Summary of amendments to assisted dying bill voted for and against today:
Joe Coughlan
Here is a roundup of the votes from this morning so far:
MPs have voted to reject an amendment which would have prevented a person who is substantially motivated by feeling they are a burden, from qualifying for assisted dying. Conservative MP Rebecca Paul’s new clause 16 stated that a wish to end one’s own life should not be substantially motivated by factors such as a mental disorder, disability or suicidal ideation. The Commons voted 208 to 261, majority 53 against.
A proposal to disapply the presumption that a person has capacity unless the opposite is established in cases of assisted dying requests, has been rejected by MPs. The Commons voted 213 to 266, majority 53 to reject amendment 24, which was tabled by Labour MP Daniel Francis.
MPs have agreed that ministers should get powers to update the National Health Service Act 2006 as part of the assisted dying bill, to include voluntary assisted dying services as part of the NHS’s purposes. Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh pushed her amendment 12 to a vote, which would have blocked ministers from broadening the NHS’s purposes without a fresh bill. But MPs rejected McDonagh’s proposal 269 votes to 223, majority 46.
A ban on advertising assisted dying would be extended to all of the UK, should the bill pass, MPs have agreed, as part of amendment 77. They also voted for the UK-wide extension of regulations about approved substances intended to be used to help terminally ill patients to die. They also approved an opt-out for medical professionals being extended to Scotland. MPs voted 275 in favour, 209 against, majority 66.
MPs have also supported a safeguard which would prevent a person meeting the requirements for an assisted death “solely as a result of voluntarily stopping eating or drinking”.
Ministers will have a year to report on how assisted dying could affect palliative care, if the assisted dying bill passes. MPs called “aye” to approve Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson’s amendment 21.
MPs voted in favour of the final amendment 94, which proposed to give the devolved Welsh government powers to set regulations for some aspects of the bill in Wales. MPs voted 274 in favour, 224 against, majority 50.
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Security review launched after break in to RAF Brize Norton
A security review has been launched across the defence estate after pro-Palestinian activists broke into an RAF base and sprayed two military planes with red paint, reports the PA news agency.
Footage posted online by Palestine Action on Friday morning shows two people inside RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
The clip shows one person riding an electric scooter up to an Airbus Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker and appearing to spray paint into its jet engine.
The Ministry of Defence condemned the vandalism, while Keir Starmer said it was “disgraceful”.
Downing Street said security is being reviewed across the defence estate and that the government is working closely with police.
A No 10 spokesperson said:
A full security review is under way at Brize Norton. We are reviewing security across the whole defence estate.
We treat all breaches of security very seriously, and where there is suspected criminal activity, we will take the necessary steps to investigate and prosecute in line with longstanding principle.
He said the incident had not disrupted any planned aircraft movements or operations.
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Many MPs have now addressed the House of Commons. Each of them have been asked to keep their speeches to five minutes.
A vote must be called before 2.30pm, as per parliamentary procedure, reports the PA news agency.
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A Conservative backbencher indicated he had changed his voting position on the assisted dying bill since it was first introduced.
Mike Wood, the MP for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, told the Commons:
I didn’t vote at second reading in November.
The member for Spen Valley [Kim Leadbeater] in her opening speech this morning said that we could choose to vote with our head or with our heart.
I am afraid it is that tension, that conflict, that I have been grappling with over the last few months.
He said his “sympathy of the principle of assisted dying was as strong as it ever was”, but later added he would be “voting against this afternoon” because he did not believe the bill offered enough safeguards.
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Joe Coughlan
Backing the proposal, Conservative MP Mark Garnier said “the time has come where we need to end suffering where suffering can be put aside, and not try to do something which is going to be super perfect and allow too many more people to suffer in the future”.
He told MPs that his mother died after a “huge amount of pain”, after a diagnosis in 2012 of pancreatic cancer.
Garnier, who is also a former minister, told the Commons he had watched “the start of the decline for something as painful and as difficult as pancreatic cancer” after his mother’s diagnosis.
He said:
My mother wasn’t frightened of dying at all.
My mother would talk about it and she knew that she was going to die, but she was terrified of the pain, and on many occasions she said to me and Caroline my wife, ‘can we make it end?’
And of course we couldn’t, but she had very, very good care from the NHS.
Garnier later added that he had attended the memorial service of one of his constituents years later who had also died of pancreatic cancer. He said:
But because she had been in Spain at the time – she spent quite a lot of time in Spain with her husband – she had the opportunity to go through the state-provided assisted dying programme that they do there.
And I spoke to her widower – very briefly, but I spoke to him – and he was fascinating about it. He said it was an extraordinary, incredibly sad thing to have gone through, but it was something that made her suffering much less.
