Assisted dying dead – for now

0:00With almost half a million customers and over a trillion dollars of secure payments, Bill isn't new to intelligent finance. It's the proven way to simplify bill pay and maximize cash flow. Want to learn more? Visit bill.com slash proven for a special offer.

0:23Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots, the Spectator's daily and sometimes twice daily politics podcast. I'm Patrick Gibbons and I'm joined by our deputy political editor, James Heal. James, earlier today on the pod, you were joined by Tim Shipman and Noah Hoffman to look ahead to the assisted dying vote, which has now taken place. The bill has been defeated. Order, order. The ayes to the right, 270. The no's to the left, 286.

0:56286 voting against and 270 voting for it. That was close, but not quite a knife edge. What conclusions can we draw? Well, look, I think we've seen throughout this process, the assisted dying side, the pro side losing support. The second reading of the, it can lead me to version of this bill, passed with a majority of 55. The third reading, when it went back to the Commons, passed with a majority of 23. now it's been defeated essentially an identical bill put forward by lauren edwards by a majority of 16 and i suppose a number of things are a bit striking to me one of which is that some most ardent supporters of the bill were those new mps who've now been given jobs in this government and so i think that they had less incentive to maybe push this forward and i think that there was insufficient level of sort of energy to kind of get this side going i mean one of the things i've been picking up throughout this whole week has been actually the sense of the pro lobby not feeling particularly confident it was more of a let's give it a go than a kind of sense of we're going to get this through like it was in late 24 or 25 when I was talking to people who are supporting the legislation the anti-side by contrast been very mobilized they were quite bullish going into that thinking they could make it really close and yeah they've ended up winning and I think that speaks to a quite muddled process at times I think it speaks to an inability to win over the other side sometimes bulldozing when I think there could have been greater safeguards put in from the start.

2:19And I think it does, for some people who've watched this debate, will answer the question of, was it better to have a poor bill and try and improve it, or simply start from scratch? Or, you know, for instance, argue on the principles of euthanasia, and then actually get into the question of what specifics would look like later. You mentioned that the bill was almost identical to the Kim Lead Beta Bill. In a way, is this, the fact that this is dragged on, has that allowed this to fail? Because it's given people who were maybe on the fence, but swayed earlier in the year, it's given them the opportunity actually to change their minds.

2:48A few MPs, I think, changed their minds today. Yeah, certainly. And I think that we will see that when we go through the voting lists later in more comprehensive detail, there were certainly those switches. People like Janet Darby have spoken out. George Freeman has written a piece for us, the Conservative MP, talking about why he decided to change his mind. I think there was a sense of, will the government stand behind this or not? It wasn't a government bill, it was a Prime Members' Bill. And I think some people, looking at the weight of history, looking at would we use the Parliament Act to do this for the first time when the government wasn't going to be standing behind it technically.

3:17I think also the arrival of Andy Burnham clearly changed things in the Labour side. I think there was that sense of where the PM's not backing it. Haven't been given a nod and a wink like last time I'm not going to go out and swing for it. So I think all those factors played a part. I think as you say Patrick it was a long process. I mean I'm always cynical when it comes to government legislation how quickly the whips are to try and ram things through because they don't want people actually looking at the detailed scrutiny of it. With this one I think there was a sense of the momentum across the wider public debate.

3:43I mean Scotland obviously voted to reject having a sister dying earlier this year. So it was that sense of, you know, there wasn't a sense of whiggish inevitability about this bill in the way that maybe the social liberal reforms of the 1960s, there was, you know, you could say, oh, this is gay rights, for instance, a gay marriage was always part of that kind of broader trend. With this, I think that there was a sense over time that that kind of progressive argument was failing. And then as you watch Labour MPs stand up like they did today, I think they lost that case. And I think it was quite striking to me that the most passionate speech day was from Ashley Dalton, who has metastasized cancer.

