Assisted dying bill vote: Latest updates as MPs debate new law to allow terminally-ill people the right to die for first time

Here’s our live stream of today’s debate in Parliament as MPs speak for and against assisted dying.

Mr Kruger has ended his speech by claiming the option of assisted dying will ‘change life and death for everyone’.

On the issue of choice, Mr Kruger said:

With this new option and the comparative loss of investment and innovation in palliative care, real choice narrows.

No man or woman is an island, and just as every person’s death, even a good death, diminishes us all, so we will all be involved and affected if we make this change.

The Bill will not just create a new option for a few and leave everyone else unaffected, it will impose on every person towards the end of their life, on everyone who could be thought to be near death – and on their family – this new reality, the option of assisted suicide, the obligation to have the conversation around the bedside, in whispers in the corridor, ‘Is it time?’ and it will change life and death for everyone.

Mr Kruger has argued that “almost anybody with a serious illness or disability” could fit the definition of terminally ill under the Bill.

The fact is that almost anybody with a serious illness or disability could fit this definition, and I recognise that these are not the cases (Kim Leadbeater) has in mind for this Bill, of course they’re not, but that’s the problem with the Bill.

Because all you need to do to qualify for an assisted death, the definition of terminal illness under this Bill, is to refuse treatment – like insulin if you’re diabetic.

In the case of eating disorders you just need to refuse food and the evidence is, in jurisdictions around the world and in our own jurisprudence, that would be enough to qualify you for an assisted death.

This is the moment Labour MP Kim Leadbeater told MPs her bill did not constitute a ‘choice between life and death’.

Putting forward her bill earlier today, she said: ‘the right to choose does not take away the right not to choose’.

Ms Leadbeater insisted her proposed legislation has overwhelming public support.

Watch part of her speech below:

Mr Kruger has argued that doctors and palliative care professionals are ‘in a great majority opposed to a change in the law’.

There is very clear evidence that doctors who work with the dying and the palliative care professionals are in a great majority opposed to a change in the law, both because they see the damage that it will do to the palliative care profession and services but also because of the dangers that they see to vulnerable patients.

The assisted dying Bill is ‘too big’ and ‘too flawed’ for MPs to make meaningful changes to it, the Commons heard.

Conservative MP Danny Kruger told MPs:

This Bill is simply too big for the time that it has been given. I implore members not to hide behind the fiction that it can be amended substantially in committee and it the remaining stages.

The point about process though is this Bill is too flawed, there is too much to do with it to address in the committee stage.

East Wiltshire MP Mr Kruger earlier said:

My view is that if we get our broken palliative care system right and our wonderful hospices properly funded we can do so much more for all the people that we will hear about today, using modern pain relief and therapies to help everybody die with a minimum of suffering when the time comes.

But we won’t be able to do that if we introduce this new option. Instead we will expose many more people to harm.

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside Parliament on Friday calling on MPs to vote for Kim Leadbeater’s private members’ bill to legalise assisted dying.

At Parliament Square, just around the corner from a demonstration against the Bill, protesters dressed in pink held signs asking MPs to ‘vote for dignity’.

One held a sign saying ‘my life, my death, my choice’.

Speaking from the protest, Ally Thomson, director of communications at campaign group Dignity in Dying, said:

It’s not a law for people who are making a choice between living and dying, that choice has been made already for them.

They’re having a choice between two kinds of deaths. We know that the majority of the British public are very much in favour of Kim’s Bill.

Voting against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on Friday will mean ‘the end of the conversation once again for another 10 years’, a Labour backbencher has said.

Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins said during an intervention:

A decade ago, I voted against this Bill. I felt maybe it’s not perfect, maybe there’s more things that I need to know.

And she’s absolutely right, we haven’t talked about death again for 10 years. We’ve never considered this legislation. The truth is if we vote against her Bill today, it will be the end of the conversation once again for another decade.

Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who put forward the Bill, replied:

He’s absolutely right, and how many people will go through the situations I have described if it’s another 10 years before we address this matter?

Ms Leadbeater has now concluded her opening speech to open the floor to the chamber.

Conservative MP Danny Kruger is now outlining his opposition to the bill and has been granted 15 minutes to speak.

Former Labour minister Barry Gardiner has raised fears some terminally ill people may feel assisted dying is something they ‘ought’ to take up if the bill becomes law.

Intervening in the speech by his Labour colleague Kim Leadbeater, Mr Gardiner told the Commons:

My concern is that she has focused today on the individual and the individual choice. But we are here to legislate for society as a whole and in legislating, what we are saying if we pass this Bill is that this is OK to take that choice.

