‘Still a lot of work to do’ on assisted dying, says Leadbeater

A historic Commons vote on Friday means that assisted dying could be legalised in England and Wales after proposals cleared their first parliamentary hurdle.

Sir Keir Starmer was among the majority of MPS to support the proposed legislation which would allow terminally ill adults with less than six months to live to end their lives.

MPs voted 330 to 275, majority 55, to approve Labour MP Ms Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill at the second reading, but opponents of the change had vowed to fight on after the result was announced.

Speaking to BBC Newsnight on Friday, it was put to Ms Leadbeater whether there was a majority for the actual text of the bill.

She told the programme: “There’s a lot of work to do, there’s absolutely still a lot of work to do,”

“I’m very happy with the Bill or I wouldn’t have proposed it,” she added.

She went on: “But if people feel there are slight changes that we need to make and amendments that they want to put forward, that’s what Parliament does. That’s part of the process in the same way with any other piece of legislation, so let’s get going on that.”

Conservative MP Danny Kruger, who led opposition to the Bill during Friday’s debate, had said he was “disappointed” but added that the vote was “simply to continue the discussion”.

He told the PA news agency: “I was reassured that so many colleagues recognised that the Bill is very dangerous, there’s lots of problems with it and they have said they want to improve it in committee.

“I want to help them do that and I hope we can make substantial improvements before it comes back for third reading, and I hope that if it’s not good enough if the safeguards are not strengthened, then colleagues will vote against it before it comes into law.”

Meanwhile, a charity is calling for MPs to enshrine a commitment to developing a strategy for palliative care in assisted dying legislation.

Marie Curie, a charity focused on end-of-life care, said in a briefing sent to parliamentarians before the second reading that they want an amendment to the legislation that would impose a duty on ministers to develop a strategy to improve palliative and end-of-life care.

The charity’s chief executive Matthew Reed said that the organisation is “neutral” on the subject of assisted dying, “but what we are absolutely not neutral on is the need to urgently fix end-of-life care”.

In a statement after the vote, Mr Reed said: “Warm words won’t fix our broken end-of-life care system. The bill says nothing about the urgent need to improve existing provision. It says nothing about the postcode lottery for access to end-of-life care, nothing about the funding crisis, and nothing about people spending their final moments in A&E because our health system can’t offer them the care and support they need, in or out of hours.”

He added:“As this Bill progresses, we will be encouraging Parliamentarians to amend the Bill to ensure that it sets out the improvements that must be made to our palliative care system”.

There were emotional scenes in the House of Commons on Friday as MPs on both sides of the debate made impassioned speeches on the matter that has been described as a “major social reform”.

Among those who backed the plans were fifteen members of the Cabinet, including the PM as well as Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Eight members of the Cabinet voted against, including Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, Foreign Secretary David Lammy,

The Bill will next go to committee stage where MPs can table amendments, and on Friday a motion was approved to allow the committee considering the Bill to have the power to send for people, papers and records as part of its sessions.

The Bill will face 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.

Some MPs indicated during the debate that their support for the Bill might not continue at a further vote, if they are not convinced of the safeguards.

Ms Leadbeater has said it would likely be a further two years from then for an assisted dying service to be in place.