4:14and she gave a very moving speech talking about her concerns about this legislation and I think that they won a lot of they won some of the heads and they won some of the hearts today. You mentioned George Freeman and he's a Tory MP who changed his mind. In his statement which he has published on the Spectator website he hasn't actually changed his mind about the principle of assisted dying but he does take issue with as you say the fact that it was done through private members bills so do you think that avenue for supporters of assisted dying who hope that this may change in the future. Has that avenue gone?

4:44I absolutely think that they're going to try again with this. And I think that, you know, we've already had Kim Lebi to being filmed outside Parliament saying it'll come back in another form. Charlie Faulconer has tried a number of times in the upper house, Lord Faulconer. I would suspect he will listen to what's been said and try and work out how to produce another more convincing piece of legislation. Ultimately, though, as you say, Patrick, I mean, the principle in some ways is more attractive than the practicalities of this. I struggle to see how it's going to pass the remainder of this Parliament.

5:11I think it's been quite a bloody experience. I spoke to one whip in the government office a few months ago who sort of had their head in their hands thinking about this whole thing. It's a real mess. Unlike everything else, the government can pass with their majority. So I think that clearly the question isn't going to go away. We're going to see a citizen pass in legislation, legislatures across Europe and the rest of the world. But I think overall, no one particularly wants to revisit this. There's a lot of anger out there at the Lords for filibustering this effectively on the third reading in the upper house last time.

5:41But that anger was insufficient, I think, to kind of overcome the concerns some people had about this. I agree with you about the idea that a sister dying is probably dead for this particular parliament. But I suppose supporters would worry that with one eye ahead to parliamentary metrics after a next election, that actually you could be looking at a very different house. Of course, every parliament is different. You get some parliament such as the Brexit parliament, 2017-19, which is a very frustrating parliament. This parliament was the new parliament, if you want to call it that. This was a parliament of new faces, more than half were new MPs.

6:13It was the most atheist parliament as well. If you look at non-believers and go on. So there were some people who said, OK, they're secular. They don't have a Christian opposition to assisted dying. Let's see. This probably has a good chance of passing. And you looked at a poll suggesting it would. But there are no inevitabilities in politics. Tories should hate the word inevitable. You know, Powell always hated that word, inevitable. It's very rare that you get inevitable things in terms of where the votes are going. And clearly, in this case, I think in this case, they fail to convince enough people.

6:42And we'll see what the next parliament looks like. It might be a more reformed parliament. Interestingly enough, reform were quite split at the first reading on this. You know, there are some people in reform who think you should, my body, my choice, effectively. But also, there are those who have concerns about how it actually works in practice and palliative care. Well, in a way, for the reasons you outlined about the makeup of the current parliament, it's all the more remarkable that it didn't pass today. Yeah, quite. And I think that does speak to the consideration that MPs put into this, the high risks associated.

7:06I remember my old colleague Katie Ball was writing a column in 2024 saying that Labour debated whether to put it in their manifesto, but it didn't want to be known as the Death Party. And I think there was that sense of there is never going to be a great time for this. The argument for people that we're street-tube are making was, well, we need to fix the NHS first. But of course, measures are less likely to pass at the end of parliaments than they are at the beginning. So I think that people who are passionate on either side are not going to give up this fight. But yeah, overall, it is a hugely significant moment.

7:31And I think it is responsible for a lot of the rebellions that have happened in Parliament. MPs learned to whip among themselves. And I think it's quite striking to me that so many of those involved in the welfare rebellion were involved in assisted dying, first of all. And I think for the Conservatives, there'll be a lot of happiness at this today. I think that it's been quite telling how united they've been. I think 85 % or thereabouts have been against the assisted dying measures. So I think that the people in the Tory Whip's office, they may not mention this publicly, but I suspect they might be raising a glass or two tonight.

7:59Well, thank you, James. And thank you for listening to Coffeehouse Shots.

8:22Why? Because our tools are built on over a trillion dollars of secure payments. We're not just moving money. We're powering financial workflows for half a million customers. That's a level of expertise you just can't fake. Ready to talk with an expert? Visit bill.com slash proven to get started and grab a$150 gift card as a thank you. Terms and conditions apply. See offer page for details.