If many MPs stay away on Friday, the Commons risks losing the 23-vote cushion that carried the assisted dying private member’s bill last year, MPs say. Backers have shifted the argument away from the policy details and toward parliamentary procedure, accusing peers of preventing the elected chamber from settling the matter and warning the outcome now depends on who is present to cast a ballot.
The bill was first sponsored by Kim Leadbeater and reintroduced this session by the Labour MP Lauren Edwards, who argued the measure is urgent and was frustrated by peers in the other place. Edwards described it as "the most pressing, progressive reform of this parliament. But it was blocked in the Lords earlier this year by a small minority of peers, led in part by ex-Tory ministers such as Thérèse Coffey and Mark Harper", and she added the unelected chamber should not be "allowed to frustrate the will of the elected chamber a second time". Supporters say the Lords talked the bill out after many amendments were tabled, despite several days of debate.
Several former cabinet ministers and other ex-ministers have signalled they will now speak on the measure, freed from previous constraints, with backers urging MPs to treat the vote as an assertion of Commons authority rather than a re-run of the policy debate. The former Welsh secretary Jo Stevens, a long-time supporter, said she and others were angry at "the outrageous behaviour of a small number of unelected peers who went against the will of the Commons." At the same time campaigners acknowledge the arithmetic is tighter: absences, not a string of changed positions, explain why the numbers will be closer this week, one MP said.
The Commons roster has also changed since last year. Starmer quit as an MP last week and has not yet been replaced, and the former Makerfield MP Josh Simons was replaced by Burnham, who has said he will abstain. Some prominent backers have told constituents they are uneasy about invoking the Parliament Act to force the law through if the Lords again reject it. Friday’s vote will decide whether the reform can clear the Commons a second time and whether supporters will attempt to progress the measure through a contested parliamentary route if peers block it again.
