MPs return to the Commons to continue Report Stage

MPs returned to the House of Commons today for a second day of Report Stage on Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life Bill).

Report Stage is the stage in which amendments to a Bill are debated and voted upon. The previous day, in May, had seen just two amendments selected for voting, whereas twelve were voted on today, eight of which had been proposed by Kim Leadbeater herself. Ms Leadbeater has been the subject to much criticism in recent weeks, after a number of people raised concerns over the high number of changes she felt the need to make to her own bill.

Some of the adjustments to the Bill were relatively minor - such as providing access in Welsh language for native Welsh speakers - but others were of particular significance. One, proposed by Ms Leadbeater, prohibited advertising of assisted suicide services.

Dame Harriet Baldwin warned during the debate: "In Belgium, the government itself is running online adverts featuring young women at a yoga class talking about how they worry about granny's situation and talking about assisted dying".

However, sadly, MPs voted against an amendment from Meg Hillier which would have prevented doctors from offering assisted suicide to patients who had not first raised it themselves. This is deeply concerning and means that some people will be forced to consider the prospect of assisted suicide who would never have had to do so.

More encouragingly, in the final amendment voted on, Kim Leadbeater found herself on the losing side for the first time, as MPs voted in support of Meg Hillier’s amendment to prevent health professionals raising assisted suicide with under-18s.

A Third Reading vote on the Bill - which is the final time the Commons will vote on progressing or stopping the legislation - is expected on Friday 20th June.

A number of powerful speeches were made around the Bill again, of which we reproduce two below:

Dame Siobhain McDonagh, Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden:

“[The Bill] would allow a minister through delegated legislation to rewrite the very purpose of our NHS…It would mean Parliament could be denied any real chance to amend or reject that change.

“These are not abstract constitutional concerns. This is about whether the founding promise of the NHS can be quietly rewritten not through open debate, not by an act of Parliament, but by a handful of MPs behind closed doors in a committee room – and once the past is sold, there is no telling what future governments might do.”

“I urge my side, the Labour side, not to allow the assisted dying Bill to be the Trojan horse that breaks the NHS – the proudest of institutions, the proudest measure introduced by our party in 120 years.”

Rupa Huq, Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton:

“We know that in a cost-of-living crisis, assisted dying could be quite attractive.

“We know that BAME communities have lower disposable household income than standard households, and you can just imagine relatives in a housing crisis wanting to speed up grandad’s probate to get a foot on the ladder, or granny or nani ma or dadi ma even convincing themselves that, ‘look, they’d be better off out of the way given the cost of care’, to get the younger generation on the ladder.”

“A younger me would have been 100% behind this Bill, I’m very pro body autonomy on abortion, but 10 years of being an MP has exposed me to coercion, duress, the millionaire price of London property and elder abuse.

“It’s no coincidence that the majority of London MPs and the majority of BME (black and minority ethnic) MPs oppose this, as do I.”

“We know that Esther Rantzen wants this. We know Jonathan Dimbleby wants this. But our role is to be the voice of the voiceless as well.”