt-out but the new clause extends that to anyone, including pharmacists and social care workers. Another amendment, backed by opponents of the bill, was defeated by a majority of 39. (See 2.36pm.) But, as the debate ran out of time, many amendments were not put to a vote, or even debated properly, leading to complaints from opponents of the bill that the process was “outrageous”. (See 3.04pm.) The bill will return to the Commons for further debate on Friday 13 June.
For a full list of all the stories covered here today, scroll through the key events timeline at the top of the blog.
Starmer's approval rating hits new low, with even Labour supporters giving him negative rating for 1st time, poll suggests
YouGov has released polling suggesting that Keir Starmer, and the Labour party generally, are reaching new lows for unpopularity. It also shows Nigel Farage, and his party Reform UK, gaining approval.
Here are the key findings.
Starmer’s net approval rating has hit a record low, the poll suggests. In its write-up, YouGov says:
Just 23% of Britons now express a favourable view of the prime minister Keir Starmer, a five-point drop from this time last month and equalling his July 2021 nadir as opposition leader.
However, with the proportion of Britons with an unfavourable opinion of the Labour leader rising from 62% in mid-April to 69% today, Starmer’s net favourability rating has sunk to -46, his lowest ever recorded by YouGov.
By contrast, Farage is getting more popular, YouGov says.
A third of Britons (32%) now have a favourable opinion of the Reform UK leader, up five points from mid-April and the highest YouGov has recorded for him since he took over leadership of the party last June.
Six in ten Britons (59%) still hold an unfavourable opinion of the Reform UK leader, giving him a net favourability rating of -27, up from -38 a month ago.
Starmer now has a negative approval rating with Labour voters for the first time, the poll suggests. YouGov says:
This fall in Starmer’s popularity is concentrated among Labour voters, half of whom (50%) now have an unfavourable view of the prime minister, a 17-point increase from mid-April. The proportion with a favourable opinion has correspondingly fallen from 62% to 45% over the last month.
This is the first time Keir Starmer has recorded a net negative approval rating among Labour voters.
The Labour party is more unpopular with voters than it has been for at least eight years, the poll suggests. YouGov says:
[Labour] itself has also fallen to new depths, with 65% of Britons saying they have an unfavourable view of Labour, up from 61% in mid-April and the highest recorded since YouGov began asking this question in June 2017.
By contrast, Reform UK is getting more popular, YouGov says.
With Britons as a whole, Reform UK are now seen more positively than Labour by a comfortable margin for the first time, with the 35% of the public with a positive opinion of the party up seven points from mid-April, while the 54% with an unfavourable opinion is down six points over the last month.
Badenoch declines to rule out Tory pact with Reform UK in Senedd after next year's elections
Kemi Badenoch has refused to rule out forming a pact with Reform UK or Plaid Cymru in the Senedd after next year’s elections in Wales.
Speaking to PA Media at the Welsh Conservative Conference in Llangollen, Badenoch would not rule out joining a coalition government in Cardiff.
One recent poll suggested Plaid Cyrmu is on course to do best in next year’s election, followed by Reform UK, with Labour in third place, and the Conservatives fourth.
Asked if she would rule out a coalition, Badenoch said:
I keep getting asked about coalitions and deals, and I don’t answer that question, because I think once you start talking about coalitions and deals, what the public hears is a ‘stitch-up’.
I need to say what the Conservative way is, what our offer is, let’s wait until the election before we start talking about coalitions and deals.
We’re not stitching anything up. What we’re doing is working as hard as we can for the people of this country.
The question may be academic. If the results of the YouGov poll for ITV Cymru are replicated next May, a projection suggests the Tories would have just nine seats in the 96-seat Senedd – not enough to form a majority either with Reform UK (projected to win 30 seats) or even Plaid Cymru (projected to win 35). A pact with Plaid would be very unlikely anyway given they are a leftwing party.
As Kevin Schofield reports for HuffPost UK, Badenoch was also mocked after she muddled up Scottish and Welsh parliaemntarians in her speech to the Welsh Tory conference. She said it had been “wonderful to meet so many MSPs”, using the acronym for members of the Scottish parliament, when she meant MSs, the acronym for members of the Senedd.
