Meeting of the Parliament 17 March 2026 [Draft]
I thank Liam McArthur for the considered manner in which he has advanced the bill. In my 19 years in the Parliament, this has been the single most difficult matter to determine.
I recognise and understand that many colleagues have known from the outset how they would vote today. I have not. As we debated the bill at stage 1 last May, I did not know how I would cast my vote on that day. Indeed, only in the past few days have I come to determine my final position. I admire and perhaps even envy those who approach the bill with absolute certitude on the best way forward. I respect those who have such certainty. Even at this stage, I have found myself grappling with how best to make the right decision.
I have approached the bill with an open mind throughout its passage. The first principle under which I have considered the bill is whether a person should be able to command autonomy in decisions that impact them and their lives most directly.
That is a principle that I broadly agree with, and it is a principle that lends itself to supporting the bill. Indeed, it was one of the reasons why, having heard the debate in May, which many colleagues took part in, I felt able to support the bill in principle at stage 1. However, it is not a principle that sits in isolation from other considerations, and, in contact with the many constituents who have been in touch with me about the bill, I have always been clear that those are just as important. The other primary areas of importance are tightly defining eligibility, protecting the most vulnerable in our society and protecting the interests of clinicians and medical professionals.
I recognise that, last week, we made a great number of changes to the bill, which have gone some way to further improve what was in it. The short time that is available prohibits me from mentioning many of those, but the one that I am clearest on is the requirement to have a reasonable end-of-life prognosis of six months. In my view, that was an essential change.
However, I have lingering concerns. I was disappointed that Daniel Johnson’s amendments that would have absolutely required it to be in the hands of the patient to first raise the prospect of an assisted death with a medical professional were not agreed to. Any new legal right to an assisted death changes the context of patient and doctor conversations and creates a new dynamic. I believe that, in such circumstances, the amendments that Mr Johnson lodged were very important, and their being disagreed to has been an important part of informing my thinking.
I was disappointed by the rejection of the amendments that sought to create institutional opt-out. That would have been a helpful provision.
I am also concerned that Parliament has found itself in the unsatisfactory position of not being able to legislate for the protection of conscientious opt-out for medical professionals. I recognise that we are up against the limit of the Parliament’s legislative power, but having to remove those provisions and rely on the section 104 order process, which would leave it to the UK Government to determine how that would work, is of concern to me. In my view, the UK Government should have agreed a section 30 order to enable the Parliament to legislate to provide clarity.
I appreciate that it is argued that we can reasonably expect the UK Government to put in place the provisions that we would require to be satisfied that the position of the medical workforce was protected, but the fundamental point is that we do not know what those would be. That concerns me, and the inability to demonstrate how that area would work, along with the other areas that I have highlighted, leaves me at this time, with some sense of regret, unable to support the bill.
I know that that decision will disappoint many in this chamber and beyond, although I am just as sure that the alternative would equally have disappointed many others, but it is the decision that I have come to sincerely and that I rest upon.