Prime Minister Andy Burnham has effectively halted the Bill to legalise assisted dying, calling for the debate to be put on hold until palliative care and social care are fixed.
Terminally ill mother Sophie Blake, 53, who has stage four breast cancer, warned that dying people "don’t have time for these endless excuses and delays". She said: "This is devastating news for terminally ill adults who are dying in unbearable suffering. We’ve heard this argument for decades. Yet during those decades, people have continued to die in agony."
In a direct message to the Prime Minister, she added: "I ask you to please meet us, terminally ill mentally competent adults, the only people eligible for this Bill, alongside bereaved families, to hear our stories, and then tell us that we still do not deserve choice."
PM's intervention dashes hopes
Mr Burnham, who returned to Parliament months ago in the Makerfield by-election, made the comments during a speech on social care reforms at a care home in London. He said: "I take the view that that debate – and I don’t say that there shouldn’t be a debate at some point about those issues – personally, I think there’s something that needs to happen first. That is the fixing of the funding of palliative care and social care. I think it is very challenging to introduce that wider debate in a context of people not receiving that care and having the peace of mind about that care."
His position marks a change from his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer, who voted in favour of the previous Bill by Labour backbencher Kim Leadbeater in 2024.
Bill returns to Commons in September
Labour MP Lauren Edwards reintroduced the proposed law to "finish the job" after the previous Bill ran out of time in the House of Lords in the last session. It is due to return to the Commons on September 11. The earlier Bill had been passed by MPs but failed after being blocked by the House of Lords, with peers facing accusations of delaying tactics after a record 1,200 amendments were tabled.
Dignity in Dying's chief executive Sarah Wootton said: "The Prime Minister is right to highlight that too many people are being let down by our health and care systems. So too are dying people, under a ban on assisted dying that both the public and MPs agree is forcing people to endure unimaginable suffering as they die, or take drastic actions at home and abroad with no upfront safeguards. Improving health and social care is essential, but will not remove the need for choice at the end of life."
She added: "As the Bill returns in September, there is the chance to finish what we started and Parliament must grip it with both hands."
Support and opposition
Lauren Edwards insisted that end-of-life care can be improved simultaneously with legalising assisted dying. She said: "Improving social and palliative care and offering choice in the last weeks of a dying person’s life can and must go hand in hand. The Bill that has been before Parliament and thoroughly debated since October 2024 provides for a four-year implementation period. That means if my current Bill becomes law next year, we would have until 2031 to fix the status quo that Andy Burnham rightly says is broken and has let people down for too long."
Jess Asato, a Labour MP and opponent of the Bill, said: "There can be no meaningful choice and no dignity at the end of life if we don’t have a palliative care system that provides basic support for the vulnerable, and an affordable social care system that gives everyone dignity at the end of their lives. It’s really welcome that the PM recognises this and has committed the Government to fixing our broken social care system."
Mr Burnham abstained from a 2015 vote on another Bill to legalise assisted dying because of concerns over safeguards. In 2024, when he was mayor of Greater Manchester, he said he would "probably vote in favour of it" but wanted a requirement before any new law that hospices be "properly funded and sorted out".
The Daily Express has campaigned for more than three years for a change in the law with its Give Us Our Last Rites crusade.