And there will be some people who are in that situation with six months of their life to go who actually will then feel ‘ought I to do this? Is this something that I now should do?’

And it brings into play a whole set of considerations which are about ‘is it better for my family? Is it financially better for my family?’ in ways that at the moment are out of scope. So I think rather than simply focusing on the individual suffering, which we all recognise is acute, we must actually broaden it out to the impact this legislation will have on society as a whole?

What I would suggest is that actually, this Bill will give society a much better approach towards end of life. We’re already seeing conversations about dying and death in a way that we haven’t seen, I don’t think, enough in this country. We have to take a holistic-er view.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater has insisted her bill to legalise assisted dying contains the ‘strongest set of safeguards and protections in the world’.

She has repeatedly stated the legislation does not apply to people with mental health conditions, disabled persons or the elderly – unless they have a terminal illness.

There are very strict eligibility criteria and multiple layers of checks and safeguards embedded in the Bill – none of which exist at the moment, as we have seen.

I made a very conscious decision to name the Bill Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life)’ rather than anything else. That title can never be changed and it ensures it is only adults who are dying that would ever come within its scope.

As such, this Bill is not about people who are choosing between life and death, it is about giving dying people who have got six months or less to live autonomy about how they die and the choice to shorten their death.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater said people can have an assisted death if they travel to another country, adding the current legal position makes them feel like ‘criminals’.

Because of the current legal position in this country, it is often a deeply distressing and very lonely experience, shrouded in secrecy, with people feeling like criminals as the fear of prosecution hangs over them.

Ms Leadbeater said it is estimated that more than 600 terminally ill people take their own lives every year, as she raised the experience of former Labour MP Paul Blomfield whose father Harry took his own life in 2014.

Harry wasn’t suicidal, he loved life, but he had watched too many of his friends have lingering, degrading deaths and he did not want that for himself. But, like the others, he couldn’t tell Paul and his family of his plan as they would have been complicit and could face prosecution.

And how many precious days and weeks did Harry miss out on as a result of having to take action while he was still able to physically do so?

*warning – this post contains distressing details*

A Labour MP supporting the assisted dying bill has told the Commons how one of her constituents watched her mother starve to death after suffering with pancreatic cancer, claiming it was ‘no way to see a loved one die’.

Lorraine Beavers (Blackpool North and Fleetwood) said:

A constituent of mine watched her mum suffer from pancreatic cancer, unable to keep any food down, she basically starved to death.

Does (Ms Leadbeater) agree with me that this is no way to see a loved one die? Does she also feel that we did not come in to this place to shy away from difficult choices, but to listen to our constituents and to make better laws for everyone?

We all have stories from all our constituencies, and she’s absolutely right, we are here to make difficult decisions, but in terms of the example that she gives, I have been astonished by the number of people who have been in touch with me to tell me about their terminally ill loved ones who have starved themselves to death out of desperation.

The Labour MP pushing assisted dying legislation has told the House of Commons the British public wants ‘a change in the law’ as she opened today’s historic debate.

Kim Leadbeater told fellow MPs that her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill will give people ‘choice, autonomy and dignity at the end of their lives’.

The Commons this morning began a scheduled five hours of debate before they vote this afternoon – around 2.30pm – on whether to proceed with Ms Leadbeater’s proposed legislation.

It will be the first time MPs have voted on the issue of assisted dying since 2015. MPs of all parties have been given a ‘free vote’ and the Government has taken a neutral stance on the Bill.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer could vote in favour of the Bill – having backed a law change in 2015 – but Tory leader Kemi Badenoch will oppose the legislation after claiming it had been ‘rushed’.

• Read the story by our political correspondent Greg Heffer here

Conservative MP Mark Pritchard said the assisted dying Bill crosses an ‘irreversible medical red line for doctors and for nurses’.

Intervening, the MP for The Wrekin said:

Is it not the case that this crosses a new medical irreversible medical red line for doctors and for nurses?

And is it not the case that in other Bills that we’ve seen in this House over the years, that the safeguards invariably over time become obsolete, so the safeguards in this Bill, however well meant should be seen as temporary safeguards not immutable safeguards?

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater replied:

I respectfully disagree with (Mr Pritchard), the countries where a Bill of this nature has been implemented, the safeguards have been in place and the boundaries have never changed.

Kim Leadbeater told MPs the assisted dying bill being debated was ‘nothing like’ the laws in Canada and Belgium because while it strived for a similar purpose, it had greater safeguards.

DUP MP Jim Shannon (Shannon) intervened to claim the situation in Belgium had ‘deteriorated’ to include dementia and under 18s.

