British assisted-dying bill falls after runing out the clock
Members of the non-profit Dignity in Dying campaign group protest outside Parliament in London on Friday where the House the Lords was holding its final debate on an assisted-dying bill before it runs out the clock in the legislative timetable of the current session of parliament, which is due to end next week. Photo by Andy Rain/EPA
April 24 (UPI) — A bill to legalize assisted-dying in England and Wales was Friday set to run out of time to complete all the necessary stages for it to become law in the current session of parliament, 10 months after MPs passed the legislation.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has been stalled in its committee stage in the House of Lords since June but with Friday set to be the final debate in the upper chamber before the 2024-2026 session ends in early May, it has run out of road.
“Detailed line-by-line scrutiny of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill continues,” The Lords said Friday in its order of business for the day.
Members have used up all 14 committee-stage days allotted for the bill as they attempted to grapple with more than 1,000 amendments covering everything from blocking overseas patients from accessing the treatment and the inclusion of people injured serving in the military or in industrial accidents to making patients aware of non-lethal treatment options.
Only around halfway through the stages required before it can receive “Royal Assent” from King Charles and finally become law, the bill can no longer proceed and cannot be carried over to the 2026-2027 session.
Supporters vowed not to give up on the bill, which would give terminally ill adults with less than six months to live the legal right to end their lives with the help of medical professionals, saying they would try to reintroduce it when the new parliament convenes on May 13.
The bill’s sponsor, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, said she had a group of backers who had agreed to try to bring back the bill immediately following the state opening of parliament.
To do so, they need to prevail in a ballot in which MPs compete for 25 slots to introduce legislation they have authored to the House of Commons, so-called private members’ bills.
The next private members’ bill ballot is scheduled for May 21.
Leadbeater said she was disappointed, upset and angry at the outcome.
She said that terminally ill patients and their families she had been speaking with felt “a real sense of feeling let down by our democratic system.”
“This is not over. The issue is not going to go away just because of an undemocratic filibuster in the Lords. We will keep pushing for a safer, more compassionate law until parliament reaches a final decision.”
Opponents were concerned over the watering down of key safeguards in the original bill introduced in the House of Commons in November 2024, including dropping the requirement for a High Court judge to review every case.
“If we’re going to do this, we have to have safeguards and I really don’t think there are anywhere near enough safeguards in it,” said Baroness Grey-Thompson, adding that it was the job of peers to go through every line in legislation.
She told the BBC that when bills failed it because it was usually because they were poorly drafted, rather than because of the number of amendments tabled.
“It was written in haste and there are so many gaps in it that a number of peers are really uncomfortable with this particular bill, even though they may be in favor of the principle,” she said.
Leadbeater said she hoped the Commons would pass the bill again and an accommodation could be agreed with members of the upper house over amendments.
She did not rule out invoking a very rarely used procedural maneuver, a theoretical nuclear option that dates back more than a century in which the Lords is rendered powerless to stop a bill that the House of Commons has passed more than once from becoming law — but said she hoped that would not be necessary.
