Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lauren Edwards Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 11th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lauren Edwards (Rochester and Strood) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is a privilege to open this debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill—a Bill that will give dying adults, under very stringent criteria, choice, autonomy and dignity at the end of their lives.

What is being asked of MPs today? It is a fair question, given that this House already voted to send the near identical Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) back to the House of Lords in June last year. On Second Reading, we vote on the principle of a Bill, but we did that in November 2024. It is a broader principle that the House must consider today: who ultimately decides the laws that govern our nation?

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 from taking place on the substance of the Bill in the last Session.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Lauren Edwards]

I will once I have concluded my opening remarks.

That decision by those peers means that one of the most significant national conversations that we have been having as legislators was brought to an abrupt halt. 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, but also those who must navigate our current, unclear laws. They are laws that do not protect or guide those who work in our health system, laws that do not contain safeguards against the risks of coercion, laws that criminalise and traumatise families who simply want to be with their loved one at the moment of their death, and laws that four Directors of Public Prosecutions have urged need to change. If we do not vote today to allow this Bill to continue its passage through Parliament, we accept those outcomes as the cost of maintaining the status quo, and who knows how long it will be before we get the opportunity to consider the introduction of assisted dying laws again, despite consistent polling showing that it receives majority public support?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is setting the scene for what the Bill hopes to achieve, but she cannot ignore the overwhelming 68% of the public who believe that it must be paused, or the 73% of people who say that it should be rejected outright. The public see the danger. This House must halt the process, pause the Bill and instead focus on properly funding world-class palliative care.

[Lauren Edwards]

I think we need to be very careful when we are quoting polling. For instance, we know that Whitestone Insight has been criticised heavily by the British Polling Council in recent weeks for failing to meet its standards in terms of disclosing who has been funding its research. The reference I am making in my speech is to those very robust, independent polls, such as the British attitudes survey, which in 2024 found that 73% of the British public supported assisted dying and have done so over the last 20 years.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Lauren Edwards]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier).

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend talks about who makes our laws, and she has talked in articles that she has written about the primacy of this place. If the Bill goes forward, is she willing to accept amendments? She has brought forward a Bill that is exactly the same as the previous Bill, despite its sponsor in the House of Lords himself saying that there needed to be 77 amendments to make it safer.

[Lauren Edwards]

It is not quite the exact same Bill; it incorporates two amendments that were agreed without a vote in the House of Lords last time. We have had our conversation in this Chamber about this Bill in 2025, and we have had an interrupted conversation as a nation. I am asking Members of this House to send the Bill back to the House of Lords so that they can continue their important work of amending and scrutinising legislation.

[Rachel Taylor]

Does my hon. Friend agree that unless this House makes it absolutely clear that it is outrageous and unacceptable for a very small number of unelected peers to block legislation, supported by the elected Chamber, then the same tactic could be used again with any private Member’s Bill that comes forward in this House?

[Lauren Edwards]

Absolutely—it would set a dangerous precedent. Those Members who want to come in on the specifics of the Parliament Acts will have ample opportunity to do so later in my speech, and I will be willing to take interventions on that matter.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley for the courage, courtesy and openness she showed during the passage of her Bill. Her engagement with those from all sides of the debate, particularly in Committee, delivered a stronger Bill that this House voted for on Report and Third Reading. One strengthening factor was the introduction of a requirement for the Health Secretary to report regularly on the availability, quality and distribution of palliative care. In asking parliamentarians to consider assisted dying, my hon. Friend also prompted a national conversation about how we improve and fund palliative care. We saw more funding for hospices, as well as Government action to develop a new framework to improve palliative care and end-of-life care.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I chair the all-party parliamentary group on hospice and end-of-life care, and I wonder whether my hon. Friend shares my concern. Given that an estimated 170,000 people die in this country each year without access to palliative and end-of-life care, there can be no choice until hospice and end-of-life care are properly funded.

[Lauren Edwards]

It is absolutely right that, for instance, the Prime Minister and the Government have said that improving palliative care must be a priority—I think that is something we can all support. Everybody should have access to good-quality palliative, hospice and end-of-life care in their final moments.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Lauren Edwards]

I will make some progress. As acknowledged by organisations that provide that care, though, their services cannot address pain and suffering in all circumstances. During the passage of the Bill in the last parliamentary Session, we heard examples of the limits of palliative care from Members with medical expertise themselves.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Lauren Edwards]

No, I will make some progress. We heard difficult stories about patients with bile duct cancer facing the prospect of faecal vomiting as their illness progressed. We listened as Members recounted memories of watching patients bleed to death while conscious, cancer having eaten away at their carotid artery. We felt their frustration when the maximum dose of sedatives could not alleviate the choking and suffocation of someone with peritoneal cancer. Those people deserved choice and a dignified end, too.

