55 minutes ago
Assisted dying bill sponsor opens debate with criticism of Lords
Labour MP Lauren Edwards, the bill’s sponsor, is the first to speak.
She has criticised the House of Lords for what she said was the obstruction of the assisted dying bill in the previous parliamentary session.
“Many members would no doubt prefer to be working in their constituencies today. They are not, because a small number of peers in the other place chose to prevent any votes taking place on the substance of that bill,” she said.
“That decision means that one of the most significant national conversations that we have been having as legislators was brought to an abrupt halt. And who suffers detriment as a result? Clearly, the terminally ill and their families, who had a fair assumption that the will of the people they elected to represent them in this chamber would be respected.”
Key events
Ofcom has warned broadcasters they must comply with the rules for election-related programming ahead of the by-election in Holborn and St Pancras on 8 October.
The election is due to be held following the resignation of former prime minister Keir Starmer from the House of Commons on 1 September.
The watchdog highlighted section five of the Broadcasting Code on due impartiality and section six on elections and referendums.
Due impartiality means that news, in whatever form, is reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality.
Section six aims to ensure that the special impartiality requirements in the Communications Act 2003 and other legislation relating to broadcasting on elections and referendums, are applied at the time of elections and referendums.
The rules in section six of the Code apply when Ofcom determines that the election period has started.
Diane Taylor
In other news, Essex county council’s Reform UK leader Peter Harris has been accused by Conservative Tom Cunningham of “stoking division” over plans for a private security force to patrol near a former military base housing hundreds of asylum seekers.
Cunningham, the leader of Braintree district council, said Harris was taking a “confrontational approach” with the controversial three-month security trial to “protect” local residents near MDP Wethersfield, a former military base situated outside the village of the same name in north Essex.
In a strongly worded open letter to Harris, Cunningham condemned the plan for private security guards to patrol the area in a plan dubbed Operation Vanguard by Reform UK. In his letter, he points out that there are already eight police and community-led initiatives to tackle crime locally, that asylum seekers in Wethersfield have been victims of some crimes and that Braintree town centre is experiencing less crime than three years ago.
He said he has been told that Essex police do not wish officers to undertake joint patrols with the security company which implements Operation Vanguard.
“It is a cornerstone of our democracy that the police uphold the law without fear of favour. To then introduce a private security firm on the streets of Essex with the specific task of protecting one section of society risks undermining these efforts,” he wrote.
“Your own equalities comprehensive impact assessment report on this proposal highlights the risk to racial discrimination.”
He asked if the private contractors would also be policing anti-migrant “auditors” who produce critical online content about asylum seekers. He said due to concerns about their behaviour police are considering enforcement action against these auditors.
“Tasking contractors with no more powers than members of the public to patrol the streets targeting a particular demographic simply serves to stoke division and heighten concerns, rather than allay them,” he wrote.
He urged Harris to work collaboratively rather than adopt a confrontational approach.
Essex county council has been approached for comment.
Labour MP and former Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn, who supports the assisted dying bill, said there were already people with terminal illnesses taking their own lives who were not afforded the protections set out in the draft legislation.
He told the Commons that there is a route available to some people who want to end their lives, specifically Switzerland, where assisted dying is permitted in certain circumstances.
He said:
The biggest contradiction of all for me is the fact that there are those who travel abroad. We know this is happening, and I think it’s a very uncomfortable fact for those who oppose the bill for this reason. I think it’s a gaping hole in the argument against the bill.
The truth is that the Crown Prosecution Service was faced with a terrible dilemma, they could see the number of people going to Switzerland, and they had to ask themselves, are we actually going to prosecute mums, dads, spouses, lovers, friends, brothers and sisters for going with those that they love to be with them at the end?
And that is how they came to draw up their guidelines. And if you read them, for me, they’re full of common sense, because they say in these circumstances it’s not in the public interest to prosecute someone. And if you look at the figures, the vast majority of family members who’ve accompanied their loved ones to Switzerland have not, quite rightly, in my view, been prosecuted for what I would regard as a final act of love.”
Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said she would vote in favour of the assisted dying bill, saying it would improve palliative care.
She told MPs that she did not believe palliative care would have been included in the government’s modern service framework for end-of-life care “if it wasn’t for this bill forcing it to”.
The chair of the health and social care select committee added:
I further don’t believe that the NHS – with all of its issues and competing priorities, let alone the competing political priorities that this government has, and any other governments that may come after it in the next four years – that palliative care, without the pressure of a bill like this, is going to improve as fast as we want it to.
And so I say to members this: I do not believe that this is an either/or proposition. I want palliative care to improve. Therefore, I will be voting for this bill.”
'Mental capacity and mental health are not the same thing,' says Labour MP
Labour MP Ashley Dalton, who has been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, said the assisted dying bill does not adequately protect people with treatable depression who also have a terminal illness.
Her concern was that depression can sometimes contribute to suicidal feelings but can also be treated, while the bill does not clearly explain where the line should be drawn between a person making an assisted dying request because of their terminal illness and someone whose wish to die may be influenced by treatable depression. She argued that stronger safeguards were needed.
The former health minister told the Commons:
A person can be suicidal and have unmet mental health needs prior to developing a terminal illness and then ask the state to kill them, without any assessment of their psychological health, just their mental capacity.
