MPs are debating and voting on new laws to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill will allow people aged over 18 with less than six months to live the right to end their own life.
The proposed legislation has divided Parliament, with MPs on both sides of the Commons seemingly equally split on whether they are for or against it.
Current laws mean people cannot ask for medical help to die. There are a number of requirements for a patient to be eligible for assisted dying under the proposals.
If the bill passes today, there will still be more months of fine tuning and Parliamentary activity before it becomes law. However, if it is rejected that will be the end of the line for the legislation in its current form.
Follow below for live updates…
Key Points
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Watch live as protesters gather in Westminster while assisted dying bill is debated
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Kim Leadbeater: Bill is about ‘giving dying people who have got six months or less to live to shorten their death’
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Hackney MP Diane Abbott says NHS will become ‘a fully funded 100% suicide service’
Hammersmith MP indicates his support for the assisted dying bill
11:39 , Jacob Phillips
Terminally ill people stuck in hospital might consider it their “patriotic duty” to take advantage of assisted dying to free up beds in the event of another pandemic, MPs heard.
Jonathan Davies, Labour MP for Mid Derbyshire said in an intervention: “I worry that if we were to see another pandemic on the scale of what we saw in 2020 whether people might think they were doing something patriotic by getting out of the way, by freeing up a bed for a young person.”
Labour’s Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) indicated support for the Bill, telling MPs: “We have a duty to put in place the best law that we can, and that is not the law as it stands.”
Conservative former minister Andrew Mitchell confirmed he would be supporting it.
“I want this choice for my constituents, I want it for those whom I love, and indeed I want it perhaps one day for myself,” Mr Mitchell told the Commons.
Layla Moran tells MPs to vote in favour of bill to continue conversation on assisted dying
11:36 , Jacob Phillips
The House of Commons remains packed as MPs continue to debate assisted dying.
Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran told her colleagues she will be voting in favour of the bill as she wants the conversation on the topic to continue.
“To those MPs who are minded to vote for it on principle but are worried about the details about how we might change a word here or the role of clinicians or MPs or whatever it may be.
“May I urge them to reconsider the question they are asking themselves today.”
She added: “The question I think we, and I, will be answering today is ‘do I want to keep talking about the issues with this bill?’”
Layla Moran tells MPs to vote in favour of bill to continue conversation on assisted dying
11:35 , Jacob Phillips
The House of Commons remains packed as MPs continue to debate assisted dying.
Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran told her colleagues she will be voting in favour of the bill as she wants the conversation on the topic to continue.
“To those MPs who are minded to vote for it on principle but are worried about the details about how we might change a word here or the role of clinicians or MPs or whatever it may be.
“May I urge them to reconsider the question they are asking themselves today.”
She added: “The question I think we, and I, will be answering today is ‘do I want to keep talking about the issues with this bill?’”
Actress Liz Carr tells crowds there is ‘fine line between terminal illness and disability’
11:27 , Jacob Phillips
Actress and disability rights campaigner Liz Carr has said there is a “fine line between terminal illness and disability” at a protest against the assisted dying Bill outside Parliament.
Speaking from Old Palace Yard, Ms Carr, 52, who has starred in TV shows Loki and Silent Witness said: “As disabled people, there’s a really fine line between terminal illness and disability.
“Our lives go in and out of the NHS and the medical system, and I think we are probably slightly less trusting than your average person.
“We know doctors are fallible, we know mistakes are made about prognosis, and we are concerned that the power that the medical profession wields in our lives will become more uncontrolled if this Bill goes through.”
‘There should be assistance to kill disabled people before their natural deaths’ says campaigner
11:23 , Jacob Phillips
JoAnn Taylor, 58, who has a condition called severe hypermobility syndrome, said she opposes the assisted dying Bill.
Speaking at a Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) protest outside Parliament, she said: “I’m against it because I don’t feel there should be assistance to kill disabled people before their natural deaths.
“Doctors can be wrong, cures can become available.”
