Six in 10 people support the return of the assisted dying bill to parliament, according to new polling.
Support for legalising assisted dying has remained relatively stable since the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was first presented in late 2024, Ipsos polling for the Press Association found.
MPs will debate and vote on the legislation when it returns to the House of Commons on Friday, after it ran out of time in parliament’s last session.
Of 1,133 people aged 16-75 surveyed at the end of August, 61 per cent supported the reintroduction of the Bill, being brought by Labour MP Lauren Edwards, who has taken it over from her party colleague Kim Leadbeater.
Fourteen per cent said they opposed the return of the Bill while the same proportion said they did not support or oppose it. The rest said they did not know or preferred not to say.
Older people – aged 55-75 – were most likely to support the Bill’s return (67 per cent).
This compared with 63 per cent of 35 to 54-year-olds and just over half (52 per cent) of people aged 16 to 34.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has already confirmed he will abstain from the vote, so as not to “unduly influence the debate”.
However, giving some insight into his view on the issue shortly after becoming PM in July, he said he believed the funding of palliative care needs to be fixed before consideration can be given to legalising assisted dying.
Palliative care is described by the NHS as the management of pain and other distressing symptoms which should be available as soon as someone first learns they have a life-limiting or terminal illness, while end-of-life care is a form of palliative care given when someone is close to death.
The new polling found 34 per cent of people said assisted dying should be made legal but only if it is accompanied by additional investment in state-funded end-of-life care.
Meanwhile, three in 10 (30 per cent) said they agreed with the statement that assisted dying should be made legal, even without extra investment in this kind of care.
One in 10 people said they opposed legalising assisted dying and said there should be more funding for end-of-life care, while 7 per cent said assisted dying should not be legalised even if it was accompanied by further investment in such care.
Support for the principle of assisted dying, where it is legal for a doctor to prescribe life-ending medication to a consenting terminally ill adult, was at 68 per cent when the latest polling was done, up slightly from 66 per cent in October 2024.
Opposition remained at 16 per cent across that two-year period.
The Government has a neutral position on the Bill and MPs will vote according to their consciences, rather than along party lines.
