MPs poised for historic vote on assisted dying legislation

The biggest social change in Britain in five decades could be shepherded in by the closest of margins later today.

- KATE DEVLIN

A historic vote among MPs over whether or not to legalise assisted dying appears to be on a knife edge, with those in support thought to be narrowly in the lead. If passed, it could lead to the most significant reform in British society since the abolition of the death penalty in 1965 and the introduction of abortion two years later.

Labour backbencher Kim Leadbeater has insisted her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is “robust”, with potentially the “strictest protections” against coercion anywhere in the world, requiring sign-off by two doctors and a High Court judge before a person was permitted to end their life.

She has the support of the former prime minister David Cameron as well as two former health secretaries, Andy Burnham and Matt Hancock.

But high-profile opponents include former Conservative prime ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, and former Labour PM Gordon Brown, who last week said that the death of his newborn daughter in January 2002 had convinced him of the “value and imperative of good end-of-life care”.

At the eleventh hour, MPs were also warned by a regulator that parliament should be given more assurances that the bill is compatible with human rights.