Symptoms of severe hypermobility syndrome include frequently dislocating joints, frequent sprains and strains of muscles, poor balance and fatigue.
Ms Taylor, from Salford, added: “From my own experience, and many others too, of very prolonged miseries that the disabled endure in this country and beyond, our lived experiences aren’t understood by many.”
If the Bill is passed, Ms Taylor said she fears people who are vulnerable, disabled and depressed may make rash decisions.
She said: “Things change, your condition improves and you feel differently about life.”
Public opinion was against abolishing death penalty for murder, says Diane Abbott
11:17 , Jacob Phillips
High Court judges’ involvement in assisted dying “could just be a rubber stamp”, Mother of the House Diane Abbott has warned.
The long-serving Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said: “I would recall to the House that in 1969, Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty for murder.
“Public opinion was actually against it but MPs believed on 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. I am not against legalising assisted dying in any circumstance but I have many reservations about this Bill and in particular, I do not believe that the safeguards are sufficient.
“They are supposed to be the strongest in the world because of the involvement of a High Court judge, but the divisional court have said the intervention of a court would simply interpose an expensive and time-consuming forensic procedure.”
Ms Abbott later added: “Is a judge supposed to second-guess doctors? Will the judge make a decision on the basis of paperwork? Or will there be a hearing in open court? And where will be the capacity in the criminal justice system to deal with all this?
“So far from being a genuine safeguard, the involvement of a judge could just be a rubber stamp.”
Hackney MP Diane Abbott tells MPs NHS would be ‘fully funded’ suicide service
11:12 , Jacob Phillips
Mother of the House Diane Abbott has told the Commons she will not be voting for the bill.
The Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP said: “As I said at the beginning I am not against assisted dying in any circumstances.
“If this bill passes we will have the NHS funded as a fully funded 100 per cent suicide service but palliative care will only be funded at 30 per cent at best.
She mentioned former MP Gordon Brown, who also opposes assisted dying, adding: “We need to do better at assisted living before deciding whether to legislate on ways to die.”
The MP continued: “I represent very many vulnerable people in marginalised communities I can not vote for a bill where I have doubts about whether they will be protected.”
MP filled with ‘dread and fear’ for non-verbal people like her daughter
11:03 , Jacob Phillips
MPs have just heard from Labour MP Mary Kelly Foy who has opened up about how she is filled with “dread and fear” for non-verbal people like her daughter.
“My daughter Maria lived her life with severe disabilities and health conditions and since her birth, we were told she might only have six months to live. She lived for 27 years.
“Crucially Maria was non-verbal and I am filled with dread and fear for other people like Maria who are non-verbal and don’t have that capacity and what might happen to others like Maria if they aren’t loved and cared for and have somebody speaking out for them.”
Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP Diane Abbott added “I have heard so many stories like that. This arbitrary cut-off of six months. It does not necessarily meet with the reality of sick people.”
‘Majority of public very much in favour of bill’ says Dignity in Dying director
10:55 , Jacob Phillips
Outside of the House of Commons hundreds of protesters gathered calling on MPs to vote for Kim Leadbeater’s private members’ bill to legalise assisted dying.
At Parliament Square, just around the corner from a demonstration against the Bill, protesters dressed in pink held signs asking MPs to “vote for dignity”.
Speaking from the protest, Ally Thomson, director of communications at campaign group Dignity in Dying, said: “It’s not a law for people who are making a choice between living and dying, that choice has been made already for them.
“They’re having a choice between two kinds of deaths.
“We know that the majority of the British public are very much in favour of Kim’s Bill.
“We would ask (MPs) to look to the views of their constituents, the voices of those most affected and vote in favour today.”
Groans as MP claims specialist doctors abroad ‘kill hundreds of patients a year’
10:48 , Jacob Phillips
There were groans from across the Commons as Danny Kruger claimed specialist assisted death doctors in other countries “personally kill hundreds of patients a year”.
