Assisted dying bill faces crunch Commons vote as MPs switch sides to reject it becoming law on eve of Parliament showdown: Live updates

Assisted dying could take a huge step to becoming law in England and Wales with MPs set for a crunch vote in the Commons this afternoon.
Today's outcome could see the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill either clear the House of Commons and move to the Lords, or fall completely.
In what will be seen as a blow to the Bill, four Labour MPs confirmed on the eve of the vote that they will switch sides to oppose the proposed new law which they claimed had been 'drastically weakened'.
07:57
Architect of assisted dying bill 'confident' of success
Last November, MPs voted in favour of today's bill by 330 votes to 275.
Since then, there has been talk of MPs in favour changing their minds, often due to concerns about the lack of safeguards to protect some of society's most vulnerable people.
Key influences include the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which previously said it could not support the bill in its current form.
But the architect of the bill Kim Leadbeater remains confident it will pass.
She said last night: 'There might be some small movement in the middle, some people might change their mind or will change their mind the other way.
'But fundamentally, I do not anticipate that that majority would be heavily eroded.'
07:55
Assisted dying vote on a knife edge as camps BOTH claim they have numbers to win
The vote on legalising assisted dying is on a knife-edge today with both Yes and No campaigns saying they are on course to win the increasingly close campaign.
Kim Leadbeater said she is confident MPs will tomorrow back her plan to allow terminally ill people with six months or less to live to be helped to commit suicide, when it is put to a final vote tomorrow.
But opponents of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill also believe they may have the numbers to see it off the proposed decriminalisation in England and Wales.
Ms Leadbeater has argued terminally ill people must be given choice at the end of their lives, but opponents of her Bill have warned it fails to guarantee protections for society's most vulnerable.
The legislation passed a preliminary vote last November by 55 votes.
07:50
What is happening today?
Today MPs will have their first chance to vote on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill - more commonly known as the assisted dying bill - since November.
Proceedings will get underway at 9.30am, when MPs will vote on amendments to the bill.
The debate is expected to start at 10:30am, before the vote on the bill as a whole takes place at around 2:30pm this afternoon.
It means, in what could be a seismic outcome for the country, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill will either clear the House of Commons and move to the Lords, or fail completely.
As it stands, the proposed legislation would allow terminally ill adults with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist.
MPs are entitled to have a free vote on the Bill, meaning they decide according to their conscience rather than along party lines.

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South Wales Argus

25 minutes ago

• South Wales Argus

MPs share their own stories as assisted dying debate continues

Debating the proposal to roll out assisted dying in the UK, Sir James Cleverly described losing his 'closest friend earlier this year' and said his opposition did not come from 'a position of ignorance'. The Conservative former minister said he and 'the vast majority' of lawmakers were 'sympathetic with the underlying motivation of' the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, 'which is to ease suffering in others and to try and avoid suffering where possible'. But he warned MPs not to 'sub-contract' scrutiny of the draft new law to peers, if the Bill clears the Commons after Friday's third reading debate. Backing the proposal, Conservative MP Mark Garnier said 'the time has come where we need to end suffering where suffering can be put aside, and not try to do something which is going to be super perfect and allow too many more people to suffer in the future'. He told MPs that his mother died after a 'huge amount of pain', following a diagnosis in 2012 of pancreatic cancer. Sir James, who described himself as an atheist, said: 'I've had this said to me on a number of occasions, 'if you had seen someone suffering, you would agree with this Bill'. 'Well, Mr Speaker, I have seen someone suffering – my closest friend earlier this year died painfully of oesophageal cancer and I was with him in the final weeks of his life. 'So I come at this not from a position of faith nor from a position of ignorance.' Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh spoke int he assisted dying debate (House of Commons/PA) Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden Dame Siobhain McDonagh intervened in Sir James's speech and said: 'On Tuesday, it is the second anniversary of my sister's death. 'Three weeks prior to her death, we took her to hospital because she had a blood infection, and in spite of agreeing to allow her into intensive care to sort out that blood infection, the consultant decided that she shouldn't go because she had a brain tumour and she was going to die. 'She was going to die, but not at that moment. 'I'm sure Mr Speaker can understand that a very big row ensued. I won that row. 'She was made well, she came home and she died peacefully. What does (Sir James) think would happen in identical circumstances, if this Bill existed?' Sir James replied: 'She asks me to speculate into a set of circumstances which are personal and painful, and I suspect she and I both know that the outcome could have been very, very different, and the the moments that she had with her sister, just like the moments I had with my dear friend, those moments might have been lost.' He had earlier said MPs 'were promised the gold-standard, a judicially underpinned set of protections and safeguards', which were removed when a committee of MPs scrutinised the Bill. He added: 'I've also heard where people are saying, 'well, there are problems, there are still issues, there are still concerns I have', well, 'the Lords will have their work to do'. 'But I don't think it is right and none of us should think that it is right to sub-contract our job to the other place (the House of Lords).' Mr Garnier, who is also a former minister, told the Commons he had watched 'the start of the decline for something as painful and as difficult as pancreatic cancer' after his mother's diagnosis. 'My mother wasn't frightened of dying at all,' he continued. 'My mother would talk about it and she knew that she was going to die, but she was terrified of the pain, and on many occasions she said to me and Caroline my wife, 'can we make it end?' 'And of course we couldn't, but she had very, very good care from the NHS.' Conservative MP Mark Garnier said he would back the Bill (PA) Mr Garnier later added: 'Contrary to this, I found myself two or three years ago going to the memorial service of one of my constituents who was a truly wonderful person, and she too had died of pancreatic cancer. 'But because she had been in Spain at the time – she spent quite a lot of time in Spain with her husband – she had the opportunity to go through the state-provided assisted dying programme that they do there. 'And I spoke to her widower – very briefly, but I spoke to him – and he was fascinating about it. He said it was an extraordinary, incredibly sad thing to have gone through, but it was something that made her suffering much less.' He said he was 'yet to be persuaded' that paving the way for assisted dying was 'a bad thing to do', and added: 'The only way I can possibly end today is by going through the 'aye' lobby.' If MPs back the Bill at third reading, it will face further scrutiny in the House of Lords at a later date.

