Labour MP Maureen Burke shared the story of her brother, David, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In the last few months of his life, he told her that if there was a pill that he could take to end his life he would take it. What David had needed, she argued, was a humane, safe and trusted process that would give him agency over his last weeks and months. Such raw emotion is rarely seen in the Commons chamber.
But however many emotional stories were heard in Parliament, there were just as many objections. The most eloquent came from the DUP’s Gavin Robinson who voted against on religious grounds. He told of a constituent who had contemplated assisted dying but had lived longer than expected. “Medicine is the science of uncertainty and the art of probability,” he said. “There is nothing that can be determined to the point of legal certainty or, from our perspective, moral certainty.”
Outside the Houses of Parliament members of the Dignity in Dying campaign wore pink and held placards in memory of friends and family members. Their opponents wore white lab coats and bloodied gloves and masks and stood alongside nuns and other religious observers.
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Likewise Tory MPs asked for interventions during Labour MP Diane Abbott‘s speech to give her time to find her place after her tablet went wrong, showing a respect not always mirrored outside the chamber.
She became an MP after her sister, Jo Cox, was murdered and only took on the bill after her name was drawn out of a ballot.
But support for Leadbeater was by no means a universal view in Parliament. MPs had a free vote on the bill meaning they decided according to their conscience rather than along party lines.
Bitter Labour MPs went from calling Leadbeater “Kim” in private conversations to simply “the sponsor”. Opponents of her plans pointed to how much Dignity in Dying had spent on Facebook ad campaigns in the last few months alone. The campaign group spent nearly £73,000 between mid-March and mid-June. They said their own campaign – run on a shoestring – simply couldn’t compete.
Leadbeater’s handling of the bill also drew criticism because her opponents said she weighted the scrutiny stage with expert witnesses in favour of her bill. According to Nikki da Costa, legislative advisor to former Tory Prime Minister Theresa May, “the legislative process was trying to compensate for the absence of a policy making process”.
The next step for the bill is the House of Lords, where it will face further scrutiny. Malthouse said he is confident the bill could receive royal assent and become law by this autumn. However, the Lords may have other ideas, and Parliament could run out of Fridays to debate it. Added to a four-year implementation period, there will likely be no assisted deaths this decade.
Leadbeater will forever be associated with the monumental change and supporters will celebrate her for it. But she will spend the rest of her career justifying the changes, particularly if anything goes wrong.
Back in the Commons chamber, stunned faces greeted the outcome of the vote. No one cheered, not even the bill’s supporters. When you consider that the bill ends the suffering of people already dying, there are no real winners here.
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