After a two-year-long campaign, assisted suicide was defeated in the UK Parliament on 11 September by 286 votes to 270. It was a major victory for opponents of voluntary assisted dying.
The bill was opposed by the leaders of Labour, the Conservatives, Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats.
After a similar major victory in Scotland in March and the most intense scrutiny that the question of assisted suicide has ever received in England and Wales, Westminster MPs refused to follow the lead of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and a few European countries.
The new Labour Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, abstained from voting, sending a signal that his government has little appetite for a divisive and distracting debate.
His predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer, was clearly in favour of assisted suicide.
Luke Tryl, a leading British pollster, said that the campaign against assisted suicide and the campaign for same-sex marriage have been the two “most successful 21st Century UK social issue campaigns.”
This is a remarkable reversal of fortunes for the assisted suicide lobby. In 2024 Kim Leadbeater MP introduced a controversial assisted suicide bill into the most socially and politically progressive House of Commons in British history.
It was widely believed that it would sail through Parliament with very strong majorities and easily become law.
At its second reading in November 2024, the bill passed with a majority of 55. This dropped to a majority of 23 at its third reading in June 2025.
The Leadbeater Bill then moved on to the House of Lords, where the Lords kept adding amendments – more than a thousand of them. The delaying tactics ran down the clock.
The Bill was then reintroduced in substantially the same form by Lauren Edwards MP in the House of Commons – where it was defeated at its second reading on a conscience vote.
A large number of major medical bodies also expressed serious reservations about the bill, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of GPs, the Royal College of Physicians, and the Royal College of Nursing,
Alisdair Hungerford-Morgan, CEO of Right To Life UK, commented that the battle to protect vulnerable people should shift to providing good palliative care.
“The postcode lottery for outstanding palliative care has gone on for too long. We must now all come together to address the challenge of providing excellent palliative care to everyone who needs it, when they need it, and wherever they live.
“People nearing the end of their lives deserve the best support and care, and we can and must do better,” he said.
Sarah Wootton, CEO of Dignity in Dying UK, a leading assisted dying lobby group, said that the loss in Parliament was “deeply disappointing”, but that a change in the law is inevitable and that her group’s campaign would continue.