Starmer says UK and European allies 'closely aligning' with Zelenskyy and Trump over Russia policy
At the European Political Community meeting in Albania, Keir Starmer has said that the UK, France, Germany and Poland have spoken to Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump to begin “closely aligning” a response to Russia’s “unacceptable” position in Ukraine peace talks. Starmer said:
We [Starmer, French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish PM Donald Tusk] just had a meeting with President Zelensky and then a phone call with President Trump to discuss the developments in the negotiations today.
And the Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time.
So as a result of that meeting with President Zelenskyy and that call with President Trump we are now closely aligning our responses and will continue to do so.
Léonie Chao-Fong has more coverage of this on our Ukraine live blog.
Updated
'Outrageous' - MPs complain after multiple assisted dying bill amendments not voted on, or even debated
Today’s proceedings in the Commons are bound to reignite the debate about whether the assisted dying bill is getting proper scrutiny. MPs spent four and a half hours debating the bill, but many MPs who tabled amendments did not get the chance to speak, and in the end only two amendments were put to the vote.
Many MPs have argued that, because of its importance, it should not be a private member’s bill, and instead should have been adopted as a government bill, which would have enabled more time to be set aside for it debates and votes at report stage.
(An alternative view that is that the procedures for private members’ bill should be reviewed, so that they don’t face an arbitrary cut-off at 2.30pm on a Friday.)
The Conservative MP John Lamont posted this on social media as the debate ended.
Supporters of assisted suicide are desperate to shut down scrutiny of their plans.
It is outrageous that the debate has just been shut down in the House of Commons – we need proper time to consider these plans.
This isn’t like any other decision Parliament makes.
And the Labour MP Mike Reader posted this.
No matter your views on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, also known as assisted suicide or assisted dying, people must agree that the time that’s been allocated to debate the proposed amendments to the Bill is not adequate. I’m disappointed that their appears to be a campaign to rush this through, backed by some significant and well-funded lobby groups.
During the debate itself MPs also complained about the lack of time set aside.
Here is the clip of Labour’s Jess Asato making this point.(See 1.38pm.) Asato and Lamont both voted against the bill at second reading.
Jess Asato MP calls out what happened..."Parliament at its best?" https://t.co/6SkNBTOu7X pic.twitter.com/elqtogAbf4
— Nikki da Costa (@nmdacosta) May 16, 2025
And here is the Conservative MP Neil O’Brien also complaining about now having had enough time to consider the arguments properly.
Jess Asato MP calls out what happened..."Parliament at its best?" https://t.co/6SkNBTOu7X pic.twitter.com/elqtogAbf4
— Nikki da Costa (@nmdacosta) May 16, 2025
O’Brien said he was not against assisted dying in principle, but he voted against the bill at second reading, as did Lamont, Reader and Assato.
UPDATE: A Labour MP in favour of the bill has been in touch to point out that opponents of the bill were doing their own time-wasting today, when they held up both votes. (See 2.13pm and 2.32pm.) “They wanted more time for debate but then were wasting time,” he says.
Updated
Assisted dying bill supporters vote down amendment from anti-bill MP with majority of 36
The Speaker reads the result of the division.
Rebecca Paul’s NC10(a) is defeated by 279 votes to 243 – a majority of 36.
And that is all there is time for today.
The Speaker asks when the bill is coming back, and he is told Friday 13 June.
MPs are now moving on to the other private members’ bills on the order paper. One by one, they are being delayed after an MP objects. (At this point in the day private members’ bills can only get a second reading if no one objects.)
The Speaker has asked the serjeant at arms to investigate a delay in the aye lobby.
This is what Mark D’Arcy, the veteran parliamentarian reporter and commentator, said on social media about the last delay. (See 2.13pm.)
A bad sign when you get delays in the voting lobbies - old-school PMB time-wasting tactics?
Updated
Care minister Stephen Kinnock on why government sees NC10(a), being voted on now, as unworkable
During his winding up speech Stephen Kinnock, the care minister, suggested that NC10(a) would be unworkable.
He said:
It is not clear how this is intended to work alongside other obligations on professionals elsewhere in the bill to perform certain duties. As a result, employees may end up with conflicting obligations.
