MPs and peers who championed the assisted dying bill have pledged to reintroduce it after it ran out of time in the House of Lords. Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who tabled the private member's bill, announced plans to bring forward an identical bill in the next parliamentary session, a move that would prevent peers from blocking it again under parliamentary convention.
The terminally ill adults (end of life) bill, which passed the Commons in June last year, was stalled in the Lords after more than 1,200 amendments were tabled, over 800 of which came from just seven peers. The bill proposed allowing adults in England and Wales with fewer than six months to live to seek an assisted death, subject to approval from two doctors and an expert panel. With the current parliamentary session ending next week, the bill has fallen.
Leadbeater described the blocking as undemocratic, stating, 'This isn't what democracy looks like.' She rejected claims that the bill was rushed, calling such criticism 'utter nonsense.' Charles Falconer, the Labour peer leading the bill in the Lords, accused a small number of peers of 'pure obstructionism,' while Rebecca Wilcox, whose mother Esther Rantzen has terminal cancer, expressed frustration that the bill was 'thwarted by such a petty few.'
Opponents, including Paralympian peer Tanni Grey-Thompson, argued the bill was flawed, with 'too many gaps in it.' Jane Campbell, a former equality commissioner, said disabled people had told her the bill 'frightens them.' Despite the setback, Leadbeater affirmed, 'There is a clear public appetite for changing the law, and as legislators we have a duty to do something about that.'
