Are MPs waking up to the perils of the assisted-dying bill?

Is the tide finally turning on the UK’s assisted-suicide bill? Since Kim Leadbeater’s disastrous Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was last debated in the House of Commons last month, there has been a steady stream of MPs saying they plan on switching sides. According to the BBC, at least a dozen MPs who voted for the bill or abstained at the second reading last November now intend to vote against it at the third reading this month. Among them are MPs from Labour, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives.

The tipping point for these MPs seems to have been the Commons debate itself – the so-called report stage. While some argued that earlier debates on the assisted-dying bill showed ‘parliament at its best’, no one could possibly say this about the most recent session. Numerous outlets remarked on the significantly more fractious, frosty and acrimonious atmosphere in the Commons chamber. Leadbeater, the Labour MP sponsoring the private-members’ bill, seems to have exhausted the leeway that many backbenchers had, up to this point, been prepared to grant.

Last month’s debate was chaotic, to say the least. The packed chamber was only granted a little over four hours to discuss more than 100 amendments on one of the most consequential pieces of legislation to make its way through parliament for decades. The fact that almost half of these amendments were from Leadbeater herself points to just how confused and rushed this whole process has been. Yet rather than strengthening the safeguards against wrongful deaths, many of Leadbeater’s changes have instead made the bill even more dangerous – such as ditching the requirement for a High Court judge to approve each assisted suicide.

In the end, only two amendments were considered before time ran out. The first, which stated that ‘no person is under any duty to participate’ in the assisted-suicide process, passed without any formal vote. Meanwhile, MPs rejected an amendment to allow certain hospices and care homes to opt out. With barely any debate, it was voted on and was defeated by 279 votes to 243. As former No10 director of legislative affairs Nikki da Costa commented on X, it now ‘looks like there will be no hospice, nor care home, where you can be certain ending the life of the terminally ill will not be suggested nor normalised’.

Over 90 MPs put themselves forward to speak in the debate, yet only 26 were called on to do so. Of those who were lucky enough to speak, their speeches had to be cut short, particularly as time went on. Conservative MP Rebecca Paul, who put forward the care-home and hospices amendment, hardly had enough time to even mention this in her remarks. Labour MP Meg Hillier barely got going with her compelling speech before she had to cut it short due to time constraints. Even MPs who support assisted dying in principle feel there has not been nearly enough scrutiny of such a consequential bill.

Many MPs were at least able to flag the outrageous comments made by former TV presenter Esther Rantzen ahead of the debate. In a letter to MPs, Rantzen, who persuaded Keir Starmer to allow a vote on assisted suicide, accused those who oppose the bill of harbouring ‘undeclared religious beliefs’. This was shockingly dismissive of the legitimate concerns raised by people of all religions and none – especially from disability campaigners, among others, who fear the state will prioritise providing assisted dying over support to live. Perhaps Rantzen has also forgotten that we live in a democracy, where all voices should be heard, whether you agree with them or not.

Not for the first time in this bill process, Leadbeater seemed like a rabbit caught in headlights. Clearly, the report stage was far harder for her and her backers to choreograph than previous stages. She could not, unlike during the committee stage, block her strongest opponents from making interventions this time around.

As MP after MP shredded her bill with excellent interventions and speeches, it all seemed to become a bit too much for her. Extraordinarily, Leadbeater actually fled the chamber for a prolonged period of time. She was thought to have been absent from proceedings for around an hour. If it hadn’t been for Tory MP Simon Hoare raising her absence in a point of order, who knows when she may have returned.

One good thing that came from this debate, however fractious it may have been, is that it exposed yet more of the bill’s many flaws and, in particular, the flimsiness of the so-called safeguards. There is a real sense that this chaos in the Commons may have marked the beginning of the end of the assisted-dying bill. It will take just 28 MPs to change sides to defeat it at its third reading later this month. Here’s to hoping.

Tom Hunt is a former Conservative MP.