It is also not clear how this amendment will work with the protection for employees from detriment and unfair dismissal by their employers, should they choose to participate in the provision of assisted dying.
If employers can prevent their entire workforce from participating in the provision of assisted dying, then the service may not be available or could be much more difficult to access.
MPs vote on amendment that would allow bosses to stop their workers providing assisted dying services
The Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, moves NC10. (See 10.22am). It passes by acclamation.
They are now voting an NC10(a), an amendemnt to NC10 tabled by Rebecca Paul, an opponent of the bill. It would ensure that employers opposed to assisted dying can also stop their employees providing assisted dying services.
Supporters of assisted dying win first vote, by majority of 49
Supporters of assisted dying have won the first vote, a procedural one to move to the votes.
The closure motion was passed by 288 votes to 239 – a majority of 49.
The Speaker has sent the serjeant at arms to investigate a delay in the no lobby.
(That might be deliberate time wasting.)
Updated
The tellers for the ayes are Bambos Charalambous and Sarah Owen, two supporters of the bill who were tellers for the ayes in the second reading vote in November. They are both Labour MPs.
The tellers for the noes are Patricia Ferguson and Ruth Jones, who voted against the bill at second reading.
All four of them are Labour MPs.
So, although this is a procedural vote, in practice it amounts to a proxy vote for or against on the bill. Not passing a closure motion, and allowing a debate to go and and on, is a means of wrecking private member’s legislation.
Kit Malthouse, a supporter of the bill, moves a closure motion (“that the question now be put”). Some MPs object, and so the Speaker calls a division.
This is not a vote on an amendment. It is a vote to end the debate and to move on to the votes.
Jeremy Wright (Con) asks if the panel looking at assisted dying cases will be able to look into matters not brought before it.
Kinnock says the panel has to be satisfied that the correct steps have been taken.
He says the government’s view is that Wright’s amendment on this (amendment 47 – see 1.15pm) is that the purpose of this is already covered by other parts of the bill.
Kinnock is now running through other amendments tabled to the bill which were drafted without government support. He highlights technical problems with them.
Stephen Kinnock, a health minister, is winding up for the government. He stresses that the government is neutral.
He is explaining some of the new clauses tabled by Kim Leadbeater. He says she had support from the government to ensure that her amendments were workable.
Referring to Rebecca Paul’s NC17 and NC18 (see 11.17am), he says it is not clear how these would work.
And he sums up the impact of some other tidying up amendments tabled by Leadbeater, which he indicates the government is happy with form a workability point of view.
Updated
Anna Dixon (Lab) raises a point of order, and asks the Speaker if amendments not debated today can be debated at a future point if there is a closure motion today.
Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, says he will make a decision about a closure motion if one is moved.
Mullan says MPs are public servants. He says it is unreasonable of people to accuse them of acting in bad faith just becaue they don’t like their stance on assisted dying.
And, referring to Esther Rantzen’s letter (see 9.53am), he says it was wrong to suggest the undeclared religious views were motivating people opposed to the bill.
Kieran Mullan, a shadow justice minister, is summing up on behalf of the Conseratives from the opposition front bench. He stresses that the Conservative party is neutral on the bill.
Jess Asato (Lab) intervenes to say there has not been a proper debate today. She says there are nine MPs with amendments on the order paper who have not had a chance to speak. She goes on:
How can we call that a debate when we haven’t even heard why they are proposing amendments in the first place?
Sarah Olney (Lib Dem) told MPs she did not have strong views on assisted dying before the debate last year, but after considering the matter carefully, she voted against because she thought the risk of vulnerable people being coerced into assisted dying was too high.
The Labour MP Simon Opher, a GP and a supporter of the bill, told the Commons he was opposed to the proposal to stop doctors raising assisted dying with patients unless they asked about it first. (See 11.25am.) As the Telegraph reports, Opher said:
As doctors we must under our ethical obligations give options to patients and if we are absolutely forbidden from doing this, and this would make it a crime to do this ... This totally wrecks the doctor-patient relationship. It is unprecedented and actually unworkable.
