Assisted dying bill rejected by MPs in knife-edge Commons vote

An attempt to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales has been rejected by MPs.

Passionate speeches both in favour and against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill were heard during a more than four-hour debate in the House of Commons on Friday.

The Bill was voted down by a majority of 16, after 286 voted against while 270 voted in favour.

The draft legislation had proposed allowing adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death subject to the approval of two doctors and an expert panel.

Labour MP Lauren Edwards, who re-introduced the Bill after it ran out of time earlier this year, had previously warned it could be another decade before the issue came before Parliament again if this legislation did not pass.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham had already confirmed his intention not to vote on the Bill so as not to “unduly influence the debate”.

The Government was neutral on the Bill and MPs voted according to their consciences rather than along party lines.

Campaigners against it argued it contained inadequate safeguards and that it could result in some of society’s most vulnerable being at risk of coercion and choosing an assisted death because they feel like a burden.

Opposition to the Bill had been voiced by the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, Archbishop Richard Moth, who called it “wrong in principle” and “deeply flawed” as well as the Church of England’s Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally.

Medical colleges, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), had also raised “serious concerns” about the Bill, saying there were “too many unanswered questions about the safeguarding of people with mental illness”.

Mr Burnham previously said he believes the funding of palliative care needs to be fixed before consideration can be given to legalising assisted dying but Bill sponsor Lauren Edwards had insisted both were possible alongside each other.

Marie Curie, Hospice UK and St Christopher’s Hospice charity are all neutral on the principle of assisted dying but have repeatedly warned access to and quality of end-of-life care is too patchy across the country and that the sector is severely lacking in funding and said “the need for more urgent and ambitious action to fix end-of-life care could not be clearer”.

Demonstrators in opposition and in favour gathered outside Parliament on Friday to make their voices heard on the debate.