He said he was “yet to be persuaded” that paving the way for assisted dying was “a bad thing to do”, and added: “The only way I can possibly end today is by going through the ‘aye’ lobby.”
If MPs back the bill at third reading, it will face further scrutiny in the House of Lords at a later date.
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Joe Coughlan
Downing Street declined to say whether UK prime minister Keir Starmer will attend the Commons debate on the assisted dying Bill, PA Media reports.
A Number 10 spokesperson said:
I’m not going to get ahead of proceedings in the house or speculate on the prime minister’s movements … the prime minister is working in Number 10, but as I say I’m not going to speculate on the PM’s movements today.
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Updated at 08.11 EDT
Vicky Foxcroft says engagement with disabled people on bill has been ‘negligible’
Joe Coughlan
Disabled people want politicians to “assist them to live, not to die”, Labour’s Vicky Foxcroft told the Commons.
Speaking for the first time since her resignation as a government whip over welfare reforms, Foxcroft said:
I don’t claim that every disabled person opposes assisted dying, but I do claim that the vast majority of disabled people and their organisations oppose it.
They need the health and social care system fixing first. They want us as parliamentarians to assist them to live, not to die.
Disabled people’s voices matter in this debate, and yet, as I’ve watched the bill progress, the absence of disabled people’s voices has been astonishing. They have wanted to engage. Indeed, they have been crying out to be included, yet the engagement has been negligible.
Foxcroft, a former shadow disabilities minister, added:
We are not voting on principles today. This is real, and we have to protect those people who are susceptible to coercion, who already feel like society doesn’t value them, who often feel like a burden to the state, society and their family.
I urge anyone in this chamber who has any doubts that this bill doesn’t protect them, who has any worries and concerns, please don’t vote for it today.
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Updated at 08.12 EDT
Joe Coughlan
Prue Leith, who supports the bill, told the PA Media agency outside parliament she was both “nervous and confident” ahead of the vote, adding that she was “superstitious” on whether the bill would pass.
She added:
It’s so moving to see all these people with placards of people they’ve lost or people who are dying of cancer.
It’s hard not to cry because I think they have done such a good job, let’s hope we’ve won.
Prue Leith joins activists from Dignity in Dying in support of the assisted dying bill in Parliament Square. Photograph: Yui Mok/PAShare
Joe Coughlan
The chief executive of Care Not Killing called for MPs to reject the bill.
Speaking outside parliament, Gordon Macdonald said there were still “lots of problems” with the bill, PA Media reports.
He added:
As this is a private members’ bill, the MP in charge of the bill was able to choose who she wanted in the committee, choose who she wanted to give evidence and decide which amendments would be accepted and which wouldn’t, so I believe the whole process is completely flawed and I believe the Government needs to hold responsibility for this.
Keir Starmer should have taken responsibility for this.
We’re seeing more MPs who are voting against it which doesn’t surprise me as the more people think about this issue the more likely they are to support it.
Any amendments can be voted on at the committee stage of a bill, at the discretion of the whole committee.
The committee is made up of a list of people proposed by the bill’s sponsor, but ultimately decided upon by the committee of selection.
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Updated at 07.33 EDT
Anorexia patients could still access assisted dying through a “loophole”, Labour MP Naz Shah has warned.
Shah said she had originally supported the assisted dying bill “in principle”, adding:
But this debate is no longer about the principle of assisted death – that is not the decision before us today, and nor is it the issue that we will be walking through those lobbies for when we are deciding to vote for or against this bill.
She cautioned that the assisted dying bill was “not safe”.
Referring to her amendment 14 to prevent a patient meeting the requirements for an assisted death “solely as a result of voluntarily stopping eating or drinking”, which MPs backed earlier on Friday, and a further amendment 38 which was not added to the bill, Shah told the House of Commons:
This is not the anorexia loophole that has been closed – that was another amendment.
When people stop voluntarily eating and drinking, that is not what happens to people with anorexia. People with anorexia stop eating and drinking because they have a psychiatric illness. These are two categorically different issues.
So I must make it clear, absolutely clear, even though amendment 14 has passed today, this amendment does not address concerns about anorexia or close that loophole.
Ending her speech, Shah told MPs:
The question for all members is simply this, ‘what is the margin of error when it comes to something as serious as death that we are willing to risk today?’
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In Parliament Square, campaigners opposing the bill, wearing white T-shirts, appeared to outnumber those for the bill, wearing pink T-shirts, reports the PA news agency.
Campaigners against the bill chanted “We are not dead yet” and “Kill the Bill, not the ill”.
A display was erected with a gravestone reading “R.I.P: The terminally ill adults (end of life) bill. Bury it deep”, and behind were two mounds meant to resemble graves.