The Labour MP Naz Shah used her speech to explain her amendment 14, intended to stop people with anorexia seeking assisted dying. (See 10.59am.)
I’ve spoken to parents of a girl who had … diabetes and complexities of anorexia. They came to parliament and they said the law that helped them, the law that assisted them, because their daughter wanted to go to Dignitas was because it would have been illegal, and that’s the law we today are trying to change.
If the safeguards in this bill fail, even once, it will be a young woman like Jessica who dies, it will be parents like Leslie and Neil who lose a child. That is a terrible tragedy no family should ever have to endure.
No-one in this House will be able to say truthfully that we did not know or didn’t see this coming. That is not compassion, that is abandonment. I will not be complicit in that and I hope this House will not be either.
Jeremy Wright, who was attorney general and culture secretary in the last Conservative government, used his speech in the debate to explain why he has tabled amendment 47, which says the assistedy dying commisioner must notify anyone who are “likely to have an interest” in the case if someone is seeking to use the assisted dying procedure.
He said:
The problem is that under the bill as it stands it’s very difficult and perhaps impossible for those who know the person seeking a certificate well to know that those proceedings are under way or in prospect.
They may not know, and nobody has to tell them, that the person has made the relevant declarations, or even that they have an intention to die, or indeed that there is any reason to submit any evidence they may have.
Now, I’m not saying that every case where someone has not told their family and friends of their decision to seek an assisted death will be concerning, but I think it is fair to say that a disproportionate number of the concerning cases will be in that category, and in those cases the panel may be making a judgment in the absence of relevant, perhaps crucial, evidence, and they simply cannot do their job properly if that is so.
At one point in the debate Simon Hoare (Con) raised a point of order to complain that Kim Leadbeater, sponsor of the bill, was not in the chamber. He said:
How can the supporter of the bill, the sponsor of the bill respond to whether or not to accept amendments to her proposed legislation, if she is not in the chamber to hear the arguments? Is it not a discourtesy to the House and those who have spent some considerable time working on amendments on both sides of the argument, for her not to be here, to hear what they are advocating?
Deputy Speaker Caroline Noakes said this was “not a matter for the chair”.
Most of the MPs speaking in the debate this morning have been opponents. But Liz Jarvis, the Lib Dem MP, who supports the bill, used her speech to speak in favour of amendment 4, which would allow people with a neurodegenerative illness to access assisted dying if they were judged to have 12 months left to live. As currently drafted, the bill only allows assisted dying where people are judged to have just six months left.
Jarvis said she was influenced by the experience of her mother, who died last March after a seven-year struggle with Alzheimer’s. She said extending the timeframe to 12 months would give people with a neurodegenerative illness “more control over their ultimate decision”.
She ended her speech saying:
As other members have said, the decision before us is fundamentally about whether we believe in an individual’s right to have choice at the end of their life. I know what my mum would have said.
MP hits back at Rantzen, saying it's 'insulting' to dismisses valid concerns about bill as due to religious beliefs
In her speech Florence Eshalomi also hit back at Esther Rantzen over her letter (see 9.53am) in which she said critics of the bill were motivated by undeclared religious views. Eshalomi said:
As politicians, we have to be clear that members with valid concerns about this bill are not raising it because of some ideology or religious belief. It is because we recognise that if this bill passes, it may impact everyone, not just those who may choose to die.
It is not wrong or scaremongering to consider the wider family life, relationships, with feelings of burden or coercion, including vulnerable women and people from the BME community, at the end of their life.
It is not wrong or scaremongering for us as politicians, as we continue to receive correspondence from our constituents about the broken state about NHS and social care, for us to think carefully about a bill which may alter the very relationship between doctors and their patients.
And it is frankly insulting to disabled people, hard-working professionals up and down the country who have raised many valid concerns about this bill, to have it dismissed as “religious beliefs”.
I’ve sadly come to the conclusion that, instead of giving the universal right to dignity and death, it will reinforce the health inequalities that deprive so many from our vulnerable communities of that dignity in life.
Updated
Minority communities 'scared' about being more at risk of coercion under assisted dying bill, MPs told
One of the most powerful speeches in the debate so far was delivered by the Labour MP Florence Eshalomi, who is opposed to the bill. She said that she voted against the bill because she was worried about its “inadequate safeguards against the coercion of minority communities”.
