\n<\/p>\n
Andy Burnham has said the assisted dying debate needs to wait until palliative care and social care are fixed, as he set out his path to resolving one of the most intractable problems in British politics.<\/p>\n
The prime minister said he was not opposed to having the debate on assisted dying, but told reporters it would be \u201cvery challenging\u201d to introduce the controversial legislation until the care system was in a better place.<\/p>\n
The new prime minister\u2019s remarks about assisted dying came during a major speech at a care home in north London about social care reform, an issue on which he has repeatedly said he was ready to expend his political capital.<\/p>\n
Although as Greater Manchester mayor Burnham said he would probably vote in favour of a private member\u2019s bill going through parliament, he said he now thought the priority should be to improve end-of-life support.<\/p>\n
His caution may give some Labour MPs pause for thought when the latest version of the bill \u2013 which has divided backbenches across the usual party lines \u2013 comes before them for a vote in September.<\/p>\n
\u201cI take the view that that debate \u2013 and I don\u2019t say that there shouldn\u2019t be a debate at some point about those issues \u2013 personally, I think there\u2019s something that needs to happen first,\u201d he told reporters in response to questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the fixing of the funding of palliative care and social care. I think it is very challenging to introduce that wider debate in a context of people not receiving that care and having the peace of mind about that care. That\u2019s the way I kind of see this, and that\u2019s the position that I will stick to.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Burnham was previously an MP, he abstained from a 2015 vote on another bill to legalise assisted dying because of concerns over safeguards and people feeling put under pressure.<\/p>\n
But when the issue came up again, in 2024, he said that his family experience in the nine years since \u2013 with his father, Roy, in a care home with dementia \u2013 had changed his view. \u201cI think we do allow people to suffer and families to suffer too much,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
At the time, he caveated his support as being for the principle of assisted dying, saying he would want a requirement, before any new law was implemented, that hospices would be \u201cproperly funded and sorted out\u201d.<\/p>\n
The bill\u2019s proponents, including the MP Lauren Edwards, who is the new sponsor of the private members bill, have said they will press ahead with the vote in September.<\/p>\n
But Burnham\u2019s caution about returning to the issue of assisted dying has cheered Labour MPs who opposed the bill. Jess Asato, a vocal opponent, said many shared the PM\u2019s concerns about the practical implications rather than the principle.<\/p>\n
Several MPs who backed assisted dying at the last parliament \u2013 where it was blocked by the House of Lords \u2013 have expressed unease about reopening old divisions in the party by returning to the issue and forcing the bill through using the Parliament Act to override the Lords. Among those who wrote to constituents to share that concern was Louise Haigh, a close Burnham ally. <\/strong><\/p>\n Burnham indicated that his plan would probably require tax rises \u2013 though making the NHS and care system more integrated and therefore more efficient would help initially \u2013 and he repeated his promise to stick to Labour\u2019s manifesto on tax for this parliament.<\/p>\n \u201cI think more is possible from within existing resources. And the things that I\u2019ve talked about today, particularly around the workforce, will be fully funded. I think it is possible from existing budgets to do much more,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of what we would want to [do] in the fullest sense will require difficult decisions \u2026 But we will be honest with people about those. We will put them before the country at the right time, and we will hopefully proceed with people\u2019s consent.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the prime minister said life had \u201cmoved on\u201d from when he last tried to achieve social care reform as health secretary under Gordon Brown in 2010 \u2013 when options had included a 10% levy on inheritances \u2013 suggesting that a \u201cmore voluntary approach\u201d may work better now.<\/p>\n The prime minister has invited the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats for talks in Downing Street as he attempts to find common ground on the issue, saying he accepted that he may need to make some compromises.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are in a difficult world from a financial point of view. I can feel whatever I want to feel, but if I want to persuade others and get a cross-party consensus, you don\u2019t just go in and say: \u2018It\u2019s got to be my way, and that\u2019s it.\u2019 Because how do you persuade people?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there are ways of looking at this that could include a more voluntary approach initially, or could include a roadmap to a reformed social care system.\u201d<\/p>\n Burnham added that \u201cin an ideal world\u201d, nobody would have to sell their home to pay for care, and that his 2010 proposals had been designed to address that, because if everybody contributed a little, most of what they had worked for would be protected.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the whole thing is horrendous for those who live through it. They see everything that their parents have worked for just whittled away in front of them, paying for care that often isn\u2019t good enough. The system isn\u2019t right. And in an ideal world, no, I wouldn\u2019t want to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n Burnham said he would never forgive himself if he allowed \u201cscreaming headlines\u201d in the media to deter him from trying to reform the system, after 22 failed attempts over the last three decades.<\/p>\n \u201cOn this issue, please can we have a factual debate? Can we allow people to weigh up the different options \u2026 and then just come to a considered view based on those facts?<\/p>\n \u201cIs that too much to ask? I don\u2019t think it should be too much to ask, because I think the public will give us their view. They\u2019ll make it really clear what they feel they can accept and what they can\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cWe won\u2019t get to that point if there\u2019s all of this stuff swirling around, and everyone frightened about everything. That just won\u2019t get us there.\u201d<\/p>\n He announced that Louise Casey would bring forward her independent review into social care options by a year, to summer 2027, and that the fair pay agreement for care staff would be the start of bringing the sector closer to NHS standards. Yvette Cooper, the new health secretary, will appoint a dementia tsar this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Andy Burnham has said the assisted dying debate needs to wait until palliative care and social care are fixed, as he set out his path to resolving one of the most intractable problems in British politics. The prime minister said he was not opposed to having the debate on assisted dying, but told reporters it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[11609,140,3265,165,141,2076,204],"class_list":{"0":"post-51505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-allowing","9":"tag-assisted","10":"tag-burnham","11":"tag-care","12":"tag-dying","13":"tag-fix","14":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}