Why the assisted dying bill could be voted down

Kim Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is undergoing its third reading and final Commons vote, marking a historic parliamentary moment.
The Bill, which previously passed its second reading with a 55-majority on principle, faces a very close vote, with predictions ranging from a narrow win to a narrow defeat.
If passed, the Bill would permit the state to end lives for terminally ill individuals with six months to live, allowing doctors to offer it as an option.
A significant change to the Bill removes the requirement for a judge to sign off, replacing it with an expert panel, a safeguard cited by over 100 MPs in earlier debates.
Concerns persist about the potential for the legislation to expand over time, with critics pointing to other countries where similar laws have broadened beyond terminal illness to include mental health and other issues.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

The Independent

14 minutes ago

• The Independent

Weak retail sales and falls in key oil and drug stocks stifle FTSE 100

London's FTSE 100 faded into the close on Friday, ending lower, as weak retail sales data and falls in heavyweight oil and drug stocks offset hopes for progress in the Israel- Iran conflict. The FTSE 100 index closed down 17.15 points, 0.2%, at 8,774.65. It had earlier traded as high as 8,847.28. The FTSE 250 ended 74.51 points higher, 0.4%, at 21,148.50, and the AIM All-Share rose 0.95 of a point, 0.1%, at 759.14. For the week, the FTSE 100 closed down 0.9%, the FTSE 250 ended down 0.1% and the AIM All-Share ended down 0.6%. In European equities on Friday, the CAC 40 in Paris closed up 0.3%, and the DAX 40 in Frankfurt ended 1.3% higher. On Wall Street, markets were mixed at the time of the London close on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3%, the S&P 500 was down 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.4% lower. The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was quoted at 4.40%, stretched from 4.39%. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury was quoted at 4.91%, widened from 4.89%. Hopes grew on Friday that diplomatic progress could be made towards dialling down the tensions in the Middle East. French president Emmanuel Macron said France and other European powers would make an offer to Iran of a comprehensive diplomatic solution to end the escalating conflict with Israel, AFP reported. French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot will meet Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in Geneva 'to make a complete diplomatic and technical offer for negotiations,' Mr Macron told reporters, adding that France and allies Germany and the UK were 'putting a diplomatic solution on the table'. 'Iran must show that it is willing to join the platform for negotiations we are putting on the table,' Mr Macron said. The developments came after US president Donald Trump said he will decide on potential US action against Iran within two weeks. 'Based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,' Mr Trump said in a dictated message, according to White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt. Stephen Innes, at SPI Asset Management, said Mr Trump's two-week 'thinking window' on whether to join Israel's war against Iran is 'no cooling-off period – it's a ticking volatility clock'. Ipek Ozkardeskaya, at Swissquote Bank, agreed, stating: 'I'm not sure the US buying itself time can be interpreted as a sign of de-escalation.' Brent oil traded lower at 76.49 US dollars a barrel late on Friday from 78.59 dollars on Thursday. The downward correction saw BP fall 2.0% and Shell drop 0.7%. Also weighing on London's blue-chip index, a drop in drugs firms GSK and AstraZeneca, which ended 2.2% and 1.3% lower. Earlier this week, Mr Trump renewed his threats of tariffs on the sector. Also in the UK, investors weighed a sharp drop in retail sales and assessed public sector borrowing figures. Data from the Office for National Statistics showed UK retail sales fell 2.7% in May from April. This was against a 1.3% rise in April from March and worse than the 0.5% decrease expected by FXStreet-cited market