Why have MPs suddenly got cold feet about assisted dying?

Following publication of the private members’ bill to allow the terminally ill to request help in ending their life, parliamentary support for this popular issue of conscience appears to be fast ebbing away, says John Rentoul

The last time the House of Commons voted on assisted dying nine years ago, a proposal to legalise it was defeated by a three-to-one margin. It was a free vote, and the Conservatives, who tended to be opposed to the idea, had a small majority, while Labour MPs, who were more likely to support it, found themselves easily outvoted.

Now Labour has a huge majority, and the Tories have fewer seats than at any time in the party’s history. What is more, public opinion seems to be overwhelmingly in favour of assisted dying. Supporters of changing the law like to quote an opinion poll from 2019 that found 84 per cent of the public supported it.

So when Kim Leadbeater, the independent-minded Labour MP, came top of the ballot for private members’ bills, it seemed that the time had come for the next great step forward for liberal reform. Many of the advances in the law – on capital punishment, divorce, abortion and the decriminalisation of homosexuality – have come from free votes in parliament, and often through private members’ bills, allowing governments and parties to manage their internal divisions on “matters of conscience”.

There will be free votes this time, too, although it helps the reformers’ cause that Keir Starmer himself supports assisted dying – and indeed had promised Esther Rantzen, its highest-ranking celebrity advocate, that MPs would be given the chance to vote on it.

But then came the doubts. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, who voted for reform in 2015, said he had changed his mind. He told Labour MPs privately that he thought palliative care in the NHS “isn’t good enough” to give people a “genuine choice” at the end of life. Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary and a practising Muslim, repeated her opposition to it on grounds of the sanctity of life. As did Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, who is a practising Christian.

At this point, Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, intervened to remind ministers of the convention that they do not campaign for or against issues put to a free vote. He was too late. I am told that Streeting’s words had quite an effect on many of Labour’s new MPs.

Most of them are instinctively in favour, but take their responsibility to make the right decision seriously. Many of them feel that they are being rushed to decide an immensely complex and difficult issue, with only two weeks between the publication of the bill and the first vote.

Yesterday, Peter Prinsley, the new Labour MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, who is the first ear, nose and throat surgeon to be elected to parliament, spoke in support of Leadbeater’s bill. But he said: “What I have observed, because I’ve had many conversations about this over the last few weeks, is that older MPs are more inclined to support this and younger MPs are less inclined. And I think that is just a feature of this parliament – we have a lot of new young MPs. So I’m not as confident of this thing passing as I was before I started having these conversations.”

It did not help that the text of the bill, as finally published, seemed to describe a term that advocates of reform have long sought to avoid, namely “assisted suicide”. The bill says that “the coordinating doctor may … assist that person to ingest or otherwise self-administer the substance”, but “the final act of doing so must be taken by the person to whom the substance has been provided”.

Assisted dying – or assisted suicide – is one of those causes that seems to have wide support, but it is shallow. Most people want to avoid pain and suffering in death, but once the mechanics are spelt out, the doubts crowd in. The experience of people in Canada and the Netherlands being put under pressure to end their lives should also be a warning of unintended consequences.

Today, Streeting defied Case’s advice again, setting out why he thought the bill would divert resources from other NHS services. “To govern is to choose. If parliament chooses to go ahead with assisted dying, it is making a choice that this is an area to prioritise for investment.”

This was followed by Alec Shelbrooke, a Conservative MP, asking Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions to give the bill more time on the floor of the House. Starmer said he thought the bill had “sufficient time” as it was.

It is beginning to feel as if support is ebbing fast. Nine years ago, nearly one MP in three failed to take part in the vote at all. There may be more abstainers this time, as new MPs shy away from committing themselves, while others will do what they should do if they are unsure that the legislation will make life (or death) better for people, and vote against.