Assisted dying bill - latest: MPs vote in favour of historic legislation following fierce debate

Conservative former cabinet minister Robert Jenrick said the legal and judicial safeguards in the assisted dying Bill were “grossly inadequate” and suggested any legislation approved by Parliament could change as a result of decisions by “activist judges” at the European Court of Human Rights.

He told MPs: “Bad law on trivial things is bad enough, and I’ve seen a lot of that in my time in this House, but bad law on matters of life and death is unforgivable.”

Mr Jenrick added: “Let’s think about the role of judges. The test which is to be applied is a low one, it’s the civil law threshold, this is a balance of probabilities. This means a judge could see real risk of coercion and still sign-off this individual for assisted death; if the threshold was not reached of 50% or more, the judge would sign-off the individual.”

The Newark MP, speaking from the backbenches but who also serves as shadow justice secretary, said: “I worry, in fact I am as certain as night follows day, this law if passed will change. Not as a result of the individuals in this chamber or in the Lords, but as a result of judges in other places.

“We’ve seen that time and again. It may be on either side of the debate but it will happen. This Act, if passed, will be subject to activist judges in Strasbourg. They will change it fundamentally and we have to be prepared for that. I don’t want to see that happen.”

Conservative MP Alicia Kearns has said it is “wrong” not to give those with six months to live a choice, as she spoke about her mother’s experience of cancer.

The West Rutland MP told the Commons: “Imagine a situation where you have cancer that day by day is breaking every individual vertebrae on your body, one by one. There is nothing that can take away the pain, and that is a situation in which my mother lost her life, her last words were ‘I cannot go on like this’.

“And thankfully for her, there were only a few more days of pain. But for others, there are months, and before they get to that six months, they will have suffered from years of excruciating agony that palliative care cannot resolve.”

“To deny choice to others, especially those with only six months to live, where their personal choice does no harm, is wrong,” she added.

Downing Street declined to say how Sir Keir Starmer will vote on assisted dying legislation but said he is paying close attention to the debate in the Commons.

“He’s obviously paying extremely close attention to the debate. Ministers must be able to vote according to their conscience,” the Prime Minister’s deputy spokesman said.

He added: “People across the country will be paying extremely close attention to today’s vote, but this is a matter of conscience.

“It is for Parliament to decide changes to the law, and the Prime Minister is on record as saying he’s not going to say or do anything that will put pressure on other people in relation to their vote.

“Every MP will have to make his or her mind up and decide what they want to do when that vote comes.”

Father of the House Sir Edward Leigh said he fears putting money into the NHS “to fund death”.

Sir Edward, the Conservative MP for Gainsborough, told the Commons: “Yes, we have to fund our hospice movement seriously. It is very worrying that we’re going to fund the NHS to fund death, but we’re not adequately funding our hospice movement.”

He added: “What sort of society are we? Are we a society that loves our NHS, that loves life, that loves caring, that loves the hospice movement? Or are we a society which believes that there is despair? So, I will be voting for hope at 2.30pm and I will be voting against this Bill.”

Dr Peter Prinsley, the Labour MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket and an ear, nose, and throat surgeon, supported the Bill and said: “I have seen uncontrollable pain, choking, and I am sorry to say, the frightful sight of a man bleeding to death whilst conscious, as a cancer has eaten away at the carotid artery. This is called a carotid blowout. I know the terrifying loss of dignity and control in the last days of life.

“I’m speaking here of people who are dying, not people living well with their chronic or terminal diseases.”

He added: “This is not some slippery slope – we are shortening death, not life, for our patients. This is not life or death, this is death or death. Coercion and manipulation have been spoken about and are no doubt feared, but I think the danger of no change to the law is a greater fear for those who are dying and wish to have choice.”

A Labour MP who has lived with a disability all her life said she would support the assisted dying bill, but described the decision as “one of the hardest that I have had to make”.

Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) told the Commons: “Today’s decision has been one of the hardest that I have had to make. In my career in disability law and policy I chose not to focus on debates about whether disabled people should be born, or whether we should die.

“Instead I focused on enabling disabled people to live better more fulfilling lives. Today I find myself voting in a way that I thought I never would, I will be voting in favour of moving the Bill to the next stage of the legislative process.”