consensus. On an annual basis, retail sales decreased by 1.3% in May, compared with market consensus for a 1.7% increase. Rob Wood, at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said while May's month-to-month fall puts a halt to the rapid rise in retail sales volumes over the start of the year, the underlying upward trend of consumer spending growth will resume in June. He noted surveys show that households have rebuilt their 'rainy day savings and are comfortable with their level of assets. We think this will provide a secure floor for consumer spending.' But Callum McLaren-Stewart, at Citi, thinks the figures constitute 'compelling evidence' of a turn in consumer demand and increases the likelihood of an August interest rate cut. Retail share prices were mostly lower. B&M fell 3.3%, JD Sports fell 0.6%, Next fell 0.2% and Marks & Spencer were down 0.7%. Separate figures from the ONS showed UK Government borrowing, last month, jumped to the highest level for May outside the pandemic era despite a boost to the tax take after the chancellor's national insurance hike. Borrowing surged to £17.69 billion last month, the second highest figure on record for May, surpassed only at the height of Covid, from £16.12 billion a year prior. On-month net borrowing slimmed from £20.05 billion. Borrowing for the first two months of the financial year to date was £37.7 billion, £1.6 billion more than the same two-month period in 2024. Lloyds Bank analysts noted the figure was actually £3 billion below what the Office for Budget Responsibility expected at this point. 'It isn't all good news for the Government though. On a cash basis (central government net cash requirement), the Government has had a requirement of £39.9 billion over April and May and that is £7.4 billion more than the OBR benchmark at this stage,' Lloyds added. The pound was quoted up at 1.3467 US dollars at the time of the London equities close on Friday, compared to 1.3429 dollars on Thursday. The euro stood higher at 1.1521 dollars against 1.1468 dollars. Against the yen, the dollar was trading at 145.89 yen, up compared to 145.65 yen. On the FTSE 100, Berkeley Group fell 8.2% as profit guidance fell short of hopes. The housebuilder expects pretax profit of £450 million for its new financial year. Profit in the following year is 'likely to be similar'. The Cobham, England-based company posted pretax profit of £528.9 million for the financial year ended April 30, down 5.1% from £557.3 million the prior year. Revenue edged up to £2.49 billion from £2.46 billion. 'In terms of guidance, the group is now pointing to PBT (profit before tax) of £450 million in FY26, and a similar level in FY27. We suspect that tougher trading, and increased sales incentives are at the heart of this (guidance),' analysts at Peel Hunt commented. 'Currently, we forecast £475 million and £482 million, implying we need to cut our forecasts by 5-6%.' United Utilities fell 1.7% as RBC Capital Markets downgraded to 'sector perform' from 'outperform' after Thursday's capital markets day. Mulberry fell 11% after announcing a £20 million fundraise and plans to cut costs by £5.9 million as part of a restructuring. The Somerset, England-based, luxury handbag maker said it needed further capital to fund its growth strategy in 'light of an even more challenging trading environment'. Gold was quoted lower at 3,366.36 US dollars an ounce against 3,368.94 dollars. The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were: Melrose Industries, up 17.9 pence at 517.2p; Standard Chartered, up 26.0p at 1,178.5p; Schroders, up 5.4p at 364.4p; Rentokil, up 5.0p at 350.0p; and Prudential, up 12.0p at 894.2p. The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were: Berkeley Group, down 340.0p at 3,810.0p; GSK, down 32.5p at 1,402.5p; BP, down 8.25p at 384.7p; Intertek, down 88.0p at 4,646.0p; and United Utilities, down 19.5p, at 1,124.0p. Monday's global economic calendar has flash composite PMI readings in the UK, eurozone and US plus US existing homes data. There are no significant domestic corporate events scheduled on Monday. Later in the week, Bunzl releases a trading statement and Babcock International reports full-year results.

