Assisted Suicide could be back on the parliamentary agenda. Four MPs who were drawn in the top seven at the House of Commons Private Members’ Bill ballot this morning voted in favour of the assisted suicide Bill in the last parliamentary session.
Private Members’ Bills are bills that can be introduced by MPs who are not Government Ministers. Early in each parliamentary session, a ballot is drawn to decide the names of 20 MPs who can then bring forward a Private Members’ Bill in that session. However, only the first seven ballot bills typically receive sufficient parliamentary time to have the chance to become law.
The top seven MPs in this parliamentary session’s ballot are, in order, Sir Desmond Swayne; Lauren Edwards; Mike Wood; Andrew George; Dr Luke Evans; Sir John Whittingdale; and Jessica Toale.
Of these, Lauren Edwards, Andrew George, Luke Evans and Jessica Toale voted in favour of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill at its Third Reading in the House of Commons, with the remaining MPs voting against it.
Lauren Edwards, commenting after voting in favour of the Bill at Third Reading, said “I believe this Bill is one of the most important, compassionate, and empowering changes to healthcare we’ve seen in a generation”.
Andrew George, writing after the Bill fell in the House of Lords, claimed it showed that “a minority of unelected Peers can deliberately frustrate the will of the democratically elected chamber”, arguing that the entire House of Lords should be converted into “a Citizens’ Assembly, …or a museum”.
According to Lucy McDaid, political correspondent at Sky News, George has said that the assisted suicide Bill is “definitely definitely” on his list of Private Members’ Bills to consider bringing forward.
Assisted suicide campaigners have made it clear that they are going to attempt to resurrect Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill in the new parliamentary session.
Their plan involves persuading an MP successful in the Private Members’ Bill ballot on 21 May 2026 to bring back the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill – and then use the Parliament Acts to bypass the House of Lords to force it into law.
Taking the unprecedented route of using the Parliament Acts to bypass House of Lords’ scrutiny of a Private Members’ Bill would be politically explosive and divisive, setting a precedent that may worry many MPs. It would be the first time ever that the Parliament Acts would be used for a Private Members’ Bill.
Assisted suicide campaigners are now likely to focus their efforts on convincing those in favour of assisted suicide who placed highly in the ballot to bring forward an identical version of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill as their Private Members’ Bill of choice.
This all comes despite the fact that public opinion has shifted substantially against such legislation. New polling from More in Common has revealed that fewer than one in three (29%) of the general public think that a new assisted suicide bill should be introduced as soon as possible in the same form as the assisted suicide Bill that has failed to become law – as would have to happen should an MP want to use the Parliament Acts to bypass the House of Lords to force the Bill into law.
In contrast, a majority of the public (53%) thought the Bill should either not return or, if it returns, should be introduced with stronger safeguards, which would mean introducing a different Bill, therefore ruling out the use of the Parliament Acts to bypass the Lords.