MPs have taken a historic step toward legalising assisted dying in England and Wales after backing a bill that would give some terminally ill people the right to end their lives.
The Commons backed backed the bill by 330 votes in favour to 275 against, a majority of 55. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves both voted in favour, Labour MPs told the Guardian.
The private member’s bill, brought by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, gives terminally ill adults with less than six months to live the right to die once the request has been signed off by two doctors and a high court judge.
The change is unlikely to occur for three years as the bill must pass several more hurdles in parliament and will not be brought before MPs again until April. The government is likely to assign a minister to help work on the bill, without formally giving its support.
After that it must be voted on again by MPs and go through the House of Lords. Should it become law, there will be a two-year implementation period. Three-quarters of the public backed a change in the law, according to recent polling.
During the five-hour debate, the House of Commons heard impassioned pleas on both sides. MPs recounted their personal experiences of illness and death, and the appeals they have heard from their constituents on assisted dying.
Leadbeater told MPs the change was a generational moment and it would have been unlikely to be considered again for a decade. Opponents of the bill told the Commons that patients could be subject to coercion and raised alarm about the level of scrutiny the bill was receiving.
Marie Tidball, a Labour MP who was born with a congenital disability which affects all four limbs, said she would vote in favour of the bill but push for considerable amendments at later stages.
She recalled her experience of having major surgery aged six and the extreme pain she went through. “I was in body plaster from my chest to my ankles, in so much pain and requiring so much morphine that my skin began to itch. I remember vividly laying in a hospital bed in Sheffield Children’s hospital and saying to my parents: ‘I want to die, please let me die,’” she said.
“That moment also gave me a glimpse of how I would want to live my death just as I have lived my life, empowered by choices available to me,” she told MPs. “So often, control is taken away from disabled people in all sorts of circumstances.”
Kit Malthouse, a former education secretary, rebutted the argument that assisted dying would add to the burden on the NHS and the courts. “Are you seriously telling me that my death, my agony, is too much for the NHS to have time for? Is too much hassle?” he said. “That I should drown in my own faecal vomit because it is too much hassle for the judges to deal with?”
Peter Prinsley, a Labour MP and surgeon, said he had changed his mind over his years in medicine after witnessing the “terrifying loss of dignity and control in the last days of life”.
“When I was a young doctor I thought it unconscionable. But now I’m an old doctor and I feel sure it’s the right change. I have seen uncontrollable pain, choking, and I’m sorry to say the frightful sight of a man bleeding to death whilst conscious as a cancer has eaten away at a carotid artery.”
Opponents of the bill said it would fundamentally change the relationship between the state and its citizens, and between doctors and patients. They argued the bill was rushed and the safeguards for vulnerable people were insufficient.
Jess Asato, a Labour MP, said that while she might one day want assisted dying for herself, protecting vulnerable people should be paramount. “Abuse surrounds us,” she said. “There is no mandatory training for judges on coercive and controlling behaviour, nor is there effective training for medical professionals … Those who are coerced are often isolated from friends and family. So if you are not required to tell friends or family that you are opting for assisted dying, who will raise the alarm?”
Florence Eshalomi, another Labour MP, recounted her mother’s excruciating pain with sickle cell anaemia and the inadequate care she received. Her voice cracked with emotion as she urged colleagues to vote down the bill, saying: “We should be helping people to live comfortable pain-free lives on their own terms before we think about making it easier for them to die.”
Meg Hillier, the chair of the Treasury committee, cried as she recounted the experience of her teenage daughter being admitted to hospital with acute pancreatitis. “I did not know for five days, in fact many months, whether she would live or die … But I saw what good medicine can do that palliated that pain.” She urged MPs to reject the bill: “If we have a scintilla of doubt about allowing the state that power we should vote against this today.”
Diane Abbott, the Labour MP and mother of the house, said that while she was not against assisted dying outright, she had “many reservations” about the legislation. “If this bill passes, we will have the NHS as a fully funded 100% suicide service but palliative care will only be funded at 30% at best,” she said.
James Cleverly, the former home secretary, asked: “If this is such a good thing to alleviate pain and suffering, a right that we should be proud to pass, why are we denying it to children?”
After the vote, Charlie Falconer, a Labour peer who has been an outspoken supporter of the bill, hugged the Commons leader, Lucy Powell, in parliament’s central lobby and said: “What a result.”