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

As a practising surgeon who deals with bile duct cancer, I can reassure my hon. Friend that there is almost never a reason that someone should be in that state, with feculent vomiting, if they were treated appropriately and all the relevant palliative care measures were in place.

[Lauren Edwards]

The position that I take is that we can, and must, both improve palliative care and support assisted dying. We must grasp the opportunity that is in front of us to create a holistic end-of-life care system that will deliver choice and dignity for every single one of our constituents.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

On the specific point of hospices, I absolutely understand what the hon. Lady is saying; I have visited our local hospices, and I have sat beside my father when he was dying, but not in a hospice. The point about palliative care absolutely matters, but the Government do not recognise the funding that the sector needs. There is a postcode lottery, and the Ministers are not even answering written parliamentary questions, so does the hon. Lady agree that until this is fixed, we should not be having this debate?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lauren Edwards]

I point out that if this Bill received Royal Assent, the four-year implementation period provided for at the end of the Bill would give us the opportunity to work together to improve palliative care and assisted dying, creating the holistic end-of-life care system to which I have referred.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Lauren Edwards]

I am going to make a little bit of progress. The four-year implementation period means that nobody would be receiving assisted dying until 2031 at the earliest. That would be too late for many people, but it would be plenty of time to make improvements to palliative care, which would go hand in hand with providing the choice of an assisted death for those who still need it. We can, and should, do both.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a principled argument that the House must listen to and respect, but she has spoken about choice and dignity, and the one thing I have never understood about this Bill is the importance of the specific time period—that it would apply to adults who have six months or fewer to live. If there is to be choice and dignity, and if people are in pain and the condition is terminal, what is the sanctity of six months? If the principles of choice and dignity underpin the Bill, surely six months is way too narrow.

[Lauren Edwards]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Obviously, Members have previously raised concerns about doctors getting their prognosis wrong when it comes to how long someone is able to live. My understanding is that, given the international evidence, six months was seen a reasonable line to draw, because as the time of death gets closer, the accuracy of the diagnosis is increased.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lauren Edwards]

I am sorry, but I will not give way.

I thank all those who took part in the debate on the Bill in this Chamber during the last parliamentary Session. We showed politics at its best through our robust but courteous debates. We did our job, and we did it well; now it is time for us to send this assisted dying Bill back to the House of Lords, so that it can finish what it started. Whatever our respective views on the form and composition of the second Chamber, I hope we can agree that peers play an important role in scrutinising, refining and strengthening the legislation that we send there.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. She has outlined the will of this House, but she may remember that, during the passage of the last Bill, I asked the then Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions to do what has happened with similar Bills in the past—on homosexuality, on abortion and on the death penalty—which was to give time on the Floor of the House for Committee of the whole House. That would massively strengthen amendments that are made by using the whole House to approve them. That is a choice for Government Front Benchers, so is the hon. Lady going to lobby her own Government to give everybody in this House the opportunity to properly scrutinise the Bill in Committee?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lauren Edwards]

The Government have been clear, as the Government of the previous Prime Minister were, that they remain neutral on assisted dying, but that they have responsibilities to make sure that the legislation we bring forward is workable. We received those assurances on Third Reading of the previous Bill, when we voted in favour of it as a Chamber.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Lauren Edwards]

I will not give way. I am asking Members today to start the process of sending this Bill back to the House of Lords, so that they can continue their important function of fulfilling their constitutional role.

[Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and for making an incredibly strong speech. I was part of the Bill Committee, and we gave about 200 hours of assessment to this Bill, which is much more than most Government Bills get. Indeed, the Lords had an enormous amount of time to consider it, too. Saying that there has not been enough scrutiny is simply wrong.

[Lauren Edwards]

Members should be in no doubt that the Bill we sent the Lords last year was robust.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lauren Edwards]

No. The Bill was expertly drafted by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and developed with comprehensive technical advice from officials in both the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Justice.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lauren Edwards]

No, I will make a little bit more progress, please.