She said that she hoped these concerns would be addressed by changes to the bill in committee, but she said she was “even more worried now” about the bill than she was last year.
She said she has tabled amendment 16, which would make it clear that care homes do not have to offer assisted dying. She said that Kim Leadbeater has tabled new clause 10 (NC10) saying people cannot be compelled to take part in assisted dying procedures (see 10.22am), but she said she she did not think this was comprehensive enough.
Explaining why she was worried about the impact of the bill on minority communities, she quoted from evidence given to the bill committee by Dr Jamelia Hussain, a palliative care consultant working predominantly with ethnic minority communities in Bradford. Hussain told the MPs:
I have gone into those communities, and I’ve spoken to them about this bill, what they say, overwhelmingly to me, is we are scared. We are really fearful that this is going to result in disproportionate impact on our community. We’ve seen this through Covid, and we are scared.
Heartbreakingly, she also said, “almost every week, one of the first things I have to reassure patients about is that I cannot legally do anything to shorten their lives. This is front and centre of the fear of those patients, and we see it all the time.
Edward Leigh (Con), father of the Commons (its longest-serving MP), used his speech in the debate to argue for care homes to be excluded from assisted dying.
Leigh quoted at length from the manager of a care home in his constituency who drafted a message for MPs on this subject. The care home manager said:
Imagine that pressure on those workers in that care home, the scenario is made worse by the prospect of an assisted death not resulting in a quick, nor painless death. There are examples from other jurisdictions of significant complications leading to painful deaths and deeply traumatic experiences for loved ones.
We ask this House of Commons to consider the unworkable nature of individual exclusion from the processes of assisted dying in social care environments.
Consequently, specific exclusion of the care home sector should be a feature of the bill. In any case, organisations and sites should and must be given the ability to exclude themselves from the act of assisted death.
Muslims are three times as likely to oppose the assisted dying bill as non-Muslims, according to new polling published this week by Hyphen, a Muslim media platform.
In her report on what Hyphen describes as the first comprehehensive study of Muslim views on assisted dying, Aisha Rimi says:
Some 43% of Muslims surveyed by Savanta in late February and early March said they were against the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill, compared with 15% of non-Muslims. About a fifth (19%) of Christians said they opposed the bill, along with 15% of followers of other religions and 8% of non-religious people.
About a third (34%) of Muslims said they backed the bill, compared with more than two-thirds (69%) of non-Muslims as a whole, including 64% of Christians. The rest did not know or did not hold a view in either direction.
Anneliese Dodds, the Labour former development minister, told MPs that she was worried about people feeling under pressure to end their lives via assisted dying. Dodds, who voted against the bill at second reading, said:
I have heard countless times the phrase that I do not want to be a burden. I’ve heard that time and again.
James Cleverly, the former Tory foreign secretary, intervened, asking Dodds what she thought about “the impact of intersectionality” on this. He said:
We know that a number of people don’t, in practical terms, have full control over their lives. [Diane Abbott] the mother of the house, made the point [see 11.25am] about people particularly from ethnic minorities, particularly women from ethnic minorities, who are often pushed around by their families, their wider society will be particularly at risk from the gentle advice or suggestions from authority figures that they will be overly deferential towards and in doing so lead them, I think, into a very dangerous position.
Dodds said she agreed.
I further believe that it is exactly those individuals who would be more likely to be subject to coercion from others. And I’m afraid that the evidence does indicate that, we can see that sadly when it comes to the experience of our courts from so-called mercy killings.
I do believe it’s instructive that in those cases we’ve had highly trained legal professionals who’ve often described the actions, particularly of former partners, as motivated by compassion. But then when the circumstances have been investigated in detail we’ve seen evidence of substantial amounts of coercion and abuse.
The Labour MP Meg Hillier, who voted against the bill at second reading, has tabled an amendment to the bill (new clause 1, or NC1) banning doctors from rasing assisted dying with a patient unless they asks about it first. She said she thought this was necessary because the bill as drafted “presents a serious risk that terminally-ill patients already highly vulnerable will feel pressured into ending their lives”.