Mental capacity and mental health are not the same thing.”
She added that the six month prognosis in the bill “is something no one can ever be really sure of”, adding: “What the palliative care professionals have told me is that palliative care can help me when I die.”
Labour MP says terminally ill mother chose to end her life after 'screaming in pain for weeks'
A Labour MP has revealed her mother chose to end her life aged 61 while suffering a late-stage terminal illness.
Speaking in the Commons, Claire Hazelgrove, who is in favour of the assisted dying bill, said her mother, Ruth Hazelgrove, died alone in October after living with a rare blood cancer for half of her life.
The MP for Filton and Bradley Stoke in Gloucestershire said:
Thankfully, she was able to see us grow up and meet her grandchildren. Mum loved life and laughter, and our family will remember her this way.
In early 2024, she was told her condition had taken a significant turn. That autumn, while we debated the initial version of this bill, mum’s pain was excruciating.
She had access to good palliative care, but what we learned, the hardest of ways, is that not all pain can be palliated. I will never forget seeing her writhing and screaming in pain at points for weeks.”
Zubair Ahmed: 'Social and palliative care system is not ready for assisted dying'
Back to the Commons debate on assisted dying, Zubir Ahmed, a transplant surgeon and former Labour health minister, said the social and palliative care system is not ready for such a change in the law.
The Labour MP for Glasgow South West said:
I am more convinced now than ever that our social and palliative care system simply is not ready – at least not ready in an equitable sense – to meet the demands of this bill.
The bill itself, when taken from the laboratory of this legislative text and dispatched to the bedside and to the clinical frontier, will not serve its laudable aims of bringing choice and control for the preemptive, quick death that I know many desire and respect as a result of this legislation.”
He added:
I have to be honest with you. When I am asked to prognosticate as to whether someone has six months to live or not, I am as often wrong as I am right.
It is not a good enough marker for the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] any more to discharge benefits for life-limiting conditions. I do not see why it should be a good enough marker for prescribing death.”
Green party the 'underdog' of Holborn and St Pancras byelection, says Polanski
Helena Horton
Speaking shortly after the announcement, Polanski admitted the Green party is the “underdog” in the byelection.
He said:
The Greens might be the underdog in this election, but we have the momentum, and we can win.
And it’s clear everyone knows it’s the Green party against Labour, and before May we had one councillor here, and now we have 10. And last weekend we had so many people on the streets that we delivered leaflets to the entire constituency in just a few hours.”
Announcing him as the candidate, Hannah Spencer, the MP for Gorton and Denton, acknowledged that the Labour party has the advantage.
She said:
The next few weeks will be tough, of course. Labour have donations from fossil fuel lobbyists and gambling industries, and they have a big machine. But we are powered by people who care, and we have shown that we can beat the establishment parties, the billionaires, and I am living proof of that.”
Polanski said he lived in the constituency when he moved to London 20 years ago, and that his barber is still there.
Helena Horton
Making the announcement, Green MP Hannah Spencer said Polanski was “someone who always speaks up for people, someone who is not afraid of the constant attempt to undermine him or tear him down, someone sensitive, someone who does everything always with the very best of intentions, someone who is just like the rest of us, human”.
Read the full report here:
Polanski announced as Green party's candidate for Holborn and St Pancras byelection
Zack Polanski has been announced as the Green party’s candidate for the Holborn and St Pancras byelection.
The Green party leader was selected by local members after going up against Camden councillor Hamza Chowdhury for the nomination.
The byelection, which takes place on 8 October, was triggered by Keir Starmer’s resignation as the constituency’s MP. Labour won the seat with a majority of more than 11,500 at the 2024 general election, but the Greens are hoping to make a strong challenge, with the contest also seen as an early electoral test for prime minister Andy Burnham.
My colleague Helena Horton is awaiting the Green party’s announcement of its candidate for the Holborn and St Pancras byelection. She said the concert hall is full of excited greens, who are in an upbeat mood. “The general consensus among them is, unsurprisingly, that leader Zack Polanski will be the chosen candidate.”
Conservative MP Karen Bradley said previous supporters of the assisted dying bill should feel “no shame” in opposing the proposal now.
She told the Commons: “You do not have to repudiate the vote you cast last time in order to vote differently today.
“You do not have to decide that assisted dying can never be right. You do not have to abandon the compassion that led you to support the principle.
“You need to only ask whether this bill in this form, on the evidence before us now today, is safe enough for parliament to force into law.”
She added: “There would be something profoundly wrong with a parliament in which members felt bound by an earlier vote, regardless of everything they had learned.”
Outside parliament, supporters and opponents of the assisted dying bill have gathered to make their views heard as MPs debate the legislation in the Commons today:
Badenoch urges caution over 'badly drafted' assisted dying bill
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has warned against trying to “ram” through the “badly drafted” assisted dying bill, PA reports.
Badenoch, who opposes the legislation, told the news agency:
I have significant concerns about the bill in and of itself.
It’s rushed, it’s badly drafted – and I say this as someone who is not, in principle, opposed to assisted suicide.
I think we need to be very careful about what we’re doing.
I don’t think our NHS is ready and I think this should be something that the government does thoughtfully, not a private members’ bill, let alone one which has failed before and which they’re trying to ram through with government numbers.
I think that’s wrong.”
