MPs have voted in favour of the Assisted Dying Bill after an impassioned debate in Parliament.
The bill was passed with 314 votes in favour and 291 against – a majority of 23.
The majority is smaller than that of a vote in November which was passed with 55 votes.
The legislation will allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales with fewer than six months to live to apply for an assisted death.
This is subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist.
MPs were given a free vote on the bill, allowing them to decide according to their conscience rather than along party lines.
Some MPs were visibly emotional as they left the chamber after the bill was passed.
Others lined up to shake hands with Kim Leadbeater, the bill’s sponsor through the Commons.
A new YouGov poll of 2,003 adults in the UK suggested public support for the bill is at 73%.
Four Labour MPs confirmed last night that they had switched sides to oppose the new law.
Labour’s Paul Foster, Jonathan Hinder, Markus Campbell-Savours and Kanishka Narayan wrote to fellow MPs to voice concerns about the safety of the proposed legislation.
They branded it “drastically weakened”, citing the scrapping of the High Court Judge safeguard as a key reason.
Opening a Commons debate on Friday, Bill sponsor Kim Leadbeater, said her proposed legislation is “cogent” and “workable”, with “one simple thread running through it – the need to correct the profound injustices of the status quo and to offer a compassionate and safe choice to terminally ill people who want to make it”.
She shared emotional stories from people she had met throughout the campaign to legalise assisted dying, both bereaved and terminally ill.
Pressed by Conservative former minister Simon Hoare on concerns raised about the Bill by some doctors and medical bodies including the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Ms Leadbeater said: “We have different views in this House and different people in different professions have different views.”
Campaigners with Dignity in Dying protest in favour of the assisted dying bill in Parliament Square on Friday morning
Yui Mok/PA Wire
She has insisted the replacement of High Court judge approval with the multidisciplinary panels is a strengthening of the legislation, incorporating wider expert knowledge to assess assisted dying applications.
Ahead of the debate, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch urged her MPs to vote against the legislation, describing it as “a bad Bill” despite being “previously supportive of assisted suicide”.
Writing in the Daily Mail, Tory MP Robert Jenrick made an emotional appeal against assisted dying.
The Shadow Justice Secretary wrote about how his grandmother, Dorothy, continued to bring joy to the family as she defied a terminal diagnosis for nearly a decade.
Saying the prospect of legalising assisted dying “fills me with dread”, he wrote: “My Nana felt like she was a burden. I know how much she hated the indignity she felt at having to ask my Mum or us to help her with basic needs.
“People like her – and there are many such people – may consider an assisted death as another act of kindness to us. How wrong they would be.”