Diane Abbott (Lab), another opponent of the bill, made an intervention to say she agreed. She asked
Does [Hillier] agree with me that there are far too many people who do not have confidence in the face of authority, and if a doctor raises assisted suicide with them, however tactfully or professionally, they will feel that they are being steered in that direction?
And Caroline Johnson (Con), another opponent of the bill, backed Hillier too, saying:
I’m very aware as a doctor myself of the trust that the public place in doctors, and the seriousness with which they take what we say. If a doctor tells somebody, or gives any information, about assisted dying, it is quite reasonable for that person to think that either the doctor is suggesting that they should take part in this process, or even they’re hinting their death is going to be a dreadful one and trying to be kind to them.
Assisted dying bill underwent 'massive shift' in committee, with more emphasis on choice, MP claims
The second speaker in the assisted dying bill debate was Rebecca Paul (Con), who voted against the bill at second reading and who has tabled NC10(a). (See 10.22am.) She sat on the committee that considered the bill and she said the changes to the bill since November amounted to a “massive shift”.
She explained:
The arguments put forward changed. There was less emphasis on pain and more on choice and autonomy. The word autonomy came up again and again in the bill committee, and autonomy is important, of course, but up to a point.
We have moved from a proposal to provide a humane end to someone’s pain when it can’t be relieved in the last months of their life to providing an assisted death service to those who choose it for any reason even if the pain can be alleviated by palliative care. But this approach comes with a cost to others – family, clinicians and broader society.
This really is momentous. There is no going back from such a massive shift. A move to autonomy trumping everything else changes everything.
In an intervention, John Hayes (Con) said he agreed:
Other jurisdictions who have passed laws like this, up to a third of people report that they’ve taken this step because they feel they’re a burden on others. That’s the truth of it. It’s not always about pain and that’s the kind of autonomy which leads to disaster.
Paul said she “strongly” backed the Naz Shah amendment on anorexia (see 10.59am) saying “it addresses a big risk”.
She also said she had tabled two other amendments (new clause 17, NC17, and new clause 18, NC18), saying care homes should not have to offer assisted dying, and that they should not lose public money as a result of not offering assisted dying.
Updated
Turning away from assisted dying for a moment, Keir Starmer has said the UK-EU summit on Monday will be “an important moment” for the country.
Speaking to reporters as he arrived for the European Political Community summit in Albania, he said:
In the last two weeks you’ve seen the UK do a trade deal with India, really important for our country and our national interest, a trade deal with the US, again really important for our country and our national interest.
I’m positive going into Monday and I think that this is an important moment for our country that will be measured in the benefits to working people and their living standards.
Leadbeater says risk of people being able to qualify for assisted dying as result of anorexia 'negligible'
One of the amendments to the bill being debated today has been tabled by the Labour MP Naz Shah, who voted against the bill at second reading. Her amendment 14 would tighten the bill so that anyone not terminally ill cannot qualify as terminally ill (meaning they can use assisted dying) “by voluntarily stopping eating or drinking or both”.
In her speech Leadbeater said that she could understand the concerns behind Shah’s amendment, but that she thought the risk of anyone being able to qualify for assisted dying as a result of anorexia was “negligible”. She said:
Not only would someone with severe anorexia be highly unlikely to be assessed to have capacity to make a decision about assisted dying, the other tragic reality is that if a patient was so ill as a result of not eating and drinking for whatever reason, they would die before the process of assisted dying would be able to take place.
I know that some people have expressed concerns that the severe physical consequences of a decision to stop eating or drinking could still enable someone to claim eligibility for assisted dying when otherwise they would not be able to do so, and I believe that is the motivation behind this amendment … As I’ve set out, I think that risk is negligible.
Leadbeater said she was not opposed in principle to the Shah amendment. But she said there was some concern “that clinicians might have difficulty in assessing with certainty that the decision to stop eating and drinking was the only reason for a person’s terminal prognosis”, and that the amendment might have to be reworded for it to be passed by the Lords.
Updated
The Labour MP Allison Gardner asked Leadbeater about the Royal College of Psychiatrists saying it cannot support the bill in its current form. She said:
The Royal College of Psychiatrists have stated that they do not feel at the moment in time there are sufficient psychiatrists who would be able to deliver that position on such a panel. What response does the member have to that?