Although the Government are neutral on the issue of assisted dying—then, as now—they have a duty to ensure that any legislation that Parliament passes is effective, legally robust and workable. I am confident in saying to this House that the Bill before us today is a well-designed, safe piece of legislation.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a good case for this Bill, but she will know that when the Bill was introduced in 2024, no equality impact assessment was carried out. Recently, the Government have published the assessment, and it highlights the disproportionate impact that the Bill will have on black and ethnic minority communities and on disabled people. There is nothing in the Bill to address that point.

[Lauren Edwards]

I would start by saying that the Bill is explicit that it does not apply to people with a disability.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

What we are considering today is not the general principle, “Do we or do we not agree with assisted dying?”; it is this Bill. We are not a debating society; we are a Parliament. I therefore ask my hon. Friend why it is the case that virtually no disabled people’s organisation in this country supports the Bill. Disabled people often feel voiceless, and I think it is important that their voices are heard today. They are outside Parliament, so I would like her to address that point in her speech.

[Lauren Edwards]

I would be happy to address that point. There is not a uniform view among disabled people on assisted dying. Like with anything, within organisations there are people who arrive at different views. It is important that we are giving disabled people the same rights as other people. It is very clear in the Bill that it is for adults aged over 18 who have a terminal illness and who only have six months to live. It specifically makes clear that it does not apply to people who have a disability.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Lauren Edwards]

No, I will not give way. I will make some progress—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. The Member has made clear that she is not taking interventions at this point.

[Lauren Edwards]

As has been mentioned, the Bill has been subject to hundreds of hours of scrutiny, and amendments have been made to strengthen its safeguards, but that does not mean it cannot be strengthened further. As with any Bill, it will benefit from additional scrutiny. The Bill before us today already includes an important clarification on eating disorders that was agreed without a vote in the House of Lords last time. Together with the co-sponsor of the Bill in the House of Lords, Lord Falconer, who is in the Gallery today, I have recently met representatives from medical bodies and hospice organisations to discuss further amendments that could be made in the other place.

[Gavin Robinson]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene. She mentions that the Government have a responsibility to ensure this legislation is lawful and workable, yet she is the Bill’s sponsor—that responsibility rests on her, too. Yet despite knowing that the Bill’s sponsor in the previous Session brought forward over 30 amendments and eight new clauses of her own and the Bill’s sponsor in the Lords brought forward 77—a recognition that the Bill is manifestly unworkable—she has chosen not to amend her Bill. What is before us today is for a political—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Interventions must be short.

[Lauren Edwards]

I disagree with the position that any time we amend a Bill in this place, it is ultimately deficient and unworkable. That is not how it works. All I am asking the Chamber to do today is to send the Bill back to the House of Lords so it can continue its work, which was interrupted, of scrutinising the Bill.

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; she is being very generous with interventions. Is she willing to share with the House what, if any, amendments the Lords made, besides the two she has mentioned, that she thinks should have been added to the Bill, and, if so, why they were not?

[Lauren Edwards]

There were a number of amendments around points of clarification—some external organisations wanted some words made a little clearer, although they seem robust to me—that I certainly believe could be made in the House of Lords.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Lauren Edwards]

No, I will make some progress.

Taking the approach I have outlined respects both the will of this House, as expressed in June 2025, and allows the usual parliamentary processes to continue.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)]

“Erskine May” gives this House a way to send what are called “suggested amendments” to the Lords as a separate motion alongside the Bill, when it goes to the other place. It has not been used since 2004, but does she recognise that if some Members of this House think certain amendments are crucial to the Bill, they can do so?

[Lauren Edwards]

That is a part of our usual parliamentary process and the hon. Lady is right to raise that point.

By sending the Bill back to the Lords as it stands, we will prevent that same small group of peers who talked it out last time from doing the same thing again. It is my fervent wish that all the peers—

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lauren Edwards]

No, I am sorry; I will make some progress.

It is my fervent wish that all the peers in the House of Lords will accept that important distinction between their Chamber and ours, and fulfil their role in the usual way. In doing so, they can consider and send an amended Bill back to us for a final vote before Royal Assent.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Lauren Edwards]

No, I will make some progress.

