Assisted dying bill returns to Parliament with debate scheduled for September
The assisted dying bill has been reintroduced to Parliament, and will have its second reading in September, when MPs will debate and vote on it once again.
MP for Rochester and Strood Lauren Edwards, supported by other MPs including GP Dr Simon Opher, presented the bill to allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to ‘safeguards and protections’, to ‘request and be provided with assistance to end their own life’.
It comes after the bill ran out of time in the House of Lord in April, after amassing a record number of amendments.
The bill presented by Ms Edwards will have its second reading on 11 September, and it may qualify for enactment using the Parliament Act if the House of Lords fails to pass it once again.
As pointed out by the Hansard Society, the charity dedicated to strengthening Parliament, the act has never been used for a Private Members’ Bill, raising ‘a number of procedural questions about how it might be done’.
Section 2 of the Parliament Act 1911 permits a bill to be presented for Royal Assent ‘without the consent of the House of Lords’ provided certain conditions are satisfied – the Commons must pass the same bill in two successive parliamentary sessions, and the Lords must fail to pass it in on both occasions, either by rejecting it outright or by not completing its consideration of the bill.
After passing in the House of Commons last year, the bill faced delays in the House of Lords due to more 1,200 amendments preventing it from progressing.
Speaking to Pulse earlier this year, former RCGP chair and now-peer Baroness Gerada of Kennington said the number of amendments to the bill demonstrated some peers were intent on ‘strangling’ the legislation before a vote on it could take place.
The BMA has maintained a ‘neutral’ position on assisted dying but has emphasised the need for ‘absolute freedom of choice for doctors as to whether they participate or not’.
And the RCGP moved to a position of ‘neither supporting nor opposing’ assisted dying after a vote of its council members in March 2025.
Visit Pulse Reference for details on 140 symptoms, including easily searchable symptoms and categories, offering you a free platform to check symptoms and receive potential diagnoses during consultations.
