MPs today voted in favour of assisted dying as historic legislation cleared its first hurdle in the House of Commons following five hours of emotionally-charged debate.
The Commons approved the second reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill by 330 votes to 275, majority 55, to continue its progress through Parliament.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer voted for the Bill but – in a sign of Cabinet divisions over the issue – Deputy PM Angela Rayner, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood all opposed the legislation.
The Tories were also split with party leader Kemi Badenoch voting against the Bill but her predecessor, former PM Rishi Sunak, voting in favour of it.
If it completes its passage into law, the Bill will allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults – with less than six months to live – to seek an assisted death in England and Wales with the approval of two doctors and a High Court judge.
Today was the first time MPs had voted on the issue of assisted dying since 2015.
MPs of all parties were given a ‘free vote’ – meaning they did not have to vote along party lines – and the Government took a neutral stance on the Bill.
The House of Commons approved the second reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill by 330 votes to 275, majority 55, to continue its progress through Parliament
Today was the first time MPs had voted on the issue of assisted dying since 2015. MPs of all parties were given a ‘free vote’ and the Government took a neutral stance on the Bill
In total, 235 Labour MPs supported the Bill alongside 23 Tories, 61 Liberal Democrats, and three Reform UK MPs
In total, 235 Labour MPs supported the Bill alongside 23 Tories, 61 Liberal Democrats, and three Reform UK MPs.
This compared to 147 Labour MPs who opposed the Bill alongside 93 Tories, 11 Lib Dems, and two Reform UK MPs – including party leader Nigel Farage.
Emma Hardy, the Labour floods minister, voted both for and against the Bill as a means of abstaining.
She said: ‘Voting against it at this stage could close down the debate for another decade. To record my active abstention I had to vote both for and against this Bill.’
In a sign of the level of feeling on the divisive issue, more than 160 MPs made bids to speak during today’s Commons debate. Some complained afterwards that many of them were not afforded the chance to speak.
The Bill will now go to committee stage where MPs can table amendments, before facing further scrutiny and votes in both the Commons and the House of Lords, meaning any change in the law would not be agreed until next year at the earliest.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who introduced the Bill to Parliament, has said it would likely be a further two years from then for an assisted dying service to be in place.
Campaigners both for and against the Bill gathered outside Parliament today as MPs voted on the Bill.
Despite the Bill passing with the PM’s support, a spokesperson for Sir Keir said the Government’s position on assisted dying ‘remains neutral’.
The spokesperson said: ‘As is a matter of public record, the Prime Minister voted for the assisted dying Private Members’ Bill.
‘The Government’s position remains neutral, and we will respect the will of Parliament.’
In an open letter to his constituents, Mr Lammy explained why he had voted against the Bill.
He recalled the experience of his mother, writing: ‘Like millions of working-class people, her final diagnosis filled her not with a fear of death but a fear of being a burden to her family.
‘That is a financial burden on her then struggling family. Mum, in her final months, treasured every moment she spent with us. But I worry, sadly, that if she had the option of assisted dying, she would have felt pressure to take it.’
Prior to this afternoon’s vote, Ms Badenoch said she would not be supporting the Bill because it was ‘being rushed’.
‘Despite supporting the principle of assisted dying long before I became an MP, I can’t support today’s Bill,’ she said.
‘It’s rightly a free vote and a matter of conscience for MPs, but the system cannot yet manage the complexity proposed and the Bill is being rushed’
Mr Sunak used an online article for his local constituency newspaper to reveal why he backed the Bill.
‘I believe that, where possible, we should prevent suffering,’ the ex-premier wrote.
‘I know from speaking and listening to many of you, that too many people have to go through painful, traumatic, drawn-out deaths.
‘These moving, deeply personal stories have left a profound impression on me.
‘This Bill will make these ordeals, which are so traumatic for patients and their families, less frequent: it will reduce suffering.’
His predecessor Liz Truss, who was opposed to the Bill, described the vote as ‘shameful,: adding: ‘A dark day’.
Mr Farage said he opposed the Bill ‘not out of a lack of compassion but because I fear that the law will widen in scope’
‘If that happens, the right to die may become the obligation to die,’ he added.
Bishop John Sherrington of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales asked Catholics to ‘pray’ MPs will have the ‘wisdom’ to reject the bill at a later stage.
Rebecca Wilcox, the daughter of broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen, said today’s vote was ‘huge’.
Dame Esther, the Childline founder who is terminally ill, has been a high-profile voice in the assisted dying conversation for the past year, repeatedly calling for a change in what she has described as the ‘cruel’ current law.
Asked what today’s vote would mean to her mother, Ms Wilcox told Times Radio: ‘I think I can assume huge amounts.
‘I went out and spoke to her halfway through and we both grumbled about the people that we grumbled about and we both were massively adoring of the people that we were adoring about.