The Independent

27 minutes ago

• The Independent

What's the point of the UK talking to Tehran? More than you might think…

Europe's frantic diplomatic mission in Geneva may go down as one of its most arduous ventures on the world stage – and also one of its most consequential. The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany must persuade a battered Iranian regime to kow-tow to the US and Israel over its nuclear ambitions, or face likely annihilation. All three European powers would, of course, love to see the back of supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei's corrupt and brutal theocracy. But they rightly fear the regime's capacity to unleash death and destruction before it goes. If Trump joins Israel in the war on Iran with US bunker-busting bombs on nuclear sites, and it succeeds in killing Khamenei, there will still be plenty of Iranian hardliners left who will be willing to fight to the death. Previous inhibitions will not apply. That could mean use of a dirty bomb in the West, or chaos unleashed in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 90 per cent of the Gulf's oil passes. For the world at large, the stakes are that high. British foreign secretary David Lammy – after meeting his US counterpart, Marco Rubio, and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff in Washington on Thursday – said that the UK was 'determined that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon". He thinks a window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution, as Trump dithers over whether to attack the regime, as US neo-cons and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu are demanding – or whether to heed the no-more-wars mantra of his Maga base. And so, in search of a diplomatic solution, Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi is meeting with his European counterparts in Switzerland. But what can be achieved? For all their good intentions – French president Emmanuel Macron said the diplomats would make a "comprehensive, diplomatic and technical offer of negotiation" to Iran – the Europeans are unlikely to persuade the Iranians to pull back from the brink. At least not on their own. While one Iranian diplomat said Tehran was willing to pursue 'a balanced and pragmatic policy in its dealings with Europe, and engage rationally with both East and West', Araghchi said there will be 'no talks' with the US over Iran's nuclear programme while the Israeli bombardment continues: 'The Americans want negotiations and have sent messages several times, but we have clearly said that there is no room for dialogue.' But there is a useful point to holding talks on neutral ground with Tehran – and it's not simply to ask them nicely and face-to-face if they wouldn't mind stopping with their nuclear enrichment programme. Rather than relaying Trump and Netanyahu's demands to Iran, Geneva is about feeding back to the White House – translating Tehran's position for the US president. The Europeans aren't there to stop the war, they're Trump-whispering for the Ayatollah. It's not clear that European diplomats have the connections they need to have a greater role to play than this, useful though it will prove. But when it comes to a practical breakthrough, some of the Gulf states might, however. Behind the scenes, figures in what some dub 'Iran's deep state' – many of them members of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – are talking to representatives of Oman and Qatar; it might be these Middle Eastern countries that can make the difference, in a second stage of dialogue. Qatar, for its part, will likely hold more sway over Washington than London or Paris. All the peacemakers, though, will be battling the plans of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Nothing less that the obliteration of the regime in Tehran will satisfy him. Worryingly, Israel's premier appears to have been joined by an increasingly pro-war Fox News, with Sean Hannity this week declaring that Iran 'is the biggest existential threat to the entire western world'. The West should have learnt by now – after the disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya – that enforced regime change in the Middle East is best avoided. Andreas Krieg, a leading Iran expert at King's College London thinks regime change in Iran would 'not be clean or peaceful'. If the current theocracy falls, there is no significant alternative political-social structure to lead this country of 92 million into the light. The IRGC, a ruthless military-industrial complex, would not easily cede control of the Iranian economy. Instead, with 190,000 personnel and a similar number of Basij paramilitaries to call on, it might well create a military dictatorship. The West and Israel would be back to square one. And the Iranian people would be no better off. Ironically, the last time the West brought about regime change in Iran – by booting out, in 1953, the democratically elected premier Mohammad Mosaddegh (for which we have British Petroleum and the CIA to thank) – it laid the groundwork for the emergence of the current Islamic Republic in the 1970s. In between rounds of golf, as he ponders his next steps in the Middle East, you can't help wishing Potus would be shown – by Lammy or anyone else – the relevant pages of a history book. It is within the president's power to unleash hell – or stop history repeating itself. After the Geneva talks, let's hope he listens to what the Trump-whisperers tell him.

BBC News

34 minutes ago

• BBC News

UK preparing to charter flights from Israel, David Lammy says

The UK is arranging charter flights to return British nationals from Israel once Israeli airspace re-opens, the foreign secretary has Lammy confirmed the government was working with the Israeli authorities to provide flights out of Tel Aviv airport, the number of which will be based on demand. Israeli airspace is currently closed due to the ongoing conflict with Iran. The two nations have exchanged waves of air strikes since Israel targeted military and nuclear sites, as well as military commanders and nuclear scientists, a week statement came as Lammy arrived in Geneva for talks with Iran, in the hopes of negotiating an agreement on Tehran's nuclear programme. British nations who wish to return home from Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been advised to complete a form with their email and UK passport number. Lammy said this was to "register their presence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories to be contacted with further guidance on these flights". Flights will only be provided to those who hold a UK passport, the Foreign Office said. Land routes out of Israel remain open and Lammy said UK staff will be on hand to support British nationals who have crossed the border - including providing transportation to nearby the Foreign Office said families of staff at the UK embassy in Tel Aviv and the British consulate in Jerusalem had been temporarily withdrawn "as a precautionary measure".The talks in Geneva with Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will also include top diplomats from the EU, Germany and France.