Assisted Dying Bill - Update, September 2026
I wanted to provide an update on the Assisted Dying Bill debate which took place on the 11th of September.
Throughout the morning & early afternoon, I was in the House of Commons’ Chamber hoping to be called to speak and listening to colleagues from across the House debating this important issue. I voted against the Bill, as I have done on previous occasions after concluding, when the Bill first came to the Commons in 2024, that it was not fit for purpose.
The vote took place at 2:30 pm and the Bill was lost by 286 to 270. This means it has been defeated and will not progress. I know the outcome will be a relief to some & disappointment to others. I have always maintained I would communicate with my constituents throughout the process & listen to the view points of all sides.
Having spoken in the previous debate I was warned that I probably would not get a chance to speak but tried to do so nonetheless. Had I been given the opportunity to do so I would have made the point that as a liberal, I believe in individual autonomy and have no religious nor philosophical objections to someone choosing to end their own life. However, that choice must be genuinely free and because of both the current state of palliative care in this country and the absence of adequate safeguards in the proposed legislation, the choice offered by the Bill was not a free one. I have included my full draft speech below.
I want to thank all those who have contacted me on this topic over the last two years. I remain committed to continuing to listen to those with views on this important subject.
My proposed speech:
Let me be clear: I support assisted dying.
As a liberal, I believe in individual autonomy and have no religious nor philosophical objections to someone choosing to end their own life.
However, that choice must be genuinely free.
Sadly, because of both the current state of palliative care in this country and the absence of adequate safeguards in the legislation before us today, the choice offered by this Bill is not a free one.
Almost a year ago my business partner, the godfather of one of my daughters, and a close friend of nearly forty years, Gordon Anderson, died of Multiple System Atrophy.
MSA is a cruel, rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disease for which there is no cure. When Gordon was diagnosed in 2020, he like so many do, consulted Google and was told he faced an increasingly painful decline and an untimely, and probably harrowing, death.
He did not want to die like that and told me he would end his days at Dignitas before the suffering became too much to bear.
By then, however, Gordon was living in Italy, having married his wonderful Italian wife, Mariarita, a few years before his diagnosis. In that country the Doctrine of Double Effect, whereby sufficient palliative medication can be given to alleviate pain, even if it has the unintended consequence of hastening death, is well established. It is rooted in the teachings of Thomas Aquinas and upheld by both the Italian Legal System and the Catholic Church.
Gordon’s palliative care doctor was therefore able to reassure him that he would be able to die peacefully at home.
When I asked Mariarita, yesterday evening, for permission to tell his story, she told me the doctor’s words meant Gordon "lived his final months with greater peace of mind" and ultimately "died peacefully in our bed", with sufficient morphine to control his pain in the arms of the women he loved.
It grieves me to say the palliative care so critical to Gordon’s final months is often not available in this country.
Since the Harold Shipman case, there have been persistent, albeit unwarranted, concerns among many British clinicians about the extent to which analgesics may be prescribed, if doing so might hasten death. One survey of UK doctors, for example, found that 46% of respondents were now uncertain about prescribing opioids.
That should concern every Member of this House.
As the member for West Lancashire made clear, in the most moving speech I have had the honour to witness in this chamber, if terminally ill patients cannot be confident their pain will be adequately treated, then the choice between living and dying is inevitably distorted. Faced with the prospect of unmanaged pain, some will choose an earlier death not because they truly wish to die, but because they fear how they will be required to live.
That is not a free choice.
Our priority should therefore be to fix end-of-life care. We need more palliative care specialists, better training for non-specialists, including robust advice on the legality of giving sufficient pain relief to alleviate suffering, buttressed by more explicit guidance from the DPP and the Lord Chief Justice.
As both the Royal College of Physicians and the Association for Palliative Medicine have argued, it is premature to legislate for assisted dying before we address the shortcomings in palliative care. Until we do that, the choice facing anyone given a terminal diagnosis will not be free.
For that reason, I urge Honourable and Right Honourable Members to join me in the No Lobby today.