Assisted dying bill fails to become law after running out of time in House of Lords

Assisted dying will not become law in England and Wales after the bill, described by opponents as “hopelessly flawed”, expires in the House of Lords; but supporters of the law have vowed to bring it back.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which has been tabled in Parliament for the last year and a half, collapsed on Friday as colleagues in the House of Lords spoke passionately on both sides of the debate.

Although the bill successfully passed two votes in the House of Commons, it did not face a vote in the House of Lords, albeit with a narrower majority the second time around.

Instead, it ran out of time, with Lord Charlie Falconer, who referred it to the upper house, saying he felt “hopeless” about a piece of legislation that he said was “so important to so many people, that it has not failed on its merits, but failed as a result of procedural wrangling”.

Supporters of the bill claimed it was a “rejection of democracy”, while pro-dying campaign group Dignity in Dying insisted “no one should mistake delay for defeat”.

Sarah Wootton, the group’s chief executive, described today’s outcome as “deeply disappointing for the people who died and their loved ones” and said:“The principle of this reform has already been won. MPs voted for change, the public overwhelmingly supports change, and with each passing day this legislation is delayed, more dying people are denied the compassion and choice they want and need.

“MPs from across Parliament are determined to bring this bill back in the next session and finish the job they started.”

The bill proposed that adults in England and Wales with less than six months to live would be allowed to apply for assisted dying, subject to approval by two doctors and an expert panel.

More than 1,200 amendments to the bill were proposed in the Lords, with more than 800 of them tabled or sponsored by his seven colleagues.

Lord Falconer, who has vowed to bring the bill back in the next parliamentary session, said the bill had failed to complete its journey in the Lords because of lack of time, but rather because “a small minority were not willing to co-operate as we normally would to ensure that a proportionate debate could be had”.

The bill’s sponsor, Kim Leadbeater, said there was a “real sense of sadness and grief today.”

He insisted there would “certainly be appetite” from MPs on both sides of the House to bring the bill back in the House of Commons and said he would reintroduce his name to private members’ votes on bills.

Meanwhile, campaigners have said they could use the Parliament Act to pass the bill if elected.

A rarely used piece of legislation, the Act allows Bills that have been supported by the House of Commons in two successive sessions but rejected by peers to become law without the Lord’s assent.

Lord Falconer told his colleagues: “The problem will not be resolved until it is resolved, and it is clear that it will not go away. Parliament can and must come to a decision. It must be up to the other place to decide what we do now.”

Former Tory cabinet minister Lord Baker of Dorking accused opponents of the bill of “prolonged thuggery” and branded it a “denial of democracy”.

Meanwhile, assisted dying campaigner Sophie Blake, who is living with incurable secondary breast cancer, said “this wasn’t scrutiny, this was obstruction”.

“Many of those who oppose this have long opposed assisted dying and would never support it, no matter how carefully crafted.

“Yet it is not their lives that will be shaped by this decision, it is our lives. They chose to impose their personal beliefs on terminally ill adults, dooming many to suffer against their will and leaving their loved ones to witness traumatic deaths that could have been avoided,” he said.

But speaking against the bill, paralympic Baroness Tanni Gray-Thompson said it had failed because “there were too many loopholes”, adding that she felt there were “a lot of misunderstandings about what people can get” under the change.

Opponents of the bill have branded it “unsafe and unworkable” and “bad legislation”, citing concerns about potential oppression of vulnerable people and a lack of safeguards for disabled people.

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, a former commissioner of Britain’s human rights watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said disabled people had contacted her to say that “a particular bill frightened them and they wanted me to explain to their Lordships why it was dangerous for them”.

The crossbench peer, who has spinal muscular atrophy and addressed the room from a distance, said people with disabilities “fear unequal access to care that shapes their choices, they fear subtle pressures that are not easily detected.”