MPs have voted down the assisted dying bill at its second reading, in a dramatic U-turn after it returned to the Commons on Friday.
In the second reading of the bill, put forward by Labour’s Lauren Edwards, MPs voted by 286 to 270 for the bill to be blocked.
The result is a major a setback for assisted dying campaigners, as MPs backed the legislation by 314 votes to 291 in the previous Commons vote which took place in June 2025.
The lates vote followed a number of emotional interventions from MPs across the House, with Labour MP Ashley Dalton – who has incurable metastatic breast cancer – urging colleagues to vote down the legislation.
Meanwhile, another MP, Claire Hazelgrove spoke publicly for the first time about her mother’s decision to bring her late-stage terminal illness to an end “on her terms”.
She said the “harmful status quo” meant her mother died alone in October last year, after living with a rare blood cancer for half her life.
Ms Hazelgrove argued “not all pain can be palliated”, as she spoke in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on its return to the Commons on Friday.
But Ms Dalton claimed that people with terminal diagnoses have been “scaremongered” into “believing our deaths will be horrific”.
Speaking about her own diagnosis, she said: “The last time this House considered this bill at second reading, I was keeping a secret. Whilst honourable and right honourable members were debating the issue, I was grappling with my own terminal diagnosis.
“I was told I have stage four incurable metastatic breast cancer. I was overwhelmed with grief, fear, and anxiety. I was scared of what was to come, and I was fearful of how it would impact my family and my loved ones… When you hear those words, depression, anxiety, grief, fear, shame, and guilt come in bounds. Suicide risk is highest immediately after diagnosis, and it usually falls quickly within three to six months.”
Ms Dalton argued that this bill “makes no provision to support this difficult transition or to create safeguards around it”, warning that an individual can “also be suicidal and have unmet mental health needs prior to developing a terminal illness, and then ask the state to kill them, without any assessment of their psychological health, just their mental capacity”.
She added: “The idea that it is not possible to alleviate pain and discomfort is false. People have been terrorized with tales of people vomiting up their own feces as though this is commonplace during death. It is vanishingly rare, and you know, bowel obstructions are more common, but they are treatable. I know. I’ve had one.
“It’s nothing short of irresponsible to scaremonger people like me into believing our deaths will be horrific, when all the evidence suggests that with access to good palliative care, deaths are on the whole gentle.”
The debate, which began at 9.37am, lasted more than four-and-a-half hours.
The draft legislation had proposed allowing adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death subject to the approval of two doctors and an expert panel.
Ms Edwards, who re-introduced the Bill after it ran out of time earlier this year, had previously warned it could be another decade before the issue came before Parliament again if this legislation did not pass.
The government was neutral on the Bill and MPs voted according to their consciences rather than along party lines.
Prime minister Andy Burnham had already confirmed his intention not to vote on the Bill so as not to “unduly influence the debate”.
Campaigners against it argued it contained inadequate safeguards and that it could result in some of society’s most vulnerable being at risk of coercion and choosing an assisted death because they feel like a burden.
But those in favour of the legislation argued it would prevent those with terminal diagnoses from dying painfully.
Speaking after MPs had voted, Labour MP Jess Phillips, who was in favour of the Bill, told The Independent: “I am devastated. But it’s not the end. It took many attempts to change abortion law, and so it will continue.”
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