MPs vote against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Today MPs voted against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

As a supporter of the Bill, I am of course deeply disappointed by this. But I don’t believe this is the end of the debate. Nor do I believe this result should distract from the urgent need to improve palliative care.

Many of the Bill’s opponents cited the dire state of hospice care as a reason for their opposition. I hope that after today’s vote they channel their energy into ensuring everyone receives the end of life care they need.

Andy Burnham has spoken at length about improving social care in our country, with palliative care included as part of this. I truly welcome this.

Our hospices do incredible work with increasingly scarce resources. They need sustainable, fair funding. Now this Bill has fallen, it is only by improving end of life care that we can give the terminally ill the dignified death they deserve.

I do not wish to dwell on it now, but the thousands of amendments introduced by the House of Lords – many of them repetitive or unrelated to the issue – is a continual source of disappointment for me, especially considering the broad public support for change. The opportunity we had to create world leading legislation got mired in political games and bad faith behaviour.

But as I said at the start, this is not the end of the debate. There are learnings here about how any future Bill should be structured and the changes that are needed to palliative care. I hope that if this issue returns to parliament, it does so in a world where our end-of-life care is much improved.

The stories you have all shared will stay with me for a long time, and I want to thank all those who have contacted me about assisted dying, from both sides of the debate.