The Conservative MP for East Wiltshire told MPs: “Medics I met in Canada, specialists in assisted death who personally kill hundreds of patients a year in their special clinics…”
Amid protests from MPs, he responded: “Well if members have a difficulty with the language then I wonder what they are doing here? This is what we are talking about.
“I met doctors for whom this is their profession and their job that they are proud to do.”
Mr Kruger had earlier paid tribute to Kim Leadbeater, the Bill’s sponsor, and said she had led the debate on assisted dying with “great dignity”.
Echoing the words which appear on a shield erected in the Commons chamber in memory of Ms Leadbeater’s sister Jo Cox – the Labour MP murdered in 2016 – Mr Kruger added: “I know that we have more in common that might appear today.”
‘We will expose many more people to harm if bill passes’ says MP
10:46 , Jacob Phillips
The assisted dying Bill is “too big” and “too flawed” for MPs to make meaningful changes to it, the Commons heard.
Conservative MP Danny Kruger told MPs: “This Bill is simply too big for the time that it has been given. I implore members not to hide behind the fiction that it can be amended substantially in committee and in the remaining stages.”
He later added: “The point about the process though is this Bill is too flawed, there is too much to do with it to address in the committee stage.”
East Wiltshire MP Mr Kruger had earlier said: “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.
“But we won’t be able to do that if we introduce this new option. Instead, we will expose many more people to harm.”
Former MP campaigned tirelessly after father took his own life
10:43
Earlier in the debate MPs heard about how one of their former colleagues has been calling for assisted dying to become legal after his father took his own life.
Kim Leadbeater told the Commons: “There is our former colleague Paul Blomfield, the previous MP for Sheffield Central, who has campaigned tirelessly on this issue since his dad Harry took his own life alone in his garage in 2014, after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer.
“And language matters. Harry wasn’t suicidal, he loved life, but he had watched too many of his friends have lingering, degrading deaths and he did not want that for himself.
“But, like the others, he couldn’t tell Paul and his family of his plan as they would have been complicit and could face prosecution.
“And how many precious days and weeks did Harry miss out on as a result of having to take action while he was still able to physically do so?”
Labour MP Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset), intervening, said: “There is a clear agreement that the current situation is neither sustainable or dignified. Almost everyone in this House agrees the status quo is unacceptable in terms of dignity, palliative care and end of life.”
Kim Leadbeater: Bill is about ‘choice to shorten death not choosing between life and death’
10:32
Kim Leadbeater, the MP who has put forward the assisted dying bill has finished speaking in the House of Commons.
In a wide-ranging speech, Ms Leadbeater gave harrowing accounts of people who took their own lives. In one case she described how a constituent stopped her in the street and explained that he had been questioned by police for eight hours after his wife took her own life.
She pointed out that 600 terminally ill people take their own lives each year.
In another story, she described how a man who had bile duct cancer which obstructed his bowel suffered an “agonising death”.
She said: “Tom vomited faecal matter for five hours before he ultimately inhaled the faeces and died.
“He was vomiting so violently that he could not be sedated and was conscious throughout. Lucy pleaded with the doctors to help, the doctor treating him said there was nothing he could do. His family say the look of horror on his face as he died will never leave them.
“Lucy now has PTSD – which is quite common for families who lose loved ones in such harrowing circumstances.”
Ms Leadbeater also described how people are left to ‘feel like criminals’ by travelling abroad for assisted dying and in some cases have been left alone, with no one to hold their hand, no proper goodbye or funeral.
She finished by saying that the bill is not about people choosing between life and death, arguing it’s about “giving dying people, who have got six months or less to live, autonomy about how they die and the choice to shorten their death”.
Watch: Protesters gather in Westminster as assisted dying Bill debate underway
10:19
Campaigners supporting and opposing assisted dying have gathered outside Westminster ahead of MP’s debating the issue.
Pictures show a range of placards from “Yes to Choice” and “Give Me Choice Over My Death” to “Choice For A Few Means Coercion For Many” and “Don’t Make Doctors Killers”.