If, at that point, Members of this House decide to vote the Bill down, I and many others, in this Chamber and outside, would be upset and disappointed, but I would accept that as a result of the proper democratic processes being followed. What I cannot accept, and what many people both inside and outside the Chamber cannot accept, is the current situation, where a small number of unelected peers filibustered legislation that was supported by this Chamber. That is not how our democracy is supposed to function.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, whose speech is a series of oxymorons: she does not like polling that is against the Bill, but likes it when it is in favour; she feels the Bill should be amended in the House of Lords, but not with amendments that would improve safeguards. On that subject of safeguards, will she explain to the House why the previous legal safeguards to assuage doubts about efficacy were entirely dropped from the Bill?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lauren Edwards]

They were dropped in favour of a stronger safeguard, which was a multidisciplinary panel of people with different perspectives who were trained in spotting coercion—a psychiatrist, a legal expert and a social worker, bringing other people in with different perspectives—to ensure that the person taking the assisted death decision was doing so in an informed and settled way, free from coercion. That was a strengthening of the Bill, not a weakening.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Lauren Edwards]

I will make some progress.

Members took the best part of a year to grapple with this issue: spoke to constituents; engaged with the organisations that would be affected; read the materials; thought deeply; consulted their conscience. They arrived at a decision—whatever that decision was and however they voted or, indeed, did not vote at all—but it was a difficult process. It is not acceptable that the outcome of those deliberations has not been respected. We owe it to the people we represent to find a resolution on this issue one way or another within this Parliament.

[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way a second time. This is the democratically accountable House; I think we would all agree on that point. On that basis, is she prepared to accept in Committee and on Report, if this Bill secures its Second Reading this afternoon, amendments authored, debated and voted upon by Members of Parliament?

[Lauren Edwards]

We have been through that process. There was a Committee that had hundreds of hours of scrutiny and properly kicked the tyres on the robustness of this legislation. What we need to do as a House is send the Bill back to the House of Lords so that they can finish their job. We did ours.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Lauren Edwards]

I will make some progress.

As important as a democratic point of principle is to the argument I am making, we must not lose sight of the people who are relying on us most: the terminally ill and their families. The Gallery today is filled with inspirational people campaigning for this much-needed change in the law—people who are themselves terminally ill and who, due to the passage of time, may never get the opportunity to choose a dignified death surrounded by their loved ones, but who nevertheless spend the time that they have left campaigning so that others in future may have that choice.

[Marie Goldman]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Lauren Edwards]

I am sorry; I will not.

Those people include Christie Arntsen, who has lived for more than a decade with incurable metastatic breast cancer, which has sadly returned for the fifth time. She is undergoing what may be her final treatment of chemotherapy. Christie speaks eloquently about how her fear of a difficult death has weighed on her mind since her diagnosis and affected her life:

“For me the scariest part of having the diagnosis was that I had no control over the last few weeks of my life…If I had known that assisted dying was an option, a weight would have been lifted from my mind for the last 10 years.”

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Lauren Edwards]

I will make a little more progress.

This is the cost of accepting the status quo: the fear and worry for those who know that palliative care may not be enough to avoid a difficult and painful death. It snatches away their final moments, which, as I know from speaking to friends and family in Australia, can be much better spent when there is a safe voluntary assisted dying system in place.

[Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for being so generous with her time. Is she aware of the sheer number of palliative care consultants who are not prepared to take part in assisted dying, and the impact that that will have on the palliative care system? In my constituency, all three palliative care doctors who work in Plymouth’s Derriford hospital are against assisted dying and are saying that they would leave the profession. How can we offer palliative care at the same time as assisted dying?

[Lauren Edwards]

I would point out that there is a range of views among those in the palliative care community. It is specifically for that reason that the Bill allows them not to be involved in the process if they do not wish to be.

[Imran Hussain]

Will my hon. Friend be generous enough to give way on that point?

[Lauren Edwards]

No, I am sorry.

I end with the words of Elise Burns, who, like me, called Kent home, and who sadly died in July with secondary cancer of the lungs, liver and bones. She said she would love peers

“to look me in the eye and tell me why me and my friends, and anyone with terminal illness, don’t deserve to die with dignity and to have the choice to die…without pain.”

We owe it to terminally ill people like Elise, who are relying on us and who were so filled with hope when we voted in favour last time. Quite rightly, they cannot understand how, having secured the support of the people they elected to represent them, the issue that is so important to them has been frustrated by a small group of people with no democratic mandate.

The important conversation that we have been having on assisted dying, as legislators and as a society, has been interrupted. To leave it so would have a profoundly negative impact on people’s trust in our political system. If we fail to support the Bill’s Second Reading, are we not saying that it is fine for a minority of unelected peers to defy the will of the House of Commons? Are we really prepared to cede that point and accept the consequences not only for this vital legislation but for future legislation too?

I ask hon. Members to join me in sending a clear message that the will of this Chamber should be respected, on behalf of all the people that we represent, and to support this Bill on Second Reading.