from Religion Media Centre
The Assisted Dying Bill comes back not the Commons today, an identical bill to one which fell when the Lords ran out of time to deal with all the amendments. The original bill passed in the Commons by 23 votes in June 2025, but since then a new Prime Minister has been appointed and a new cabinet formed, and there is uncertainty over the bill’s fate today.
The Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has made clear his view that that palliative and social care need to be fixed first. He said it was “very challenging” to introduce the wider debate when people could not have confidence that they would receive that care. The bill would allow adults with fewer than six months to live to be given help to end their life. The debate starts at 9.30 am.
The Archbishop of Westminster, Richard Moth, issued a statement yesterday urging MPs to reject the bill, which he said is “deeply flawed” amid fears that vulnerable people would feel pressured into ending their lives. He said: “To genuinely help the terminally ill we need an improvement in compassionate, high-quality palliative care, and proper hospice funding”. His statement is here.
Supporters of the bill say if it passes and goes to the Lords again, they will use the Parliament Act to force it through. But The Guardian reports that two MPs who voted for and against the bill, Gareth Snell and Meg Hiller, have urged campaigners not to do this, saying that this would lead to a “constitutional showdown with far-reaching consequences”.