You can watch a live stream of footage outside Westminster below.
Concerns raised that elderly people in care may feel like a burden
10:13 , Jacob Phillips
MPs have begun to indicate how they may vote on the Assisted Dying Bill.
Earlier in the debate, Independent MP Richard Burgon (Leeds East) said: “One thing that really concerns me is societal or systemic coercion. Elderly people in our society pay thousand of pounds per month at the moment to be in care homes.
“What reassurances can she give me that a person, an elderly person in a care home who has been given six months to live, won’t privately feel themselves ‘I am a burden, I have been given six months to live, if I end my life now I can save my family between £25,000 and £55,000’. It really concerns me.”
People left ‘feeling like criminals’ travelling abroad for assisted dying, says Leadbeater
10:09 , Jacob Phillips
Kim Leadbeater has told MPs that people are often left “feeling like criminals” as the fear of prosecution hangs over them when they travel for help with assisted dying.
“You can have an assisted death. Just not in this country. If you have £10-15,000 you can make the trip to Switzerland or elsewhere.
“But because of the current legal position, it is often a deeply distressing and very lonely experience shrouded in secrecy and with people feeling like criminals as the fear of prosecution hangs over them.”
UK bill ‘nothing like’ laws in Canada and Belgium, Leadbeater says
10:04 , Jacob Phillips
Kim Leadbeater told MPs the assisted dying Bill being debated was “nothing like” the laws in Canada and Belgium because while it strived for a similar purpose, it had greater safeguards.
DUP MP Jim Shannon (Shannon) intervened to claim the situation in Belgium had “deteriorated” to include dementia and under 18s.
He asked: “What guarantees have we that this legislation today will not end up as it will in Belgium, in which case ‘anything goes’? Is that what she really wants? I don’t want it, does she?”
Spen Valley MP Ms Leadbeater replied: “Let’s be very clear. A huge amount of research has been done by the Health and Social Care Select Committee and indeed by myself and others.
“The model that is being proposed here is nothing like what happens in Belgium, it is nothing like what happens in Canada. It is strict, stringent criteria, and if the House chooses to pass this Bill, that criteria cannot be changed.”
Conservative minister raises fears about coercion
10:03 , Jacob Phillips
Conservative former minister Simon Hoare raised fears medics will be unable to check for coercion in assisted dying requests.
Intervening in Kim Leadbeater’s speech to introduce the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, Mr Hoare said: “She references coercion and I recognise the point that she makes about the two medics, but the medics won’t be able to see or have heard anything and everything at all times. People will not be put beyond challenge because subsequent to the death, if a relative claims coercion of another relative, investigation will remain.”
Ms Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley, replied: “We’re going to check for coercion in a very robust system. We don’t have any of that now, so at the moment the person will definitely be dead.
“We have to look at the status quo by putting layers of safeguarding and checking for coercion. That’s got to be better than the system that we’ve got now.”
‘We have a duty to do something about it’ says Leadbeater
10:02 , Jacob Phillips
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater (Spen Valley) continued: “I do not have a legal background, but I’ve always been driven by a strong sense of injustice. If I see a problem I will do everything I can to try and solve it – indeed, in this job, we all do that – every week and every day – whether here in Parliament or in our constituencies.
“And when four former directors of public prosecution, including the Prime Minister (Sir Keir Starmer), and two former presidents of the Supreme Court, and many lawyers all agree that the law needs to change surely, colleagues, we have a duty to do something about it?
“Intentionally helping another person to end their life is currently illegal under the Suicide Act 1961 and carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. This includes family and friends helping someone who is terminally ill to die, both in the UK and overseas.
“And existing guidance does not stop people from being investigated by the police, adding fear, guilt and further trauma to grieving families.
“The law is not clear and it does not protect individuals, families or medical professionals, and this drives people to very desperate measures.”