What guarantees have we that this legislation today will not end up as it will in Belgium, in which case ‘anything goes’? Is that what she really wants? I don’t want it, does she?

Let’s be very clear. A huge amount of research has been done by the Health and Social Care Select Committee and indeed by myself and others.

The model that is being proposed here is nothing like happens in Belgium, it is nothing like happens in Canada. It is strict, stringent criteria, and if the House chooses to pass this Bill, that criteria cannot be changed.

Conservative former minister Simon Hoare has raised fears doctors will be unable to check for coercion in assisted dying requests.

Intervening in Kim Leadbeater’s speech to introduce the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, Mr Hoare said:

She references coercion and I recognise the point that she makes about the two medics, but the medics won’t be able to see or have heard anything and everything at all times.

People will not be put beyond challenge because subsequent to the death, if a relative claims coercion of another relative, investigation will remain.

Ms Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley, replied:

We’re going to check for coercion in a very robust system. We don’t have any of that now, so at the moment the person will definitely be dead.

We have to look at the status quo by putting layers of safeguarding and checking for coercion. That’s got to be better than the system that we’ve got now.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater has recounted stories from members of the public to emphasise why the legislation is needed.

She told MPs about a former police officer who felt he could not visit the Swiss Dignitas clinic with his mother.

The MP for Spen Valley told the Commons:

Former police officer James waved his mum off as she embarked on her final trip to Dignitas. She had terminal vasculitis.

James desperately wanted to accompany his mum and hold her hand during her final moments, but he knew because of his job as a police officer it was just not possible – indeed, she insisted he must not go with her. So she went alone. No one to hold her hand, no proper goodbye or funeral.

She said it was one of many examples of the ‘heartbreaking reality and human suffering’ people are experiencing as a result of the status quo

Ms Leadbeater later added:

Let’s be clear, we are not talking about a choice between life or death, we are talking about giving dying people a choice of how to die.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater said the assisted dying Bill will give people ‘choice, autonomy and dignity’ as she opened the debate in the Commons.

The MP for Spen Valley told MPs:

It is a privilege to open the debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – a piece of legislation which would give dying people – under very stringent criteria – choice, autonomy and dignity at the end of their lives.

And let me say to colleagues across the house – particularly new colleagues – I know that this is not easy. It certainly hasn’t been easy for me. But if any of us wanted an easy life I’m afraid we are in the wrong place. It is our job to address complex issues and make difficult decisions. And I know for many people this is a very difficult decision.

But our job is also to address the issues that matter to people, and after nearly a decade since this hugely important subject was debated on the floor of the house, many would say this debate is long overdue.

An amendment seeking to decline giving the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill a second reading has not been selected for consideration.

A group of six cross-party MPs put forward an amendment arguing a private members’ bill does not ‘allow for sufficient debate on and scrutiny of a Bill on a matter of this importance’.

But it was not chosen by Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle.

MPs now have until 2.30pm to debate the Bill.

If the debate concludes before the cut-off point, they can hold a vote on whether or not to approve the principle of the Bill and allow it undergo further scrutiny at a later date.

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said more than 160 MPs are bidding to speak in the assisted dying debate.

He advised backbenchers to speak for approximately eight minutes and added he could impose a formal time limit if required.

Sir Lindsay told the Commons:

At about 2pm I will call frontbenchers to make their comments and then we will move to end the debate.

I’ve got to manage the expectations – not everyone will get in. I will try and get in as many people as possible.

It is one of the most important debates this House has had so it’s about being considerate, respectful of each other and let us listen to each other. This is the time for the House to show itself at its best.

The debate has now started in Parliament with Labour MP Kim Leadbeater speaking first.

Ms Leadbeater put forward the private members’ bill.

More than 100 MPs are expected to speak over the next five hours.

We will bring you the key developments from the Commons throughout the morning and afternoon.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater said evidence from elsewhere in the world where it is legal suggests assisted deaths account for between 0.5 and 3% of deaths.

She said it is likely take-up would be in the hundreds, rather than thousands.

In terms of how the law is scrutinised, the chief medical officers in England and Wales and the Health Secretary would be required to monitor and report on the operation of the law.

The Health Secretary would also be required to report on the availability, quality and distribution of appropriate health services to people with palliative care needs, including pain and symptom management, psychological support for those people and their families, and information about palliative care and how to access it.

MPs will vote on whether to legalise assisted suicide in the UK today, with the result on a knife-edge.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Cabinet and all the major political parties are heavily divided on changing the law to allow medics to help the terminally ill end their lives without fear of prosecution.