Sharing her personal experience, Ms Tidball said: “When I was six years old I had major surgery on my hips. I was in body plaster from my chest to my ankles, in so much pain and requiring so much morphine that my skin began to itch. I remember vividly laying in a hospital bed in Sheffield Children’s Hospital and saying to my parents ‘I want to die, please let me die’.

“I needed to escape from that body that I was inhabiting. That moment has come back to me all these years later. That moment made it clear to me that if the Bill was about intolerable suffering I would not be voting for it.”

The Labour MP said she had since lived a “good life”, but added: “That moment also gave my a glimpse of how I would want to live my death, just as I have lived my life. Empowered by choices available to me. Living that death with dignity and respect and having the comfort of knowing that I might have control over that very difficult time.”

Florence Eshalomi, a Labour MP, has held back tears when speaking about caring for her mother, who had sickle cell anemia. “As a teenager I would be by her side when she was in excruciating pain, explaining to a doctor who did not believe her when she told them that she needed life saving medication. Sadly this is still the reality today,” she said in a trembling voice.

Ms Eshalomi is raising concerns about how ethnic minorities are treated by the health service currently. “We should be helping people to live, in comfortable and pain free terms, before making it easier for them to die,” she said.

She also said that there was a risk of coercion in the Bill, saying: “My late mother lived with chronic illness all her life” but “she wanted to live”. Ms Eshalomi added: “I believe this Bill would not protect the wishes of people in her situation today”.

A son has told of his father’s “lonely, dangerous death” as he called for MPs to vote for the assisted dying Bill.

Speaking from a protest in support of the Bill outside Parliament, Anil Douglas, 35, from Walthamstow, London, said: “I lost my father, Ian, in February 2019. He suffered from secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, and he took his own life.

“It was a very lonely, dangerous death.”

If the assisted dying Bill had been law, Mr Douglas said his father would have been able to “choose the manner and circumstance of his death”.

“He would have been able to live his life knowing he had that choice, and he wouldn’t have been backed into a corner to make lonely and dangerous decisions like he did,” he said.

The death of his father was “horrible” for his family he said.

“The bad death of a loved one scars you for the rest of your life,” he said. “You just have to live with it.

“I continue to pick up the pieces and recover every day, and I expect to do so for the rest of my life.”

Labour MP Dame Meg Hillier wiped away tears as she spoke of her daughter’s admission to hospital with acute pancreatitis and how “good medicine” can relieve the pain.

Former minister Dame Meg, MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, told the Commons: “The principle at stake is that we do cross a Rubicon whereby somebody who is terminally ill by the definition of this Bill is assisted by the state to die. This is a fundamental change in the relationship between the state and the citizen, and the patient and their doctor.

“If we have a scintilla of doubt about allowing the state that power, we should vote against this today.”

Dame Meg said a “failure in palliative care and support is not a reason to continue” with the Bill, adding about her daughter: “She was admitted to hospital with acute pancreatitis as a teenager so this Bill would not have covered her at that point, but I did not know for five days, in fact many months, whether she would live or die.

“Those first five days she did not sleep and she was crying out in pain. But I saw what good medicine can do that palliated that pain, that got her to a place where although for two-and-a-half months she was unable to eat, she was saved and the key was she was not in pain - well, she was in pain but it was managed.”

Sir John Haynes, a Tory MP, has said he is voting against the Bill in the hope that the UK can improve palliative care. He also said “it is immensely naive to believe this Bill can be changed substantially in committee.”

He added: “Committees don’t fundamentally alter the intent of that legislation.”

Sir John also added that the Bill put a “charming but somewhat naive faith in the judiciary”.

He is also concerned about the fundamental change to the role of doctors affected by the Bill.

Sir John told MPs: “This Bill changes the relationship between clinicians and patients forever. It says to the NHS your job is not only to protect and preserve life, it is sometimes to take life.

“It changes society’s view about what life and death is all about.. It’s about a communal view about how we see the essence of life and death.”

He said that MPs know “it is very different out there on the mean streets.. There are many cruel and spiteful and unkind people and there are many vunerable and frail people.”

Sir John concluded: “I am going to vote for the audacity of hope, hope that we can improve palliative care, hope that we can do better.”