The bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales will begin its next parliamentary stage this month as a committee of MPs chosen by the bill’s sponsor, Kim Leadbeater, begins taking evidence.
MPs voted for the assisted dying bill to proceed in late November but there are still significant hurdles in the Commons and the Lords for it to become law.
The bill passed at second reading in the Commons with a 55-vote majority – though dozens of MPs have said they might change their minds and vote against the bill unless changes were made in the forthcoming parliamentary stage. The bill would allow assisted dying for terminally ill adults with less than six months to live.
January-April
The bill will go to committee stage, where MPs go through the bill line by line and discusses possible amendments. Leadbeater has put down a Commons motion to allow the committee to take submissions and hold hearings in public, which is not the norm.
The government has also assigned two ministers to the bill – the care minister, Stephen Kinnock, and the courts minister, Sarah Sackman, who both voted in favour of the bill at second reading. However, the government remains technically neutral on the bill and it will be a free vote at all subsequent stages.
The committee will have 12 Labour MPs, four Conservatives, three Liberal Democrats and one Plaid Cymru MP. It has nine MPs who were opponents of the bill and 11 MPs who were in favour.
The government is likely to suggest a number of amendments to the legislation, though these may go down in the name of Leadbeater.
Amendments that are likely to be proposed include:
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Prohibiting assisted dying from being raised initially by medical practitioners and making its discussion patient-led, a change likely to be opposed by the British Medical Association.
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A review or reversal process, to relieve the fear that victims of coercive control will not have any recourse.
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Terms including “dishonesty”, “coercion” and “pressure” being properly defined in the final bill.
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Specifying training required for medical practitioners and judges, particularly so they can identify signs of coercion.
End of April
Committee stage for most private members’ bills (PMBs) is normally a pretty perfunctory exercise but this bill will require a lot more time, so it is expected to return in late April. After committee stage, a PMB usually returns to the Commons chamber for the report stage and third reading. It can only be considered on a sitting Friday – which are only a set number of days a year – and the first seven of those Fridays are reserved for new private members’ bills.
In normal circumstances, this can lead to a PMB running out of time to complete. Several high-profile MPs have asked for the government to give the bill protected government time for a longer debate in the Commons. But so far the government has not indicated it will do so.
After third reading
The next stage
The bill would then proceed to the House of Lords – where there are several more hurdles to pass as well as possible amendments that would return to the Commons. The timetabling for the bill is very unpredictable in the Lords and there is no formal timeline for how long it would take to progress.
After royal assent
The bill becomes law
Should the bill become law after passing all its parliamentary stages, then the bill gives the government two years to implement the legislation. That is likely to require extensive public consultation and work within the NHS and the court system before the procedure can become available to patients.
In practice this is likely to mean it would be at least three years from the bill being introduced to any kind of assisted dying becoming available.
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