‘She went alone. No one to hold her hand, no proper goodbye or funeral’
10:01 , Jacob Phillips
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater told MPs about a former police officer who felt he could not visit the Swiss Dignitas clinic with his mother.
The MP for Spen Valley told the Commons: “Former police officer James waved his mum off as she embarked on her final trip to Dignitas. She had terminal vasculitis.
“James desperately wanted to accompany his mum and hold her hand during her final moments, but he knew because of his job as a police officer it was just not possible – indeed, she insisted he must not go with her. So she went alone. No one to hold her hand, no proper goodbye or funeral.
“These are just a few examples of the heartbreaking reality and human suffering which far too many people are experiencing as a result of the status quo. And the public know this.”
Ms Leadbeater later said: “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.”
‘Ann had excellent palliative care but it could not ease her suffering’
09:57 , Josh Salisbury
Continuing her opening of the debate, Ms Leadbeater has told how members of the public have shared their stories.
She told the Commons: “Warwick was married to his wife Ann for nearly 40 years. She had terminal peritoneal cancer, which meant she couldn’t breathe properly.
“She spent four days gasping and choking, remaining awake throughout despite being given the maximum dose of sedatives, and eventually died of suffocation.
“She had begged Warwick to end her life, but as he stood over her with a pillow, he could not do what she asked as he didn’t want that to be her final memory of him.
“Ann had excellent palliative care but it simply could not ease her suffering.”
Leadbeater: Bill would give terminally ill ‘choice, autonomy and dignity’
09:53 , Josh Salisbury
Opening the debate, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater said the bill would give people “choice, autonomy and dignity” as she opened the debate in the Commons.
The MP for Spen Valley told MPs: “It is a privilege to open the debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – a piece of legislation which would give dying people, under very stringent criteria, choice, autonomy and dignity at the end of their lives.”
She added: “And let me say to colleagues across the House – particularly new colleagues – I know that 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.”
More than 160 MPs hoping to speak on bill
09:52 , Josh Salisbury
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said more than 160 MPs are bidding to speak in the assisted dying debate.
He advised backbenchers to speak for approximately eight minutes and added he could impose a formal time limit if required.
Sir Lindsay told the Commons: “At about 2pm I will call frontbenchers to make their comments and then we will move to end the debate.
“I’ve got to manage the expectations – not everyone will get in. I will try and get in as many people as possible.”
He added: “It is one of the most important debates this House has had so it’s about being considerate, respectful of each other and let us listen to each other.
“This is the time for the House to show itself at its best.”
Campaigners gather outside Parliament
09:29 , Jacob Phillips
Campaigners supporting assisted dying have gathered outside Westminster ahead of MP’s debating the issue.
Pictures show a range of placards including “Yes to Choice” and “Give Me Choice Over My Death”.
Other campaigners opposing the bill have also been pictured outside Westminster.
Man with terminal brain condition says fix palliative care first
09:07 , Jacob Phillips
A man with a terminal brain condition says the Government needs to fix the UK’s palliative care system first before legislating assisted dying.
Matt Saunders, 49, from Cornwall, was diagnosed with multiple system atrophy (MSA), a rare condition which causes gradual damage to nerve cells in the brain, in 2022.
Mr Saunders, who says his condition gives him a life expectancy of six to 12 years, has criticised the Government’s “rushed” Assisted Dying Bill, emphasising the need for public debate and proper consultation.
“Whilst I’m not against the concept of assisted dying I truly think this Bill is an absolute travesty and should not be brought before Parliament,” Mr Saunders told the PA news agency.
Read more about what Mr Saunders said here.
What is in the assisted dying bill?
08:46 , Rachael Burford
MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would allow some people who are expected to die within six months and who have been resident in England and Wales and registered with a GP for at least 12 months to end their own lives.
They must have the mental capacity to make a choice about the end of their life and be deemed to have expressed a clear, settled and informed wish to do so – free from coercion or pressure.
Here we take a look at all the details of the bill and what safeguards would be in place in it passes.
