Britain’s longest-serving MPs make joint plea to House of Commons to reject assisted dying bill

Britain’s longest-serving MPs, Labour’s Diane Abbott and Conservative Sir Edward Leigh, have issued a joint appeal urging the House of Commons to reject the assisted dying bill, arguing it is urgently needed. is passed through and puts vulnerable people at risk.

Writing for the Guardian, Abbott and Leigh – the father and mother of the house – said there had been insufficient oversight of the law and urged parliament to focus on better health and care services instead.

Four influential new Labor MPs have said they have also decided to oppose the bill, citing concerns about the process and the pressure it has put on new parliamentarians.

A landmark vote on legalizing assisted dying will take place on Friday, November 29. It is a free vote, meaning MPs can decide whether to support or oppose it. In 2015, an assisted dying bill was defeated by a vote of 330 to 118, but a number of other countries have since legalized the practice and polls show widespread public support.

It is believed that around a hundred Labor MPs are still undecided. However, the bill’s proponents remain confident that if they consider all the evidence, they can win.

Keir Starmer and a majority of the Cabinet are expected to support the bill, although there have been high-profile interventions opposing it, including from Health Secretary Wes Streeting.

Questions have been raised about the drafting of the legislation – which is a private member’s bill by Labor MP Kim Leadbeater and not drafted by the government – and whether it is sufficiently watertight.

The Guardian has learned that it was drafted by Dame Elizabeth Gardiner, who retired this year after almost a decade as first parliamentary adviser, the government’s oldest and most experienced lawmaker.

In the latest intervention, Abbott and Leigh said they were concerned that the 18-day period between the publication of Leadbeater’s bill and the first vote was too short, and that was compounded by the unusually high number of new MPs who were not known with the Commons procedures.

Leigh has been a long-time Eurosceptic on the right of the Tory party and Abbott, a pivotal figure on the Labor left, was the first black woman in the House of Commons and served in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet.

They write: “There is more than a little suspicion that the pressure groups behind this proposed change have tried to take advantage of an inexperienced new parliament. Be that as it may, the flawed process has been deplorable and completely unacceptable for a matter of such importance.”

The pair also raise concerns that attempts to introduce the law have been highlighted by celebrities who are terminally ill, and that this could mask the potential unintended impact on less well-protected people.

“We have no doubts about their sincerity and deeply sympathize with anyone experiencing the fear and pain that can unfortunately accompany a terminal illness. But MPs should make laws based on their impact on every member of society, not just those whose profile gives them a prominent voice,” they say.

“Imagine that the retiree whose children cannot afford their own home watches her limited savings intended for those children disappear from social security and thus feels a ‘duty to die’.”

The four new Labor MPs who spoke to the Guardian said they were convinced by Streeting’s argument that NHS care was not good enough to legalize assisted dying.

Antonia Bance, a former senior aide at the Trade Union Congress who became an MP in July, said: “We were elected to fix the NHS – but it will take time. Yet somehow we find ourselves in a position where we can legalize assisted death, knowing that many people will choose it because they cannot get the care they are entitled to from our broken NHS.”

James Frith, the Bury North MP who returned this year, said he was deeply concerned about the quality of palliative care and said good care was “undervalued”. He said a member of his family was dealing with terminal cancer and the legislation did not address his concerns about coercion and doubt.

“I think it runs the risk of feeling rushed and not at the right time,” he said. “It is also a door that I do not want to be opened by a new parliament learning its skills, because it is not given enough time and much can be added once the main shift takes place. For me, this means protecting our most vulnerable groups, but also all of us in our most vulnerable groups.”

Mel Ward, the former director of Medical Aid for Palestinians and now MP for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy, said she had spent time listening to arguments from both sides before deciding to vote against.

“The strongest argument in favor of the bill is about personal choice and freedom, which has been made very clear. But my concern is that by doing that we are putting a much larger group of vulnerable people at risk,” she said.

Polly Billington, MP for East Thanet and former special adviser to Ed Miliband, said her concerns were “the risks around internalized pressures and the capacity issues coupled with some considerations for our healthcare professionals and medical teams”.

“None of that is verbalized and it has to be,” she said. “Far too many people say, ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, let’s agree on the principle and we can sort out the practicalities later,’ and that’s just not good enough,” she said.

Leadbeater has said the bill has strict safeguards, including the required approval of two doctors and a High Court judge, and long prison terms for coercion. Patients must have the mental capacity to make an end-of-life choice and must be terminally ill and expected to die within six months.