‘The Assisted Dying Bill raised more questions than it answered. These haven’t gone away.’

The Assisted Dying Bill ran out of parliamentary time last month. I attended almost every minute of debate on the Bill in the Lords and was also a member of the House of Lords Select Committee which heard evidence from experts before the debate began. These included the medical royal colleges, coroners, social workers; the care and hospice sectors; experts on domestic abuse and mental health and groups representing older and disabled people.

What I saw in debate and heard from these professionals is that the safeguards in the Bill are insufficient and that, in its current state, it is flawed and unsafe.

People who opposed this Bill in the Lords were not, as some have suggested, a handful of religiously motivated Peers. They were disabled people who know what it means when the state is given new powers over life and death. They were palliative care clinicians who see every day what inadequate end-of-life support looks like. They were mental health advocates and safeguarding experts who understand how coercion works.

The Assisted Dying Bill did not fall because of a couple of peers. It fell after over 60 peers placed amendments, many of which were based on the evidence of professionals, that exposed its many fundamental weaknesses. It fell because after days of debate with more than 130 peers speaking, supporters of the Bill in the Lords refused to accept any meaningful changes.

READ MORE: ‘Labour members back assisted dying bill, Parliament must now ensure it passes’

I know that campaigners for assisted dying are sincere in their beliefs, but they are asking us simply to dismiss all these concerns. In pushing for this exact same, flawed Bill, they risk real harm to vulnerable people.

The Bill’s failure should prompt us to honestly examine the health and care system we have and reckon with what it reveals about what we want to achieve as a Labour movement. 

NHS palliative care in this country is, in too many places, not good enough. The hospice sector is underfunded and under pressure. Community end-of-life care varies wildly by postcode. The people most likely to receive inadequate palliative support are, as with so much else in our health system, the people who are already disadvantaged. Older people. Disabled people. People in poverty. People from black and minority ethnic communities. All report consistently that the healthcare system does not treat them with equal dignity and that they suffer inequality in access, experience and outcomes. 

Labour’s founding purpose was to build a society in which the circumstances of your birth do not determine the quality of your life. I believe, with equal conviction, that it should not determine the quality of your death. 

The case against this Bill was not a case for letting people suffer. It was for asking difficult questions before we change the law. Questions about coercion, about capacity, about the subtle pressures that accumulate around people who feel they are a burden. Questions, as I said in the Lords, that we couldn’t answer properly because –  as a Private Members Bill – it came to us without going through the process of a green paper, without a white paper, without proper public consultation, without considering the international evidence base that a decision of this magnitude demands. 

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Those questions don’t go away because the Bill fell. They will need answering in this new Parliamentary session, in the session after that and on until we do finally make progress in giving real dignity to everyone at the end of their lives. 

This debate has exposed many issues on which we must act. We need to fund palliative care properly. Give the hospice sector the certainty it needs. Invest in community nursing. End the postcode lottery in pain management and make dignity throughout life something the NHS delivers for everyone.

This is an urgent task that only a Labour Government can deliver. 

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