Leadbeater said there are around 4,500 psychiatrists in the country, and that the number of people using assisted dying in the early years would be “very small”.
Kim Leadbeater rejects claim assisted dying will would allow people to 'shop around' until they find doctor willing to approve request
In her opening speech, Kim Leadbeater set out the reasons for her amendments, including NC12, which says if a doctor refuses an assisted dying application, they should produce a report saying why. (See 10.22am.)
This prompted some MPs to ask her about the risk of people “shopping around” until they found a doctor willing to agree their request.
Labour’s Polly Billington asked:
There is nothing currently in the bill that would ensure that if the person made another request in the future, the next co-ordinating doctor will be made aware of that doctor’s report. Can she say anything to reassure those of us with concerns that people who are suffering from mental ill health, including depression, may seek assistance repeatedly until they find a doctor who will assess them as eligible?
Leadbeater said this would not be a problem because “copies of the report would be given to the patient and to the co-ordinating doctor if they were not in that GP’s practice, but also to the commissioner as well, so that information would be recorded”.
Desmond Swayne (Con) asked:
The bill does allow applicants to shop around for doctors and it strikes me that there is a danger that some doctors will specialise in the provision of that service, who might have an ideological view of this bill, giving it a far greater scope than she intends.
Leadbeater replied:
I reject the assertion that patients will shop around, bearing in mind we are talking about dying people, they’re not in a position to start shopping around for services.
What amendments to assisted dying bill are likely to be put to a vote today?
Most of the amendments tabled and being debated today will not be put to a vote. (That is normal in the Commons; there is not time to vote on everything, which is why the Speaker gets to decide what does go to a vote.)
Some amendments will be called. But that does not necessarily mean there will be divisions. It is possible they could all be approved by acclamation (MPs in favour shouting aye, with few, if any MPs objecting), which means we could get to the end of the day without any new voting numbers.
The first vote today will be on Kim Leadbeater’s new clause 10 (NC10).
This is intended to beef up guarantees that doctors cannot be forced to take part in assisted dying procedures if they do not want to. In her explanation of the amendment, Leadbeater says:
This new clause, intended to replace clause 28, expands the protection currently provided by that clause by broadening the persons to whom it applies and the functions to which it relates; and it introduces NS1 which makes provision for enforcement of the right not be subject to detriment in connection with the bill.
If this is passed, the Speaker will call a vote on Rebecca Paul’s amendment to this amendment – NC10(a). Paul, a Conservative, voted against the bill at second reading. Her amendment would ensure that employers opposed to assisted dying can also stop their employees providing assisted dying services. In her explanation of it, Paul says:
This amendment ensures that employees who work for an employer who had chosen not to provide assisted dying cannot do so whilst working for that employer.
Supporters of the bill expect the Speaker to allow votes on two further amendments – both tabled by Leadbeater.
One is new clause 11 (NC11). This sets out the procedure for what would happen if the doctor who had approved an assisted dying request backs out and needs to be replaced. In her explanation of this, Leadbeater says:
This new clause makes provision about the replacement ofthe coordinating doctor orthe independent doctor where the doctor is unable or unwilling to continue to carry out their functions under the bill.
And the other is new clause 12 (NC12). This says that, if the coordinating doctors thinks assisted dying should not go ahead, he or she should produce a report saying why. In her explanation, Leadbeater says:
This new clause (intended to be inserted after Clause 27) requires the coordinating doctor to produce a report where assistance is not provided because they are not satisfied of all of the matters mentioned in Clause 23(5).
All of these amendments are seen as relatively uncontroversial, and so even opponents of the bill may be happy to see them go through on the nod.
If there are divisions, they may start around 1.45pm, because voting has to end by 2.30pm.
Rantzen accused of being 'disrespectful' after suggesting critics of assisted dying motivated by undeclared religious views
Hoyle called Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who has introduced the bill, to open the debate.
Leadbeater started with some general points about the changes to the bill in committee, but Hoyle intervened and asked her to speak specifically about the amendments.
