Lauren Edwards’ assisted suicide Bill has been defeated by 286 votes to 270 in a major victory for opponents of the Bill, settling the issue in England and Wales for a generation after a two-year national debate.
The assisted suicide Bill was opposed by the leaders of Labour, the Conservatives, Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats, while not a single Northern Irish MP voted for it.
After a similar major victory in Scotland in March of this year, and the most intense scrutiny that the question of assisted suicide has ever received in England and Wales, MPs in Westminster have rejected introducing assisted suicide.
Reflecting on the campaign that has run across the UK over the last two years against these major attempts to introduce assisted suicide, a prominent pollster has recognised the campaign against assisted suicide as one of the two “most successful 21st Century UK social issue campaigns.”
This is a remarkable reversal of fortunes for the assisted suicide lobby. Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill was introduced into the most socially and politically progressive House of Commons in British history. Before Second Reading, it was widely thought that it would move through Parliament with very strong majorities and easily become law.
At Second Reading, in November 2024, it was voted through with a majority of 55. This dropped to a majority of 23 at Third Reading in June 2025.
The Bill then moved on to the House of Lords, where it ran out of time before becoming law.
The Bill was then reintroduced in substantially the same form by Lauren Edwards MP in the House of Commons, where it has today been defeated at Second Reading.
Groups and experts who have expressed concerns about the dozens of flaws in the Bill or the need for further safeguards to be added include the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of GPs, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Pathologists, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Children’s Commissioner, the former Chief Coroner, the British Association of Social Workers, the British Geriatrics Society, Hospice UK, Marie Curie, Age UK, the Association for Palliative Medicine, the Mental Health and Disability Law Committee, a coalition of over 350 disability organisations including Disability Rights UK, Not Dead Yet UK and Disabled People Against Cuts, Care England, Mind charity, the National Down Syndrome Policy Group, the Chair in Palliative Care at King’s College London, a Professor of Law and Medical Ethics at Oxford University, Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse, the House of Lords’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the Professor of Public Protection at the University of Gloucestershire, more than 1,000 doctors and overseas experts.
