Parties, cabinet and families split – and assisted dying bill still has a long way to go | Assisted dying
Aa few low whispers broke out in respectful thoughtfulness House of Commons The House following its historic vote on assisted dying in England and Wales, one figure in the public gallery had a special interest in the outcome.
Back in 2015 Rob Marris, former Labor MP for Wolverhampton South West, had submitted the previous attempt to pass a bill to change the law. He was completely defeated.
On Friday, he returned to the House of Commons for the first time since leaving as an MP in 2017. The bill being debated was strikingly similar to one he had introduced nine years earlier, but he and other advocates of assisted dying desperately hoped that mood among MPs had shifted.
As the debate progressed and a series of MPs made thoughtful and heartfelt speeches against any change to the law, Maris feared the opportunity would again be missed for another decade. So when the result of the vote arrived after five hours of dignified but impassioned discussion, it came as a surprise.
“The people I expected to support the bill didn’t do so in their speeches,” he said moments after leaving the chamber. “I thought maybe the tide wasn’t with us. But there is still a lot of work to be done on this bill.”
He and other lawmakers who attended the latest vote on the issue noted a satisfying symmetry after Friday’s vote. In 2015 330 MPs voted against the assisted dying of terminally ill people. Last week, 330 voted in favor of the bill represented by Labor backbencher Kim Leadbeater.
This reversal was seen by some MPs as a clear reflection of a debate reaching a tipping point. Still, as Maris warned, other supporters of the idea now say hard work must continue to hold back wavering lawmakers.
For those in favor of change, the vote was a moment when parliament finally reflected long-held public views. Surveys regularly show majorities in favor of assisted dying.
The latest Opinium poll for Observer found that almost two-thirds (64%) supported legalizing someone to seek aid in dying, while a fifth (19%) opposed it.
But the current campaign to grant the right to assisted dying to terminally ill people with six months to live has gained serious momentum over the past year.
It began last December with the intervention of two public figures outside Westminster. First, on Observer revealed that actor Diana Rigg made an impassioned case for the legalization of assisted dying in a message recorded shortly before her “truly horrible” and “dehumanizing” death from cancer in 2020.
Just days later, television presenter Esther Rantzen, who has lung cancer, revealed that she had joined the Dignitas Assisted Dying Clinic in Switzerland. Backing the change in England and Wales, she said there should be a choice “how you want to go and when you want to go”.
Meanwhile, former health secretaries Stephen Dorrell and Alan Milburn said they support change.
Crucially, Labor has confirmed that, if it wins power, it will devote time and expert advice to an assisted dying bill if MPs back it in a free vote in the House of Commons. Keir Starmer supported the Marris Bill back in 2015 and continues to support a new law.
Momentum gathered in July when Charles Falconer, who was Lord Chancellor in Tony Blair’s government and first took up the issue of assisted dying in 2013. introduced a Private Members’ Bill in the House of Lords.
But he and other campaigners knew that a vote in the House of Commons was indeed necessary to have any real prospect of success. By autumn, the topic had become a regular public debate.
Yet it is a quirk of the obscure traditions of Westminster that when the opportunity arose for this radical change in social policy, it came not through public pressure but through a small ball stamped with the number 238.
The ball – one of 458 in the bowl – was chosen at random in mid-September as part of a raffle to decide which MPs would get the chance to present their private members’ bills. Leadbeater came out on top.
Tory MP Nusrat Ghani, tasked with picking the balls, reacted with unerring insight. “Well done Kim,” she said. “You’re number 1 and you’re going to be, oh my, really, really busy.”
When it came, it was a vote that divided the closest companions. Left standard bearers John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn found themselves in cross-divisional lobbies – one of the rarest political occurrences.
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McDonnell had recently decided he was prepared to vote in favor of giving people more choice about how to die, while Corbyn continued to worry about safeguards.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage voted against the bill, but his deputy and former Reform UK leader Richard Tice voted in favour.
Parties split, cabinet split – and even families found themselves split. Danny Kruger, a leading opponent of what he described as “assisted suicide”, is at odds with his mother, TV presenter Prue Leet.
Yet the only real political outcome was some anger directed at Wes Streeting, the health secretary who opposed the bill. Ministers were advised to stay out of public debate.
While Streeting has been open about his fears about a “chilling slippery slope”, some in the party believe he sees it as a significant distraction from his huge task of reforming the NHS to reduce waiting times.
But overall there was broad agreement that last week’s thoughtful debate showed Parliament at its best.
“I kept saying to colleagues that this was going to be a day when Parliament would show up like this,” said one cabinet minister. “He almost always does at these times. I knew there would be no shenanigans.
Passing the bill on second reading Friday is a historic moment in itself, but as Maris and others said, hurdles remain before it becomes law, and hard work for Leadbeater and other leading advocates still lies ahead.
All sides in the debate now agree that the Bill should be given adequate time to ensure that expert evidence is provided, that impact assessments are carried out and that it is improved line by line where necessary.
This will mean it will be scrutinized and scrutinized by a cross-party committee for months before it reappears in Parliament in April.
The 55-strong majority returned in the vote looks solid under normal parliamentary conditions, but passage of the bill into law cannot yet be guaranteed.
Some lawmakers backed the bill to continue debate and are awaiting assurances before voting it into law. Among them is a former Brexit secretary David Daviesalthough Observer he has heard from other MPs in the same position. There are also the 31 MPs who did not vote, who can still be decisive.
More detailed debates to come. Looking back on Friday’s events, however, some who have been involved in the assisted dying debate for years reflected on the fact that even with so many new MPs in parliament, almost all of them chose to fight the issue and have an opinion.
“If this is the template for this Parliament, it will be a very, very impressive Parliament,” Lord Falconer said. “Whatever else happens in this Parliament, it will be remembered for this incredible historic change.”