They will vote on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, introduced by Labour’s Kim Leadbeater, this afternoon amid emotional campaigns run by those for and against the change.

More than 100 MPs are expected to try to speak during a debate starting this morning and expected to last five hours. But critics of the law change have suggested it is being forced through too quickly.

If approved, the Bill would allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults to seek an assisted death with the approval of two doctors and a High Court judge.

A disabled woman receiving end of life care has told the BBC the assisted dying bill could permanently erode the trust between doctors and patients.

Palliative care patient Nicki Myers, from Cambridge, was given five years to live in 2017 when she was diagnosed with a terminal illness but has outlived her predictions.

Speaking to BBC’s Newsnight she explained why she was concerned about the assisted dying bill.

Earlier we saw protesters against the new assisted dying law but here we have some supporters of the bill making their case in Parliament.

David Cameron has become the first former UK prime minister to give his backing to moves to legalise assisted dying for terminally-ill adults ahead of an emotionally charged vote tomorrow.

The Conservative former PM, who was ennobled as Lord Cameron by Rishi Sunak and served as his foreign secretary, had previously opposed moves to change the law.

But in an article for the Times newspaper, he said he had been won over to supporting in the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, set to be debated by MPs on Friday.

Former prime ministers Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Baroness Theresa May and Gordon Brown have all said they are opposed to the Bill.

None of them will have a vote on Friday, but Baroness May and Lord Cameron would if the Bill reached the Lords.

Bills such as this are known as private members’ bills (PMBs) and are considered during Friday sittings. The time available to consider them is from 9.30am until 2.30pm.

If the debate is still ongoing at 2.30pm then it is adjourned and the Bill falls to the bottom of the list, which means it is highly unlikely to make any further progress.

A closure motion can be moved to curtail the debate and force a vote. It may be moved at any time during proceedings.

On Friday sittings, an MP seeking to move such a motion tends to do so at around 1pm. If approved, the House then votes on whether or not to give the Bill a second reading.

If rejected, the House resumes the debate and the Bill is unlikely to progress.

Protesters against assisted dying have arrived in Parliament as MPs prepare for five hours of debate this morning.

Doctors would not be under any obligation to take part in an assisted dying and the terminally-ill person must take the medication themselves.

It has been suggested it might be the case a person exercising their right to die might be able to take such medication by pushing a button.

Doctors who do would have to be satisfied the person making their declaration to die has made it voluntarily and not been coerced or pressured by anyone else.

They would also be required to ensure the person is making an informed choice, including being made aware of their other treatment options such as palliative and hospice care.

Doctors would not be under a duty to raise the option of assisted dying with a patient.

The Bill states that there is nothing to stop them ‘exercising their professional judgment to decide if, and when, it is appropriate to discuss the matter with a person’.

A new law has been proposed to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales.

Here, the PA news agency takes a look at the details of Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill:

Only terminally adults who are expected to die within six months and who have been resident in England and Wales and registered with a GP for at least 12 months.

They must have the mental capacity to make a choice about the end of their life and be deemed to have expressed a clear, settled and informed wish – free from coercion or pressure – to end their life.

• How would the process work?

The terminally ill person must make two separate declarations, witnessed and signed, about their wish to die.

The process must involve two independent doctors being satisfied the person is eligible and the medics can consult a specialist in the person’s condition and get an assessment from an expert in mental capacity if deemed necessary. A High Court judge must hear from at least one of the doctors regarding the application and can also question the dying person as well as anyone else they consider appropriate.

There must be at least seven days between the two doctors making their assessments and a further 14 days after the judge has made a ruling, for the person to have a period of reflection on their decision.

For someone whose death is expected imminently, the 14-day period could be reduced to 48 hours.

• What safeguards are there?

It would be illegal for someone to pressure, coerce or use dishonesty to get someone to make a declaration that they wish to end their life or to induce someone to self-administer an approved substance.

If someone is found guilty of either of these actions, they could face a jail sentence of up to 14 years.

• How soon could an assisted dying service be running?

Ms Leadbeater has suggested an assisted dying service would not be up and running for around another two years from the point the law was passed, with “even more consultation to make sure we get it right” at that stage.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer confirmed he would vote today, saying he has a ‘huge amount of interest’ in the issue, but he declined to specify on which side he would come down.

But it has been reported the Prime Minister has given his strongest signal yet he will back assisted dying in what would be a landmark vote today.

Yesterday, Starmer insisted the bill would be a ‘genuinely free vote’, adding he did not want to place any pressure on Labour MPs unsure about which way to vote.

In 2015, the last time Parliament debated assisted dying, Starmer voted in favour of it.