BBC News

15 minutes ago

• BBC News

Former Guernsey chief minister has 'no wish to come back'

Guernsey's former chief minister has called time on his "political journey" after failing to be re-elected to the States. Deputy Peter Ferbrache fell short by 21 votes and finished in 39th place in the island's general had the opportunity to request a recount but declined the opportunity, with Sarah Hansmann Rouxel claiming the final place in the chamber. Asked if this was the end of his political career, he said: "This is it. I have no wish to come back and, if there was a cataclysm where there were three by-elections, forget me." Discussing the reason behind the result, Ferbrache said: "I haven't got a clue."It was disappointing, you don't go into an election process wanting to not be elected but that's democracy."I didn't get enough votes and not enough people had confidence in me so that's the end of it."Ferbrache said he would continue to be "a very humble lawyer" in his post-political also said those who had been elected and re-elected had a "difficult job", adding: "I just hope they're up to it."

Telegraph

17 minutes ago

• Telegraph

This Government is the most devious and dishonest in Britain's history

I thought this Government of Gaslighters had reached its apogee of untruth with Darren Jones's suggestion that most of the illegal migrants crossing the Channel were ' women, children and babies '. When it was pointed out to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that the Home Office's own figures showed the crossings since January 2025 comprised 81 per cent adult men, he later conceded he 'could have been clearer'. 'I was telling a story about a visit I had to the border security command where I was shown a number of dinghies which did have women, babies and children in them', he insisted, prompting understandable cries of 'liar' on social media. But he's not the only Labourite who has been taking the public for fools. They're all at it. This week, Leader of the Commons Lucy Powell told the chamber, with a straight face: 'We never ruled out returning to the issue of a national inquiry [on grooming gangs].' Yes, that's the same Lucy Powell who accused Tim Montgomerie, the founder of the ConservativeHome website, of peddling 'dog whistle' politics on Radio 4's Any Questions, merely for asking whether she had seen a recent Channel 4 documentary on the scandal. 'Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now do we', she sneered. 'Let's get that dog whistle out shall we'. Powell's fib came after Home Secretary Yvette Cooper performed a politically expedient u-turn and announced there would, in fact, be a judge-led national inquiry into the rape gangs scandal – having spent the previous year saying we didn't need one. Had the Government admitted it had got it wrong, and changed its mind, it would have been fine. But instead a succession of MPs insisted that they had always wanted a judge-led statutory inquiry and that it was all Kemi Badenoch's fault that the Conservatives hadn't already held one – even though Sir Keir Starmer had suggested that she would be 'jumping on a far-Right bandwagon' for doing so. Such is the utter hypocrisy of Labour's position that Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, of 'Tory scum' fame, called for the issue to be depoliticised, yet when asked by Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp if she would apologise for the Prime Minister's 'far-Right' slur, attacked the opposition for its inaction. Natalie Fleet, the Labour MP for Bolsover, herself a sexual abuse survivor, then took to the airwaves to attack the Conservatives for failing to do enough, while completely failing to mention all the Labour councillors and MPs who covered it up for fear of inflaming 'community relations'. When Telford MP Shaun Davies was the town's council leader, he opposed a local grooming gang inquiry. In 2016, he wrote to the home secretary and prime minister along with nine other local authority figures, saying: 'We do not feel at this time that a further inquiry is necessary.' Yet in a statement to The Telegraph this week, his spokesman insisted: 'To suggest Shaun Davies attempted to obstruct a local inquiry would be completely incorrect.' Do these people think we are as stupid as they are? And they wonder why trust in politics is at an all time low. Jess Phillips is the kind of self-righteous political narcissist who insists that anyone who disagrees with her is a gaslighter. Yet she too has taken this form of psychological manipulation to new heights with the claim, on Newsnight, that she had 'never turned a blind eye' to what was going on. The Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, who nearly lost her Birmingham Yardley seat to a pro-Palestinian Workers Party opponent at the last general election, rejected Oldham Council's request for national support for the inquiry. She repeatedly refused to acknowledge the racially motivated nature of the crimes and criticised the Conservative MP Katie Lam for raising the ethnicity of the perpetrators and yet told the BBC: 'I would never shy away from calling a problem what it is'. (She also once compared the Cologne sex attacks to 'a typical night out in Birmingham'). These were precisely the politicians who would regularly accuse Boris Johnson of being a liar. Maybe he was economically with the truth. But this Labour government has reached plumbed new depths of dishonesty that make Partygate look like, well, a piece of cake. I've checked the Labour Party Manifesto 2024 (preferable to sleeping pills if you're struggling to bed down in this heat), and there is no mention in there of either assisted dying or changing the abortion laws. Yet both have been ramraided through Parliament without the public even being consulted. So much for Starmer's pledge, on the steps of Downing Street almost a year ago, that: 'My government will serve you.' When he promised a 'return of politics to public service,' I don't think anyone thought it would mean bunging his union buddies huge payrises while the private sector, which employs 83 per cent of the total workforce, is shafted by Rachel Reeves's Budget. That was the biggest deceit of them all, that Labour wouldn't tax 'working people'. In fact, the £25 billion increase to employers' National Insurance contributions has done exactly that. When Rishi Sunak tried to do the same in 2021, the Chancellor personally lambasted the plan as a 'jobs tax'. She's another Labour politician who thinks we haven't kept the receipts. It's as insulting to the electorate as her continual claim that rising inflation and unemployment, combined with record business closures and a millionaires' exodus is absolutely nothing to do with her and all down to Donald Trump. This is weapons' grade gaslighting. Similarly, we are all supposed to believe that she reversed the cuts to the winter fuel allowance because 'the economy is doing better', even though we learnt this week that the UK has suffered the second highest fall in wealth of any major economy. Growth is down, retail sales are down, hirings are down – and despite what they say, it's all of Labour's making. Need we even get started on Starmer's hollow claim that he is 'standing up for Britain's interests' when he can't even seem to decide whether the murderous mullahs of Iran should have nuclear weapons that could wipe out western civilization? Yet again, he's being egged on by his bestie Lord Hermer, who gaslit the electorate by insisting it was a good deal that we paid £30 billion to give away the Chagos Islands to China-backed Mauritius. We're supposed to believe he's a cuddly respecter of human rights…who likens Tories and Reform to Nazis. And these inadequates seriously expect us to believe they are capable of running the country? That's the biggest con of them all.