‘So I just know that this is huge, huge. I mean you’ve caught me in a state of pure shock so sorry about that.’
Rebecca Wilcox, the daughter of terminally ill broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen (pictured together in 2015), said today’s vote was ‘huge’
Dame Meg Hillier, a senior backbencher, choked back tears as she voiced her opposition to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
The Commons this morning began a scheduled five hours of debate before they voted this afternoon
Activists supporting the Dignity in Dying campaign group protest on Parliament Square ahead of today’s vote
During the debate before this afternoon’s vote, a senior Labour MP choked back tears as she spoke about her daughter’s illness while voicing her opposition to the Bill.
Drawing on her own personal experiences, Dame Meg Hillier recounted her daughter’s admission to hospital with acute pancreatitis and how ‘good medicine’ can relieve the pain.
‘Those first five days she did not sleep and she was crying out in pain,’ she told the Commons as her voice broke with emotion.
‘I saw what good medicine can do that palliated that pain, that got her to a place where although for two-and-a-half months she was unable to eat, she was saved.
‘And the key was she was not in pain – well, she was in pain but it was managed.’
Dame Meg told MPs they were being asked to ‘cross a Rubicon’ by backing the legalisation of assisted dying in England and Wales.
‘This is a fundamental change in the relationship between the state and the citizen, and the patient and their doctor,’ she added.
‘If we have a scintilla of doubt about allowing the state that power, we should vote against this today.’
At the opening of today’s debate, Ms Leadbeater said the British public wants ‘a change in the law’ and her legislation will give people ‘choice, autonomy and dignity at the end of their lives’.
She told the Commons: ‘Let me say to colleagues across the House – particularly new colleagues – I know 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 subject was debated on the floor of the House, many would say this debate is long overdue.’
Ms Leadbeater, the Spen Valley MP went on to recount stories she had been told by members of the public, as she opened what is likely to be an emotionally-charged debate in the Commons.
She also pointed to polling showing a majority of the British public want assisted dying to be legalised.
‘It may not be that surprising that most people believe, as I do, that we should all have the right to make the choices and decisions we want about our own bodies,’ Ms Leadbeater 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.’
But Conservative MP Danny Kruger said Ms Leadbeater’s Bill was ‘too flawed’ for the Commons to support.
‘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,’ he said.
‘But we won’t be able to do that if we introduce this new option. Instead we will expose many more people to harm.’
Mr Kruger argued that ‘almost anybody with a serious illness or disability’ could fit the definition of terminally ill under the Bill.
The East Wiltshire MP said: ‘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.’
He added: ‘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.’
Long-serving Labour MP Diane Abbott, known as the ‘Mother of the House’, told the Commons that ‘the state should not be involed in taking a life’.
‘In 1969, Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty for murder,’ she said.
‘Public opinion was actually against it, but MPs believed [as] a point of principle that the state should not be involved in taking a life.
‘It was a good principle in 1969, and it remains a good principle today.’
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’
At the opening of today’s second reading debate on her Bill, Ms Leadbeater said: ‘Let me say to colleagues across the House – particularly new colleagues – I know this is not easy’
Long-serving Labour MP Diane Abbott, known as the ‘Mother of the House’, told the Commons that ‘the state should not be involed in taking a life’
Conservative MP Alicia Kearns said it is ‘wrong’ not to give those with six months to live a choice, as she spoke about her mother’s experience of cancer.
The West Rutland MP told the Commons: ‘Imagine a situation where you have cancer that day by day is breaking every individual vertebrae on your body, one by one.
‘There is nothing that can take away the pain, and that is a situation in which my mother lost her life, her last words were ‘I cannot go on like this’.
‘And thankfully for her, there were only a few more days of pain. But for others, there are months, and before they get to that six months, they will have suffered from years of excruciating agony that palliative care cannot resolve.’
‘To deny choice to others, especially those with only six months to live, where their personal choice does no harm, is wrong,’ she added.
If approved, the Bill will allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults to seek an assisted death with the approval of two doctors and a High Court judge
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
Ahead of the vote, Sir Keir’s Cabinet and all the major political parties were heavily divided on changing the law to allow medics to help the terminally ill end their lives without fear of prosecution.
Critics of the law change have suggested it is being forced through too quickly.
The issue has crossed political demarcations – with former Labour prime ministers coming out against it and ex-Tory premiers in favour.
The splits have even affected smaller parties, with Reform leader Nigel Farage having planned to vote against it, but Reform MP Rupert Lowe said he will vote for it, after polling his constituents.
Former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, who planned to vote against the Bill, last night tweeted: ‘Tomorrow we’ll have 100+ MPs trying to speak (most for a rushed minute or two) during a ludicrously curtailed, hasty debate with hundreds more voting.
‘I just don’t think we’ve remotely considered this unspeakably serious issue in this kind of depth. We must reject this.’