Asked whether his views had changed since then, he said: I’ve obviously got a huge amount of interest and experience in this, having looked at every single case for five years that was ever investigated. I will therefore be casting my vote tomorrow.

In previous role as director of public prosecutions before he entered politics, Starmer set out guidance on when relatives would be charged for assisting suicide which he said then had convinced him of the ‘injustice’ of the current legislation.

The answer to this question varies.

Research by the Policy Institute and the Complex Life and Death Decisions group at King’s College London (KCL) in September suggested almost two-thirds of just over 2,000 adults surveyed in England and Wales want assisted dying to be legalised for terminally ill adults in the next five years.

But it showed the changeable nature of some people’s views, with some of those voicing support saying they could change their minds if they felt someone had been pressured into choosing an assisted death or had made the choice due to lack of access to care.

Overall, the polling found a fifth (20%) of people said they do not want assisted dying to be legalised in the next five years, while 63% said they do.

Campaigners from Care Not Killing said this polling showed public support for what they term “assisted suicide” had lessened in the past decade and highlighted the statistics around those who are concerned about people feeling pressure to end their lives.

More recent polling from More in Common found 65% support the principle of assisted dying while 13% oppose it and the rest are unsure. Its polling of around 2,000 people across Great Britain this month also found that almost a third (30%) were unaware a debate on the issue was happening in Parliament.

Around a quarter of those polled said eligibility for assisted dying should be on the basis of life expectancy, which is the case with the current Bill, but 51% said people with terminal degenerative paralysing conditions should be eligible, something the current Bill does not propose.

Before we look ahead to today’s proceedings, let’s take a look at what assisted dying actually means and where the law stands on it at the moment.

Here are three key questions and answers to get you going:

This, and the language used, varies depending on who you ask.

Pro-change campaigners Dignity in Dying argue that, along with good care, dying people who are terminally ill and mentally competent adults deserve the choice to control the timing and manner of their death.

But the campaign group Care Not Killing uses the terms ‘assisted suicide’ and ‘euthanasia’, and argues that the focus should be on ‘promoting more and better palliative care’ rather than any law change.

They say legalising assisted dying could ‘place pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives for fear of being a financial, emotional or care burden upon others’ and argue the disabled, elderly, sick or depressed could be especially at risk.

Assisted suicide is banned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

In Scotland, it is not a specific criminal offence but assisting the death of someone can leave a person open to being charged with murder or other offences.

• What is happening at Westminster?

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater formally introduced her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to Parliament in October.

A debate and first vote are expected to take place on Friday.

If the Bill passes the first stage in the Commons, it will go to committee stage where MPs can table amendments, before facing further scrutiny and votes in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, meaning any change in the law would not be agreed until next year at the earliest.

Ms Leadbeater’s Bill would apply only to England and Wales.

The House of Commons votes on Friday on whether the State should give some of its citizens the right to kill themselves – and actively participate in their deaths.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill also sets out a legal and medical framework for when that right may be exercised, as well as the cold mechanics of how life would be extinguished.

There could hardly be a more profound moral issue, or a heavier responsibility on our elected representatives to examine every detail.

Yet this Bill was published only three weeks ago, and MPs are being allowed just five hours of debate before voting on it.

While that may be nothing unusual for a private members’ Bill, of which this is an example, is it really enough time to deal with a subject of such magnitude?

• Read the full comment piece here

by Sam Merriman, The Daily Mail’s social affairs correspondent

The vote on assisted dying was on a knife edge last night in the countdown to the crunch Commons debate.

While a majority of the MPs to publicly declare their position have come out in favour of introducing one of the most significant social changes in Britain’s history, the outcome still remains shrouded in uncertainty.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer confirmed he would vote today, saying he has a ‘huge amount of interest’ in the issue, but he declined to specify on which side he would come down.

Meanwhile Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP behind the proposed change to the law, spoke of being ‘emotionally ruined’ by weeks of campaigning and told how she can no longer walk down the street without somebody revealing a personal story.

After a five-hour debate today, MPs are expected to vote for the first time in almost a decade on whether to legalise assisted dying.

Good morning and welcome to MailOnline’s live coverage as MPs debate introducing assisted dying laws to England and Wales for the first time.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would allow some terminally-ill people to choose when they can die if it is passed into law.

The proposed legislation has divided Parliament with many MPs declaring they will vote for and against, while a large number including Sir Keir Starmer have yet to state their intention.

Today we will hear five hours of debate followed by a possible vote on whether the bill will progress to the next reading at which point MPs can table amendments.

Join us as we bring you the latest updates and reactions from throughout the day.