This is Prospect’s rolling coverage of the assisted dying debate. This page will be updated with the latest from our correspondent, Mark Mardell. Read the rest of our coverage here
18th April
If Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill does get the thumbs-up from MPs when it returns to the Commons in just under four weeks’ time, it still faces plenty of hurdles. One of the most intriguing is how Wales will vote.
Wales is in an odd position. Health is a devolved matter in all parts of the UK—the responsibility of the assemblies and parliaments. But law and justice aren’t devolved to Wales.
Scotland has its own bill going through Holyrood and will make an independent decision. There is no legislation planned for Northern Ireland. The Leadbeater bill was and is intended for both England and Wales. But MPs on the committee examining it decided—by a very narrow margin of 12 to 11—that the Welsh Senedd should have its own vote.
There was a clear problem. As the NHS Confederation puts it: “The [Welsh] Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care is responsible for the exercise of all powers in the health and social care portfolio. The responsibilities include: oversight of NHS Wales; health and social care strategy; NHS Wales performance and escalation; health protection, improvement and public health; primary care; patient experience and social care.”
But hang on, while NHS Wales would clearly be responsible for the nuts and bolts of assisted dying if it became legal, the law itself is what is known as a “reserved power”—meaning the British government keeps control. The most obvious examples of reserved power are foreign affairs and defence, but it also applies to assisted dying.
The committee had already heard evidence that this was at very least a paradox and a possible Westminster power grab. Professor Emyr Lewis, Emeritus Professor, Aberystwyth University, wrote: “the Bill appeared to grant the Secretary of State wide-ranging powers over matters which are devolved to Senedd Cymru and the Welsh Ministers, in particular clause 32 of the Bill which would give the Secretary of State the power by regulation to provide for an assisted dying service within the Welsh NHS. I suggested that this power should rather vest in the Welsh Ministers subject to approval by Senedd Cymru.”
The Lib Dem MP Sarah Olney put forward a motion proposing this should happen, with some supporters of assisted dying agreeing on political and moral grounds.
This was opposed by Leadbeater herself and the health minister on the committee, Stephen Kinnock, who is also the MP for a Welsh constituency, Aberafan Maesteg.
You can see why.
Although it’s entirely logical that Wales has its own debate and vote, for the bill’s supporters it does add a layer of complexity—and jeopardy—to its orderly progress.
For a start, the Senedd has already voted against assisted dying, albeit against a rather more liberal bill than the one currently being proposed in Westminster. Back in October, the Welsh parliament—including the then first minister and health secretary—rejected the assisted dying bill.
Another twist is that in May next year, Wales goes to the polls to elect a new Senedd under a new electoral system. It’s widely predicted that this will subtly change the balance of power, with Labour and Plaid Cymru losing votes to Reform.
Although, as in Scotland and in Westminster, the assisted dying vote is a matter of conscience, not of party politics, it’s broadly thought that more Labour and Plaid members are in favour, while Reform and the Conservatives are mostly opposed.
So it’s very difficult to predict the outcome of any future vote—and even harder to say what it would mean if Wales voted differently to England.
If England voted in favour and Wales didn’t, some suggest that Wales might simply vote again later and eventually come round.
But if Wales voted in favour and England against, that would be a much more complicated—and politically difficult—situation. An excellent piece on ITV News sets out the problem directly by talking to Noah Herniman, a 19-year-old with an inoperable brain tumour. Noah, who lives in Wales near the English border, has called for the law to be the same in Wales and England to avoid confusion.
And we don’t yet know when either vote will be. This isn’t over until it’s over.
16th April
It is one of the most divisive issues in the country but it may not play much of a role in Canada’s upcoming election—which tells you something about the debate.
The leader of the opposition Conservative party, Pierre Poilievre, has said he’ll maintain the status quo—not seeking to expand the law but also not following Quebec’s extremely controversial lead in allowing people to make advance requests for an assisted death.
“People will continue to have the right to make that choice, the choice for themselves,” Poilievre said at a press conference in an Ottawa suburb.
"We are not proposing to expand medical assistance in dying beyond the existing parameters."
In a new Ipsos poll commissioned by Dying With Dignity, 84 per cent of respondents said they support advance requests for people who are diagnosed with a “capacity-impairing grievous and irremediable condition whose trajectory will eventually cause a loss of decisional competence.”
Trump’s aggressive stance towards Canada has upended the country’s politics and Poilievre is no longer the hot favourite to win the election. He needs every vote he can get to achieve victory over the man who has just become Canada’s prime minister, former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney.
Carney is a Catholic but leads a party some regard as “Canada’s most aggressive force opposing Catholic social teaching”. He appears to have said little about the debate. So what does his opponent’s approach tell us? That despite the strength of feeling in the Church, which has portrayed Canada as the prime example of the dangers of liberalisation, politicians don’t think it is worth courting them, against the majority of pubic feeling.
14th April
If the debate wasn’t heated enough already, MPs can expect some intense lobbying when they return to parliament after the Easter break. The report stage and third reading of the assisted dying bill will now take place much later than expected—in just under five weeks’ time, on 16th May.
New figures highlight the growing number of people from the United Kingdom seeking to travel to Switzerland to end their lives. Dignitas has long been a target for those opposed to assisted dying, but this data has been seized on by those impatient for a change in the law.
UK-based membership of the Swiss assisted dying organisation Dignitas has grown by 50 per cent over the past five years. Before anyone can travel to Dignitas in Switzerland, they must first become a member of the non-profit organisation.
In 2024, there were 2,231 UK members—up from 1,430 in 2019.
The campaign group My Death, My Decision, alongside Humanists UK, says this shows MPs must stop exporting compassion and instead legislate for safe and legal assisted dying in the UK as soon as possible.
Graham Winyard, director of My Death, My Decision, said: “Every year, more people are joining Dignitas because our politicians are refusing to act. These aren’t just numbers, they’re real people, many of them terminally ill, who want control over how and when they die. The UK’s current ban on assisted dying is cruel, outdated, and unsustainable. It’s time Parliament listened to the overwhelming public support for change and gave people the right to die with dignity, here at home.”
Richy Thompson, director of public affairs and policy at Humanists UK, added: “The surge in UK-based Dignitas membership reflects a growing number of people who feel the current law does not meet their needs at the end of life. These are individuals who are suffering and making deeply personal decisions in the absence of a legal, safeguarded option at home. Sadly, with the delay to the latest possible implementation of England and Wales’s bill, more people look set to join them.”
Despite the rise in membership of Dignitas, the number of British people who actually travelled to die at their Swiss clinic in 2024 was slightly down—37, compared to 40 the previous year. British membership was the second highest in the world.
What’s striking is the lack of correlation between membership numbers and the actual number of people who die. Germany, for instance, has the highest membership globally—4,790—but only five Germans died at Dignitas last year, a dramatic drop from 84 in 2017. France, which sits behind the UK in third place with 1,994 members, saw 57 deaths.
Outside Europe, the United States has the highest number of members—also 1,994 and with 57 deaths. The next highest was Canada, with just 175 members and only one death. Australia had 170 members and two deaths; China, 138 members and six deaths.
What to make of these figures? It seems to me that most people choose to become members as the national debate around assisted dying gathers pace. It seems there’s a kind of timeline—interest in the possibility of assisted dying increases as a more permissive legal framework begins to emerge, but understandably enough, when assisted dying is legal in the home country far fewer choose to travel to die.
