The assisted dying bill: parliament fails a test to handle the hardest ethical questions

Private members’ bills (PMBs) are one of the few routes available to backbench members to initiate legislation, but their success rate is very low: between 2010 and 2024, around 2,500 PMBs were introduced and only 110 became law.  ¹⁰ ttps://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/private-members-bills  In procedural terms, this bill had a strong start. It was drawn first in the ballot, benefited from generous scheduling with three days available for the report stage, and its sponsor, Kim Leadbeater, was highly motivated and showed a willingness to work with members on all sides of the debate, including by pushing back proceedings to allow MPs further time to consider committee stage amendments. Opportunities to derail the bill – for example by talking out it out in earlier stages – were avoided.  

The bill received more scrutiny from members than many government bills.  ¹¹ https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/government-privatemembersbill-assisted-dying  The Commons Public Bill Committee was given additional powers to take oral evidence, and in the Lords a select committee was established to gather evidence before further debate. Yet despite all these factors in its favour, Parliament failed to reach a conclusion on the assisted dying bill.

Running out of parliamentary time is not the same as reaching a settled view

The failure of this bill is procedural, not substantive. Unlike in Scotland, where MSPs voted down a recent bill on assisted dying at the last stage, the Westminster bill failed because, after being introduced in October 2024 and going to the House of Lords in June 2025, it ran out of time to complete the committee stage in the Lords. The cause was a small number of determined Lords tabling a huge raft of amendments, consuming the limited time available. As a private members’ bill, it cannot be “carried over” as government bills can.  

The journey of this bill has revived a familiar institutional tension between the ‘elected’ House of Commons and the ‘unelected’ House of Lords. Supporters of the bill have argued that this process has undermined the will of the Commons. Critics have argued that it reflects the depth of unresolved concern. But whatever that verdict, parliament has failed to resolve whether, and on what terms, it is prepared to support assisted dying.  

The assisted dying bill highlighted a broader failure of political leadership from the government  

Private members’ bills have been used in the past to address potentially controversial issues that governments have been unwilling to take up. More recently, however, governments have introduced their own legislation on such issues, including civil partnerships and same sex marriage, while allowing MPs a free vote.  

In this case, the government chose not to introduce its own bill, even though the prime minister had expressed support. When the bill ran into difficulties, it could have intervened early and committed to bringing forward its own legislation later in the parliament, allowing time for the sort of extensive consultation and engagement, and even pre-legislative scrutiny,  that a private members bill cannot replicate. The cabinet split on the issue of assisted dying makes it tricky, but not impossible, to bring it in as a government bill. If Keir Starmer had  wanted to show political leadership on this issue, he could have done so. Instead, the bill was left to progress through the PMB process, which meant it faced many more hurdles and much more uncertainty.

How morally complex issues are legislated can help secure a more widely accepted outcome  

Other jurisdictions have shown how controversial issues can be handled differently. In Jersey, the government convened a citizens’ assembly as part of a wider consultation on assisted dying. That process allowed for deliberation and consideration of issues such as safeguards and values before legislation was introduced. That bill was passed by Jersey States Assembly in February this year and is awaiting Royal Assent. Similar models were used in Ireland to explore legalising abortion.  

The UK government has only limited experience with using deliberative engagement to inform policy. One of the lessons of the backlash to the Blair government’s attempt to bring about wider availability of genetically modified food was the importance of public engagement, which led to Sciencewise being set up.  ¹² https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/government-privatemembersbill-assisted-dying  But this practice has not been embedded, and public engagement is often an afterthought rather than baked into the process from the very start. One example is this  government’s announcement of a People’s Panel to explore the use of digital ID cards after backlash against its initial proposals.  

These processes don’t replace decision-making by either parliament or the government, but can provide evidence and insights into the public view on an issue that can inform the debate. Supporters of the bill have proposed a new plan to get it through in the next session, which could include using the Parliament Acts to override objections in the Lords. While technically possible, if not procedurally challenging, this process would not address the core issues that the bill has raised. If parliament wants to prove it can handle the hardest ethical questions, it will need to do more than find a procedural route through. It will need a way of deciding – openly, deliberately and with the public – what kind of law the country is prepared to bring forward.