Campaigners in support and in opposition of the assisted dying bill in Parliament Square, central London, on Friday. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
One campaigner against the bill could be seen being spoken to by police after shouting at an opposing activist, reports the PA news agency.
Jonathan Dimbleby joins activists from Dignity in Dying in support of the assisted dying bill in Parliament Square, central London, before a debate in the House of Commons. Photograph: Yui Mok/PAShare
Diane Abbott urges MPs to reject the assisted dying bill
Diane Abbott said she was not opposed to the principle of assisted dying, but urged MPs to reject the bill for fear that “people will lose their lives who do not need to”.
The Labour MP said:
I came to this house to be a voice for the voiceless. It hasn’t always been favoured by my own leadership, but that is why I came to the house. Who could be more voiceless than somebody who is in their sickbed and believes they are dying?
I ask members in this debate to speak up for the voiceless one more time, because there is no doubt that if this bill is passed in its current form, people will lose their lives who do not need to, and they will be amongst the most vulnerable and marginalised in our society.
It is not because I am opposed to assisted dying in principle, but because my concern is for vulnerable and marginalised persons, vulnerable and marginalised communities, that I implore the house to reject this bill.
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Summary of amendments to assisted dying bill voted for and against today:
Joe Coughlan
Here is a roundup of the votes from this morning so far:
MPs have voted to reject an amendment which would have prevented a person who is substantially motivated by feeling they are a burden, from qualifying for assisted dying. Conservative MP Rebecca Paul’s new clause 16 stated that a wish to end one’s own life should not be substantially motivated by factors such as a mental disorder, disability or suicidal ideation. The Commons voted 208 to 261, majority 53 against.
A proposal to disapply the presumption that a person has capacity unless the opposite is established in cases of assisted dying requests, has been rejected by MPs. The Commons voted 213 to 266, majority 53 to reject amendment 24, which was tabled by Labour MP Daniel Francis.
MPs have agreed that ministers should get powers to update the National Health Service Act 2006 as part of the assisted dying bill, to include voluntary assisted dying services as part of the NHS’s purposes. Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh pushed her amendment 12 to a vote, which would have blocked ministers from broadening the NHS’s purposes without a fresh bill. But MPs rejected McDonagh’s proposal 269 votes to 223, majority 46.
A ban on advertising assisted dying would be extended to all of the UK, should the bill pass, MPs have agreed, as part of amendment 77. They also voted for the UK-wide extension of regulations about approved substances intended to be used to help terminally ill patients to die. They also approved an opt-out for medical professionals being extended to Scotland. MPs voted 275 in favour, 209 against, majority 66.
MPs have also supported a safeguard which would prevent a person meeting the requirements for an assisted death “solely as a result of voluntarily stopping eating or drinking”.
Ministers will have a year to report on how assisted dying could affect palliative care, if the assisted dying bill passes. MPs called “aye” to approve Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson’s amendment 21.
MPs voted in favour of the final amendment 94, which proposed to give the devolved Welsh government powers to set regulations for some aspects of the bill in Wales. MPs voted 274 in favour, 224 against, majority 50.
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James Cleverly argues that assisted dying bill is not a ‘now or never’ decision
The assisted dying bill is not a “now or never” decision on assisted dying, James Cleverly said, as he argued there will be “plenty of opportunities” in future.
The Conservative former minister told the Commons:
We have got to recognise that this is an important moment, and whilst I respect [Kim Leadbeater], I disagree with her assessment that it is now or never, and it is this bill or no bill, and that to vote against this at third reading is a vote to maintain the status quo.
None of those things are true. There will be plenty of opportunities. And indeed, we are duty bound and, I think, stimulated by this debate – which is why I don’t criticise her for bringing it forward – stimulated by this debate to have a serious conversation about palliative care, a serious conversation about how we get to that.
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James Cleverly said moments with his “dear friend” might have been “lost” if assisted dying was an option at the time of his death.
This came in response to an intervention from Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh, who spoke of her late sister, Margret McDonagh, former Labour party general secretary.
The Mitcham and Morden MP said:
On Tuesday, it is the second anniversary of my sister’s death. Three weeks prior to her death, we took her to hospital because she had a blood infection, and in spite of agreeing to allow her into intensive care to sort out that blood infection, the consultant decided that she shouldn’t go because she had a brain tumour and she was going to die.
She was going to die, but not at that moment. I’m sure Mr Speaker can understand that a very big row ensued. I won that row. She was made well, she came home and she died peacefully. What does [James Cleverly] think would happen in identical circumstances, if this bill existed?
Cleverly replied:
She asks me to speculate into a set of circumstances which are personal and painful, and I suspect she and I both know that the outcome could have been very, very different, and the moments that she had with her sister, just like the moments I had with my dear friend, those moments might have been lost.
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