Campaigners gathered in Parliament Square on Friday as the debate resumed (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
Assisted dying will be legalized in 2026 despite opponents' best efforts to block it, Lord Charlie Falconer has said. The peer, who is sponsoring the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in the House of Lords, said he was confident the landmark legislation would get through. He told the Daily Express: “I'm absolutely sure that in 2026 we'll see an Act of Parliament that legalises assisted dying.”
Lord Falconer of Thoroton spoke at the start of a fourth day of debate where peers are making their way through more than 1,000 amendments to the historic Bill. Supporters say a small group of hardline opponents are tabling hundreds of unnecessary changes in a bid to frustrate the parliamentary process and run down the clock.
However, opponents claim they are merely fulfilling their role and providing thorough scrutiny of a complex piece of legislation.
Ten extra days have been allocated for debate in the New Year. Campaigners have urged peers to use the remaining time constructively.
Lord Falconer, who met with supporters in Parliament Square on Friday, said: “We'll keep on going in the Lords.
“The Lords, I'm sure, will eventually realize that we have got to scrutinize this Bill, make whatever improvements they want, but ultimately they must let it through to go back to the Commons because it's ultimately for the Commons to decide.
“I'm confident that will happen. I'm also absolutely conscious the whole time that we're doing this for the people, like the people we're meeting today, who in very many cases have suffered terminal illness or have a loved one who has suffered a terminal illness.
Kim Leadbeater MP talks about the assisted dying bill
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“It's not at all good that they see procedural strategies being used to block the passage of the Bill through Parliament.”
The campaigners were also joined by Kim Leadbeater, the Labor MP who introduced the Private Member's Bill over a year ago. She said: “I do feel confident that we will get the Bill through in a timely fashion.
“The Lords are providing really important scrutiny and we're having lots of meetings with colleagues in the House of Lords who have a range of different views.
“But they are the unelected chamber. The Commons is the elected chamber and as the Leader of the House said yesterday in the Commons, we've made our will very clear.”
Ms Leadbeater said independent polling had shown a huge amount of public support for this law change.
She added: “So whilst I welcome the job that the Lords are doing, we've got to be really clear that it isn't their responsibility to block legislation for which there is a huge democratic mandate.”
In a message shared with peers ahead of their final day of debate before Christmas, Dame Esther Rantzen said she could not attend events in person “as my stage four cancer is spreading”.
She added: “If the Bill is passed by the House of Lords, as I deeply hope it will be, it will not become law in time to give me the choice, I do not have any confidence that I can look forward to a quick and pain-free death surrounded by my loved ones.
Kim Leadbeater joined campaigners to mark the end of a momentous year (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
“But I will die far more happily if I know future generations will have the dignity of choice that so many people in other countries are allowed.”
The veteran broadcaster, 85, added that she was “extremely concerned that the House of Lords is using process in an unprecedented way, sabotaging the Bill rather than proposing genuine amendments, and this filibustering risks denying this issue the proper scrutiny it deserves”.
The Bill's supporters hope some peers who personally oppose the legislation will nevertheless get behind efforts to complete the committee stage in a timely manner.
In a letter, three MPs who voted against it in the Commons urged the Lords not to hold up progress. Former ministers Justin Madders and Dame Nia Griffith, and select committee chair Debbie Abrahams, warned there was a serious danger of the Lords losing democratic legitimacy.
However, in their own letter to peers, seven leading opponents argued that “scrutiny should never be conflated with obstruction”.
The group, including Baroness Berger and the Lord Bishop of Newcastle, wrote: “Dismissal of concerns raised by peers is deeply regrettable, particularly as these are points echoed by a host of professional experts and professionals — many of whom would be directly tasked with implementing this legislation.”
The crowd of campaigners in Parliament Square included terminally ill people who are fighting for choice at the end of their lives, as well as those speaking up in memory of loved ones who suffered bad deaths or had to travel abroad for a dignified death.
Sara Fenton, 63, traveled with her husband Keith and their two children to Dignitas in 2017. She said: “He had Huntington's disease and he wanted a choice over his death. Before he knew he had that choice, he was just a shell of himself.
“As soon as he was told he could have an assisted death, everything changed. He was back in control. Myself and my two children went with him, at great risk of being arrested on our return home.
Sara Fenton went with her husband Keith to Dignitas in 2017 (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
“Luckily that didn't happen, but people shouldn't have to be put through that when they're trying to help their loved ones make their final choice.”
Sara added: “The sad thing is that he's a proud Englishman, he was in the Army. He didn't want to go abroad to die. I promised him I would join the campaign to get the assisted dying law in England, so hopefully we're heading that way.”
Sara, of Hungerford in Berkshire, said she felt “frustrated” by delaying tactics apparently being deployed in the House of Lords.
She said: “I'm feeling very frustrated that there is a small minority trying to derail it. It's undemocratic and it's not fair that those few should deny hope for many.”
Asked what it would mean to her to see assisted dying legalized in 2026, Sara teared up, and said simply: “Everything.”
During the debate, peers discussed the suggestion that anyone who has been deprived of their liberty under the Mental Capacity Act (2005) in the last year should be ineligible for an assisted death.
Lord Falconer agreed that instead of excluding those people entirely, there should be “some form of enhanced protection” for people who are particularly vulnerable, and offered to meet with colleagues to find a way forward.
Meanwhile, several peers urged colleagues to increase the pace at which amendments are debated.
Former Lord Justice of Appeal Baroness Butler-Sloss warned there was “the perception that we are being unreasonable”, and urged colleagues to “exercise restraint, by dealing with the amendments relatively briefly”.
She said: “I don't like the Bill, but I am here like other noble lords to try and make it work. It needs scrutiny, it needs improvement, but we must get it to third reading.
“If we don't, there is a very real danger that the reputation of this House, which not only I but all your lordships care about deeply, will be, or possibly will be, irreparably eroded.”
Chief whip Lord Kennedy of Southwark urged peers to “make considerably more progress today” than in the previous three days of committee.
He added: “I expect, as I believe all noble lords do, that despite sincerely held views and differences of opinion we will always conduct ourselves with courtesy and respect for each other and show the public watching our debates in the House of Lords in the best possible light. So please refrain from doing anything that would bring that into question.”