The Labour MPs Jess Asato intervened to ask Leadbeater if she would disassociate herself from what she said was Esther Rantzen’s “distasteful and disrespectful” about opponents of the bill being motivated by undeclared religious beliefs. (See 9.20am.)
Leadbeater claimed that she had not seen those comments. But she said that it was important that, whatever people’s views in this debate, “we must remain respectful”.
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Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, started by saying he was minded to call (ie, put to a vote) Kim Leadbeater’s new clause 10 (NC10). If that is passed, he said he would call Rebecca Paul’s NC10(a), an amendment to NC10.
He said there are more than 90 MPs who want to speak. He said during private member’s bill debate time timits on speeches do not normally get imposed, but he urged MPs to keep speeches to within 15 minutes to begin with. That guidance might change later, he said.
The debate is starting.
At the start an MP moved a motion that the house sit in private. During debates on private member’s bills, opponents of bill sometimes use this procedure (which triggers a vote which, if passed, means MPs continue sitting with the public and press excluded) because it holds up proceedings, and because it establishes how many MPs are in parliament to vote. Because this has become such an established wrecking procedure, supporters of bills now move that the house sits in private at the start of debates because, when that has been tried once during proceedings, it cannot be tried again.
Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, took the vote by acclamation. Overwhelmingly MPs shouted no (ie, they were opposed to sitting in private), and so there was no divison. The proceedings moved on.
MPs debate assisted dying for first time since November, following 150 changes to bill in committee
Good morning. Today MPs will spend five hours debating the assisted dying bill, or the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill, to give it its proper title. The legislation, which covers England and Wales, was passed at second reading in November by 330 votes to 275 – a majority of 55. That does not mean it will definitely become law, because the third reading vote in the Commons will not take place until next month. But, although a few MPs have changed their minds, there is no evidence that opponents of the bill are now close to having a majority.
After the debate in November, the bill went to a committee where MPs debated around 500 amendments to it, and voted in favour of about 150 of them. That means the legislation on the table today is not the same as the bill debated last year. The Commons library has produced a good briefing paper with a guide to the main changes. There is a 179-page document here listing all the amendments that were agreed. Here is the text of the bill as amended.
Now the bill is back in the Commons chamber all MPs can submit amendments and dozens of them have been tabled. You can read them all here. The Speaker has decided to group the amendments, so amendments that cover the same topics get debated at the same time, and the grouping list, with the selection of lead amendments (the ones most likely to be put to a vote) is here.
Today MPs will be debating the amendments in group one, covering “obligations, duties and protections for medical practitioners, hospices and care homes, the procedure for receiving assistance under the Act including safeguards and protections, eligibility and mental capacity”.
We are expecting some votes this afternoon but nothing that would sabotage the bill. From what gets said, we may get a slightly better indication as to how likely the bill is to pass at third reading but the crucial votes are coming on another day. Today won’t decide the future of what is widely seen as a landmark piece of legislation that would change the law in this country fundamentally. But it will provide some sort of progress report on how it is doing.
As the Guardian reports, Esther Rantzen has urged all MPs in an open letter to back Kim Leadbeater’s “strong, safe, carefully considered” private member’s bill ahead of today’s debate.
But Rantzen’s letter says some opponents of the bill are motivated by “undeclared personal religious beliefs which mean no precautions would satisfy them”, and this has angered some MPs who voted against it at second reading.
The Labour MPs Jess Asato posted this comment about the letter on social media.
This was a particularly distasteful letter. Disrespectful to those with faith and without. Condescending to disabled people. And dismissive of professionals who work day in day out to provide the care people who need at the end of life.
Asato’s tweet was reposted by Wes Streeting, the health secretary, who liked Asato is also opposed to the bill.
We will be covering the debate in detail today, but there is other politics happening too. Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: MPs start their debate on the assisted dying bill. It will run until 2.30pm.
9.45am: Keir Starmer is due to arrive at the European Political Community summit in Tirana, Albania. He is giving a speech in the morning session, and also holding bilateral meetings with fellow European leaders. After the summit wraps up, he is due to brief the media.
Lunchtime: Kemi Badenoch speaks at the Welsh Conservative conference in north Wales.
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