The fresh vote on assisted dying is not only about life and death – it is about democracy
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater with Dignity in Dying campaigners in support of her assisted dying bill, October 2024 (PA Images / Alamy)
4 min read
I have spent much of my working life listening to the public, watching opinions change, loyalties shift and issues once considered settled become fiercely contested. Assisted dying is not one of those issues.
The overwhelming public support for a change in the law has remained consistent over many decades, and this has not changed throughout our recent debates in Parliament.
Support for giving terminally ill people this choice is deep, durable and shared across age groups, social classes, regions and political beliefs. The largest constituency-level poll conducted on the issue found majority support in every constituency in Great Britain. Nor does this cause belong to one party or political tradition: Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green and Reform voters all support a change in the law. In a too often divided Britain, there are precious few issues with consistent support from more than seven in 10 of us.
Parliament came achingly close to catching up with the public during our last session, when Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed both its Second and Third Readings in the House of Commons. MPs examined the bill for more than 100 hours, heard extensive evidence and strengthened its safeguards along the way. At Third Reading, the elected House backed it decisively.
What followed was, in my view, an affront to our democracy. The House of Lords was denied the chance to complete the task of scrutiny that is our role. Instead, the bill was run into the sand by more than 1,000 amendments, the vast majority of them tabled by a handful of peers opposed to the principle of the reform. Parliament was denied the chance to reach a conclusion. As the late, great Rod Liddle put it, peers who personally opposed law change had won by "cheating". This did not go unnoticed by a furious public.
This week, my Labour colleague Lauren Edwards will provide Parliament with another opportunity to finish the job. MPs will again be free to vote according to their consciences, as they should be. If they support the bill, peers must this time be given enough time to examine it properly and reach a decision. That is hardly a radical demand. It is exactly what the public expects of us.
But this is about far more than parliamentary process. For many people, support for assisted dying begins with the death of someone they loved. They remember a parent, partner, sibling or friend whose final days were marked by pain, distress or a loss of control that even excellent end-of-life care could not relieve. These experiences do not sit neatly within ideological or party-political categories. They are personal, often raw, and painfully common – more than half of us have experienced such a death. Even more will in the future.
Of course, better palliative and end-of-life care is essential. The government is right to want every dying person to receive the care and support they need. But we should be honest about what even the best care can achieve. For a small number of dying people, it cannot relieve every kind of suffering and indignity. We should not have to choose between care and choice. We can and must improve palliative care while also giving terminally ill, mentally competent adults the option of a safe and compassionate assisted death.
The current law is not a neutral position. Some dying people endure suffering that cannot be adequately relieved. Some spend their final weeks arranging a journey to Switzerland, and may travel sooner than they wish because they fear becoming too ill to make the journey. Many more take matters into their own hands, alone and without medical oversight. These awful deaths are happening now, in every part of our country. They will continue to happen while Parliament delays. Dying people do not have the luxury of waiting for a more convenient political moment.
Lauren Edwards’ Bill therefore represents more than unfinished parliamentary business. It gives a Labour government the opportunity to secure meaningful choice for dying people, enact a reform that unites voters across party lines and leave a lasting progressive legacy.
The government does not need to abandon the principle of a free vote or instruct any MP or peer how to vote. It need only ensure that Parliament has sufficient time for proper scrutiny and a final decision.
Baroness Mattinson is a Labour peer
